Richard Gause Boone was born in the village of Spiceland, Indiana on September 9, 1849. His father, Driver Boone, was an Indiana pioneer, relocating to Spiceland from North Carolina only a few years after its organization out of the Indiana Territory, as a protest to slavery. Spiceland became a station of the Underground Railroad, and Boone was raised in an abolitionist family of strong religious sentiments.

Boone completed his education at the village school, and taught at small schools throughout Indiana. In 1886, the Board of Trustees of Indiana University opened a Department of Pedagogy, naming Boone as the head of the organization. After taking a leave of absence for study at Johns Hopkins University, Boone returned until 1893, when he was appointed president of the Michigan State Normal College, a position he held until 1899. Boone passed away on April 8, 1923, in Berkeley, California.