On the Kentucky Frontier: A Story of the Fighting Pioneers of the West

In a twinkling I was by his side, and there saw that which caused the cold chill of fear to run down my back.—Page 40. Frontis. On the Kentucky Frontier.
Poor Simon Kenton experienced the bitter effects of wrong, ingratitude, and neglect. On account of some legal matters concerning his lands in Kentucky, he was imprisoned for twelve months upon the very spot where he built his cabin in 1775. In 1802, beggared by lawsuits and losses, he became landless. Yet he never murmured at the ingratitude which pressed him down, and in 1813 the veteran joined the Kentucky troops under Shelby, and was in the battle of the Thames. In 1824, then seventy years old, he journeyed to Frankfort, in tattered garments and upon a miserable horse, to ask the legislature of Kentucky to release the claims of the State upon some of his mountain lands. He was stared at by the boys, and shunned by the citizens, for none knew him. At length General Thomas Fletcher recognized him, gave him a new suit of clothes, and entertained him kindly. When it was known that Simon Kenton was in town, scores flocked to see the old hero. He was taken to the Capitol and seated in the Speaker's chair. His lands were released, and afterward Congress gave him a pension of two hundred and forty dollars a year. He died, at the age of eighty-one years, in 1836, at his residence at the head of Mad River, Logan County, Ohio, in sight of the place where, fifty-eight years before, the Indians were about to put him to death.
(Lossing's Field-Book of the Revolution. )

It is my purpose to set down what I saw during such time as Simon Kenton gave me my first lessons in woodcraft and it is well to make the statement in advance in order that others may be deprived of the opportunity of saying what would sound disagreeable:—that the pupil was for a time so dull that one less patient and painstaking than Kenton would have brought the lessons to a speedy close.
That which now seems the most difficult is to decide how I shall begin this story of the little which I did on the Kentucky frontier during the year of grace 1778, and I can hit upon no plan which promises better success than that of copying here what I read in a printed book long years after I, a green lad, set out to do my little share toward bringing peace and a sense of security to the settlers who were striving to make homes for themselves and their families in what was then known as the colony of Virginia.