Simon Kenton

Simon Kenton
Portrait of Simon Kenton from life.
Born	(1755-04-03)April 3, 1755 modern Fauquier County, Virginia
Died	April 29, 1836(1836-04-29) (aged 81) New Jerusalem, Logan County, Ohio
Resting place	Oak Dale Cemetery, Urbana, Ohio
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Simon Kenton (April 3, 1755 – April 29, 1836) was a famous United States frontiersman and soldier in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio. He was a friend of Daniel Boone, Simon Girty, Spencer Records, Thomas S. Hinde, Dr. Thomas Hinde, and Isaac Shelby. He served the United States in the Revolution, the Northwest Indian War and the War of 1812. Surviving the gauntlet and ritual torture, in 1778 he was adopted into the Shawnee people. He married twice and had a total of ten children.

Simon Kenton was born at the headwaters of Mill Run in the Bull Run Mountains on April 3, 1755, in what is now Fauquier County, Virginia to Mark Kenton, Sr. (an immigrant from Ireland) and Mary Miller Kenton (whose family was Scots-Welsh in ancestry). (His birthplace was then part of Prince William County prior to formation of Fauquier in 1759). In 1771, at the age of 16, thinking he had killed a man in a jealous rage (the fight began over the love of a girl), Kenton fled into the wilderness of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio, where for years he went by the name "Simon Butler." After learning that his victim had lived, Kenton took back his original surname.

In 1774, in a conflict later labeled Dunmore's War, Kenton served as a scout for the European settlers against the Shawnee Indians in what is now West Virginia and Kentucky. In 1777, he saved the life of his friend and fellow frontiersman, Daniel Boone, at Boonesborough, Kentucky.

The following year, Kenton was rescued from the Shawnee in Ohio by Simon Girty. He had survived many days of running the gauntlet and various other ritual tortures that usually caused death. He was later taken about 50 miles for more torture at Sandusky. There he was saved by Pierre Drouillard, an interpreter for the British Indian department and father of explorer George Drouillard. The Shawnee respected Kenton for his endurance; they named him Cut-ta-ho-tha (the condemned man). He was "adopted into the tribe by a motherly squaw whose own son had been slain."