Ratliff Boon (18 January 1781-20 November 1844) was the Democratic-Republican Governor of Indiana from 12 September to 5 December 1822 (succeeding Jonathan Jennings and preceding William Hendricks) and a member of the US House of Representatives (D-IN 1) from 4 March 1825 to 3 March 1827 (succeeding Jacob Call and preceding Thomas H. Blake) and from 4 March 1829 to 3 March 1839 (succeeding Blake and preceding George H. Proffit).
Biography[]
Ratliff Boon was born in Franklin County, North Carolina in 1781, and he apprenticed as a gunsmith in Danville, Kentucky before settling in Boon Township, Warrick County, Indiana in 1809. He became a colonel of the territorial militia during the War of 1812, and he served in the state house from 1816 to 1818, in the State Senate from 1818 to 1819, as Lieutenant Governor from 1819 to 1824, as Governor for three months in 1822, and in the US House of Representatives from 1825 to 1827 and from 1829 to 1839. Boon became a Jacksonian Democrat, but, on his move to Louisiana, Missouri in 1839, he became active in the anti-slavery cause in opposition to Thomas Hart Benton. He died of illness in 1844 after a failed bid for US Congress.