04/29/2025
Simon Kenton, a famous and legendary frontiersman and friend of Daniel Boone, died April 29, 1836.
Simon Kenton, born April 3, 1755, thought he had killed a man in a jealous rage when he was about 18. Living in Fauquier County, Virginia, he escape to the frontier, calling himself Simon Butler. After several years, he learned the man was alive and took back his real name.
During that time, he met up with and befriended good and bad men such as Daniel Boone and Simon Girty. During the Revolutionary War, he scouted for George Rogers Clarke, assisting in the battle for Fort Sackville, a British outpost located in the frontier settlement of Vincennes. Later, in the early 1790’s, he was with Anthony Wayne in the Northwest Indian Wars. He was then a scout in the War of 1812. He was a militia leader at the Battle of the Thames (where Tecumsah was killed) in 1813. He died April 29, 1836 in Logan County, Ohio. One of many stories about Kenton follows. It is on him saving Daniel Boone.
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His first sojourn, during the winter of 1775-6, was at Hinckston's, a small outlying stockade, and one of the branches of Licking in the present county of Bourbon. In the spring the savages began to be so troublesome that most of the weaker posts were abandoned, and Kenton became an inmate of Harrod's Station, between which place and Boonesborough his time was for the next four years principally divided. Residence he could not be said to have; for the Indians had now become so furious, and their attacks so frequent, that the appointment of a small body of spies and scouts was suggested by Colonel Clarke as the best means of defense within the power of the inhabitants; and with this view he recommended to Boone, Harrod, and Logan, the heads of the three principal settlements, that each should appoint two young and active men, in whose sagacity they had perfect confidence, to whom the arduous duty of scouring the woods, and giving warning of any hostile movement on the part of the savages, was to be committed. Boone selected Kenton as one of his appointees; and in this capacity our hero at once entered on that career of wonderful adventure which has made his name a household word throughout the West. Some few of these adventures and escapes we will produce in chronological order, without attempting even the merest outline of his life for the next seven or eight years; and this we can the more easily do as the interest of his life is entirely personal, owing nothing whatever to his connection with public events, in which he was too ignorant to take any part, except in a very subordinate capacity.
He had not been long in his new employment before he had an opportunity of wiping out any suspicion that the unfortunate abandonment of Hendricks might have left on his reputation as a brave man. He and his brother scout were standing in the gate of the little fort early one morning, consulting about their operations for the day, when two men who had gone out a few moments before were fired upon, and one of them slain and tomahawked within seventy yards of the picketing, and the daring savage was proceeding to scalp his victim when he himself was shot dead by Kenton. The two white men then gave chase to the remainder of the lurking party, which seemed but small. Boone, hearing the noise, hastened out with ten men to assist his spies, so that the whole party of white men outside the walls amounted to fourteen. After the pursuit had continued a little distance, Kenton, who was as watchful as a lynx, casting a glance behind him, saw an Indian taking aim at some of Boone's men. Quick as thought his gun was at his shoulder and discharged, the savage biting the earth of course, for our hero never missed. But at the same moment thirty or forty dusky forms seemed to start up out of the ground between them and the fort. Boone at once saw that he had committed a great blunder, but he was not the man to make it irreparable by hesitating in the face of danger. Right about! fire! charge! Was the order, and the little band dashed in upon these new foes in a desperate endeavor to reach the gate. They were met by a volley of rifles so close and well aimed that only seven out of the fourteen kept their feet, all the rest being killed or badly wounded, among the latter of whom was Boone himself. He was well known by the savages, one of whom, with an exulting yell, sprang astride his body, flourishing his hatchet for the blow which was to rid his people of their most dangerous enemy. The weapon was in the act of descending upon the head of the helpless veteran, when Kenton, who had missed him at the gate and rushed back to the rescue, discharged his gun into the breast of the Indian, and catching up his captain in his strong young arms, made good his escape into the stockade in spite of the shower of ballets that flew thickly round him and of the weight of his burden—about 170 pounds.
“Well, Simon, you have behaved yourself like a man to-day! Indeed you are a fine fellow!" Such was the compliment with which the taciturn old woodsman repaid the services of his friend; and never, perhaps, did a young soldier feel more generous pride on receiving a brevet for gallant and meritorious conduct than did our hero at such commendation from such a source.
Kenton, Simon, 1755-1836, Pioneers, Frontier and pioneer life, Indians of North America, 1864.
Image: Simon Kenton, History of Kentucky by Connelley and Coulter (1922)
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