James Weir, Senior, an early Kentucky romancer, was born at Greenville, Kentucky, June 16, 1821. He was the son of James Weir, a Scotch-Irish merchant and quasi-author. He was graduated from Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, in 1840, and later studied law at Transylvania University. He engaged in the practice of law at Owensboro, Kentucky—first known as the Yellow Banks—and on March 1, 1842, he was married to Susan C. Green, daughter of Judge John C. Green of Danville. Weir wrote a trilogy of novels which do not deserve the obscurity into which they have fallen. They were called Lonz Powers, or the Regulators (Philadelphia, 1850, two vols.); Simon Kenton, or the Scout's Revenge (Philadelphia, 1852); and The Winter Lodge, or Vow Fulfilled (Philadelphia, 1854). All of these romances were thrown upon historical backgrounds, and they created much favorable criticism at the time of their publication. Weir wrote numerous sketches and verses, but these were his only published books. Business, bar sufficient to all literary labors, pressed hard upon him, and he practically abandoned literature. In 1869 he was elected president of the Owensboro and Russellville railroad; and for nearly forty years he was president of the Deposit bank at Owensboro. Weir died at Owensboro, Kentucky, January 31, 1906. His son, Dr. James Weir, Junior, was an author of considerable reputation.

Bibliography. History of Kentucky, by R. H. Collins (Covington, Kentucky, 1882); letters of Mr. Paul Weir to the Author.

SIMON KENTON

[From Simon Kenton; or, The Scout's Revenge (Philadelphia, 1852)]

By the side of the Sergeant [Duffe, in whose North Carolina home the tale opens] sat a stout, powerfully framed, and wild-looking being, whose visage, though none of the whitest (for it was very unfashionably sunburnt), betokened an Anglo-Saxon; whilst his dress and equipments went far to proclaim him a savage; and, had it not been for his language (though none of the purest), it would have been somewhat difficult to settle upon his race! In a court of justice, especially in the South, where color is considered prima facie evidence of slavery, we wouldn't have given much for his chance of freedom. Simon Kenton, or Sharp-Eye, for such were the titles given him by his parents, and by his border companions, and he answered readily to them both, in his dress and appearance, presented a striking picture of the daring half savage characters everywhere to be found at that day (and, indeed, at the present time) upon our extreme western frontier. A contemporary of Boone, and one of the most skillful and determined scouts of Kentucky, or the "Cane-Land," as it was then sometimes called, Kenton's dress, composed of a flowing hunting-shirt of tanned buckskin, with pants, or rather leggins, of the same material—a broad belt, buckled tight around his waist, supporting a tomahawk and hunting-knife—a gay pair of worked moccasins, with a capacious shot-pouch swung around his neck and ornamented with long tufts of black hair, resembling very much, as in truth they were, the scalp-locks of the western Indian, gave him a decidedly savage appearance, and declared at once his very recent return from a dangerous life upon the frontier. He had been a fellow-soldier of Duffe during the Revolution; but, after the war, being of an adventurous and daring disposition, had wandered out West, where he had already become famous in the many bloody border frays between the savage and early settler, and was considered second, in skill and cool bravery, to no scout of the "Dark and Bloody Ground." On a visit to the Old States, as they were called at that period to distinguish them from the more recent settlements in the West, Kenton was sojourning, for the time, with his old friend and companion in arms, not without a hope that, by his glowing descriptions of the flowing savannas beyond the Blue Ridge, and of the wild freedom of a frontier life, he might induce the latter to bear him company upon his return to Kentucky. Six feet two inches in his moccasins, with a well-knit sinewy frame to match his great height, and with a broad, full, and open face, tanned and swarthy, it is true, yet pleasant and bright, with a quiet, good-humored smile and lighted up by a deep-blue eye, and with heavy masses of auburn hair, and whiskers sweeping carelessly around and about his countenance, Kenton exhibited in his person, as he sat before the fire of the Sergeant, a splendid specimen of the genuine borderer, and no wonder the Indian brave trembled at the redoubted name of Sharp-Eye, and instinctively shrank from a contest with so formidable a foe. Although, now surrounded by friends, and in the house of an old comrade, the scout, as was natural with him from long custom, still held grasped in his ready hand the barrel of his trusty rifle, from which he never parted, not even when he slept, and, at the same time, kept his ears wide awake to all suspicious sounds, as if yet in the land of the enemy, and momentarily expecting the wild yell of his accustomed foe. Notwithstanding he was well skilled in every species of woodcraft, an adept at following the trail of the wild beasts of the forest, and familiar with all the cunning tricks of the wily savage; yet, strange as it may appear, he was the most credulous of men, and as simple as a child in what is generally termed the "ways of the world," or, in other words, the tortuous windings of policy and hypocrisy, so often met with under the garb of civilization. Indeed, it has been said of him "that his confidence in man, and his credulity were such that the same man might cheat him twenty times; and, if he professed friendship, he might cheat him still!" At the feet of the scout lay the inseparable companion of all his journeyings, his dog; and Bang, for such was the name of this prime favorite, was as rough a specimen of the canine species as his master's countenance was of the face divine! But Bang was, nevertheless, a very knowing dog, and, ever and anon, now as his master became excited in his descriptions of western scenes and adventures, he would raise his head and look intelligently at the narrator, and so wisely did he wag his shaggy tail, that more than once the warm-hearted hunter, breaking off suddenly in his narrative, would pat his trusty comrade upon the head, and swear, with a hearty emphasis, "that Bang knew all about it!"