New Bloomfield woman is heir to Daniel Boone

July 2, 2011 at 5:50 p.m. | Updated July 2, 2011 at 5:50 p.m.

Evelyn Thomas holds a portrait of John Boone Scholl, a great-grandson of Daniel Boone.

Evelyn Thomas of New Bloomfield had a special reason for attending a Scholl family reunion of Daniel Boone descendants Saturday in New Bloomfield.

She is a great-great-great-great-granddaughter of Daniel Boone, an American pioneer, explorer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes in the United States.

Boone was a militia officer during the Revolutionary War against Great Britain. Boone blazed trails throughout North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee before settling in Missouri for the last 20 years of his life. More than 200,000 Europeans followed trail routes marked by Boone to Kentucky, Virginia and Missouri.

"I'm related to Daniel Boone on my grandmother's side. My father is Russell Criswell of New Bloomfield. His mother was Elizabeth Scholl Criswell, a great granddaughter of Daniel Boone," Thomas said.

To help the tornado-stricken people of Dumas and surroundings, donations can be made to the Delta Area Disaster Relief Fund, care of the Delta Area Community Foundation, P.O. Box 894, Dumas, AR, 71639, or through the Arkansas Community Foundation, 700 S. Rock St., Little Rock, AR, 72202.