John Henry Ewing

The Reeves Family and the Ewing Family Genealogies

Peter Boucher, Sr.

(1743 — September 1, 1809)

Jane Waddell

(About 1746 — 1814)

Parents:	Matthew Boucher and Mary Jones Unknown
Son:	Peter M. Boucher

Seventeen sixty-three brought the end of the French and Indian War, as well as the end of the Seven Years War. In Loudon County, Virginia, Abner Gill Humphrey was born on October 27, 1763.

While that event was certainly important to Mr. and Mrs. Humphrey, and to the children Abner would have in the future, it is not important to us.

We are not related to him.

What did happen in Loudon County that year that was important to us was the marriage of Peter Boucher, Sr. and Jane Waddell.[1] After all, those of us who are their descendants would not be reading this if they had not gotten together. So, let’s take a moment to thank them for their foresight.

But, that is getting a little ahead of the story. Peter was born in 1743 in Loudon County to Matthew and Mary Boucher. Jane was born there three years later. We suspect she knew who her parents were, but we don’t.

Now, we’re caught up. See, that didn’t take long, did it?

Peter was about five when the rest of his family was killed in an Indian raid (see the page for Matthew Boucher). He was apprenticed to a millwright, and grew up in Loudoun County, Virginia. He was twenty when he married Jane, a young lady of Welsh descent.

They lived in Loudoun County for about seven years, moved to Southwestern Pennsylvania, settling on the Monongahela River, near Pittsburgh, where they lived until 1784, when they moved via the Monongahela and Ohio rivers to Louisville, when they had a house in town with a shingle roof.

They settled for a while in Mercer County, and were frequently obliged to take refuge from the Indians at Boone's Station. Peter purchased Revolutionary soldier land warrants of the United States Government, amounting in all to about 4,000 acres, in Warren and Allen counties.[2] The original French spelling of the name was Boushelder, but about this time, the family name was changed to Boucher by the misspelling of the name when preparing some of Peter’s deeds.

In his old days he became an imbecile, and while living with his son Peter, Jr. wandered away and managed to evade his friends, who were searching for him, until he was thirty miles from home, in another county. The story goes that Peter was shot and killed near a spring in Christian County, Kentucky, September 1, 1809 by a young man who had picked up an old gun that had been loaded for years, and pointed it at him. To the surprise of all, it went off, killing Peter almost instantly.[3]

His widow died at the home of her son-in-law, Isaac Rude, in Warren County, in 1814.[4] He is buried in Landers Cemetery in Warren County, Kentucky.[5]

Contact Brian@BrianReeves.com with any suggestions corrections, etc.