Among the hardy backwoodsmen, fearless hunters, and brave fighters, there looms no nobler figure than that of Simon Kenton, born of humble, Scotch-Irish parents in Virginia, April 13, 1755. At sixteen he was a stalwart youth with scarcely any education, with a kind heart but unrestrained emotions. Having fallen very much in love with a beautiful girl of his neighborhood, and having lost her to a successful rival, he went as an uninvited guest to the wedding festivities, where he made himself so disagreeable that the infuriated groom and his brothers gave him a severe beating.

Shortly after this, meeting his former rival, William Veach, Kenton provoked a fight and was so much the physical superior that soon his adversary fell bruised, bleeding, and unconscious; kind-hearted Kenton, feeling that he had been cruel in his treatment, lifted up the head of his insensible victim, spoke to him, but receiving no reply, thought him dead. Much alarmed, he left the seemingly lifeless body and fled to the woods. Feeling himself a murderer and a fugitive from justice, he warily made his way to Cheat River, where he changed his name to Simon Butler, and worked long enough to secure a gun and ammunition.

In order to lose himself and forget his trouble in the western wilderness, he joined a party to Fort Pitt, where he hunted for the garrison and forts, and met Simon Girty, who afterwards saved his life. Two others, George Yeager and John Strader, came with him that autumn on his first visit to Kentucky, lured on by the glowing accounts of the "cane land" that Yeager had heard of from the Indians. They came down the Ohio to the mouth of the Kentucky, but soon returned to the Big Kanawha, where they camped, hunted, and trapped until March, 1773. Yeager was killed by the Indians, and Kenton and Strader fled to the woods barefooted and almost naked, with no food and no weapons. For six days they wandered weary, footsore, and hungry, until finally in despair they lay down to die. Gathering hope anew, they pressed on and near the Ohio met some hunters who gladly gave them food and clothing.

Going with them, Kenton worked for another rifle and in the summer of the same year went down the Ohio with a party in search of Captain Bullitt. They failed to find him and the party returned through the wilds of Kentucky to Virginia with Kenton as guide.

During the winter of 1773-1774, Kenton hunted on the Big Sandy, but volunteered and soon saw active service as a scout and spy in the armies of Lord Dunmore and General Lewis in the Miami Indian War. He received an honorable discharge in the autumn, and the next spring, yielding to the longing for the "cane land," he came down the Ohio and one night reached Cabin Creek a few miles above Maysville. The next day, when he beheld the far-famed land, he was entranced, and soon encamped near the present site of Washington, in Mason County, where he and his companion cleared an acre of ground and planted it with corn which they had bought from a French trader.

They found this place a veritable "hunter's paradise" where the hills were covered with herds of deer, elk, and buffalo.

One day meeting two men, Hendricks and Fitzpatrick, who were without food or guns, Kenton invited them to join his station. Hendricks accepted, but his companion, desiring to return to Virginia, was accompanied by Kenton and Williams to the Ohio. They left Hendricks alone at the camp. On returning they found the camp in disorder and Hendricks gone; the next day his charred remains told the story of his sufferings at the hands of the savages.

Though Kenton left this place the following autumn, he returned nine years later and, building a blockhouse here, established Kenton's Station.

Simon Kenton was ever alert, ever ready to respond to the call for help, ever ready to encounter danger, and ever ready to give his services to the settlers whether at Harrodstown or Hinkson's, whether in aid of Boone or Clark.

At one time Kenton was one of six spies who, two at a time, each week ranged up and down the Ohio and around the deserted stations, watching for Indian signs; for the red savage had become infuriated because the "long knife"[1] had taken possession of his beloved "Kaintuckee," and the Indian invasions were frequent and bloody.

One morning as Kenton with two companions was standing in the gate at Boonesborough ready for a hunt, the Indians fired on some men in the field, who fled to the fort. One man, however, was overtaken, tomahawked, and scalped within seventy yards of the gate. Kenton shot the savage dead and in the battle which ensued killed two other Indians, one of whom was about to tomahawk Colonel Boone, who had been crippled. The unerring rifle of Kenton stayed his savage hand, and Boone was borne on Kenton's shoulders into the fort. When the gate was barred and all was secure, the usually reserved Boone said, "Well, Simon, you have behaved yourself like a man to-day; indeed you are a fine fellow."

Kenton accompanied General George Rogers Clark in his expedition against Kaskaskia in 1778, then proceeded to Vincennes, where, by a three days' secret observation, he secured an accurate description of the place which he sent to General Clark.

Kenton returned to Harrodstown, aided Boone in defending the stations, and in September, 1778, was taken a prisoner, a few miles below Maysville, by the Indians, who beat him until their arms were too tired to indulge in this amusing pastime any longer. They then placed him upon the ground on his back, drew his feet apart, lashed each to a strong sapling, laid a pole across his breast, tied his hands to each end, and lashed his arms to it with thongs which were tied around his body; then they tied another thong around his neck and fastened it to a stake driven in the ground. Thus he was forced to pass the night. The next morning he was painted black and carried toward Chillicothe, where they said they would burn him at the stake.

As a diversion they one day tied him securely on an unbroken horse, which they turned loose to run through the woods at will. Through undergrowth, among trees and patches of briers, the horse capered, pranced, plunged, and ran, trying in vain to discharge his load until finally he stopped from sheer exhaustion. Kenton was destitute of clothing, bruised, bleeding, and almost lifeless. Arriving at the village, they tied their distinguished prisoner to the stake, where he was left for twenty-four hours, expecting every moment that the torch would be applied. After enduring this agony he was forced to run the gantlet, where six hundred Indians were ranged on either side with switches, clubs, and sticks, and each gave him a blow as he passed. Kenton had been told if he reached the council house he would be set free. When he had almost reached the door of deliverance he was knocked insensible. Again he was made a prisoner, was taken from town to town, eight times was compelled to run the gantlet, three times tied to the stake, and once almost killed by a powerful blow with an ax.

Once Simon Girty, the notorious renegade, remembering their former friendship, saved him from the flames; again Logan, the Mingo chief, interposed, stayed the fury of the savages, and persuaded a Canadian trader named Drury to buy him from his captors. Drury took him to Detroit, and delivered him to the British commander, where he received humane treatment until 1779. Then a Mrs. Harvey, the wife of an Indian trader, while a crowd of Indians were drunk, took three of their guns and hid them in a patch of peas in her garden. At midnight Kenton, following her directions, secured them, and with two other Kentucky prisoners hastened to a hollow tree some distance from the town, where ammunition, food, and clothing had been placed by the same benefactress. The three fugitives after thirty-three days of incredible suffering reached Louisville.

Later, with General George Rogers Clark in command, Kenton, the great scout and spy, piloted the Kentuckians, when in 1780 they carried the war into the Indian's own country.

During all these dangers there had ever been the horrible feeling that he was a fugitive and a murderer; but meeting by chance some one from his boyhood home, Simon Kenton learned that his former rival, William Veach, was still alive. He resumed his rightful name, hastened home, made friends with Veach, and started with his father and family again to this great paradise of the West.

Kenton, so great in all the qualifications of the pioneer, was not schooled in the arts of civilization. His ignorance, coupled with his great confidence in men, which amounted almost to credulity, caused him to lose most of his valuable lands; but at last the legislature of Kentucky made some reparation to the old, heroic soldier whose deeds and daring will ever furnish ennobling themes for song and story.