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!"
[MARY E. W. BETTS]
Mrs. Mary E. Wilson Betts, the author of a single lyric which has preserved her name, was born at Maysville, Kentucky, in January, 1824. Miss Wilson was educated in the schools of her native town, and, on July 10, 1854, she was married to Morgan L. Betts, editor of the Detroit Times. She died at Maysville two months later, or on September 19, 1854, of congestion of the brain, believed to have been caused by the great gunpowder explosion near Maysville on August 13, 1854. Mrs. Betts's husband died in the following October. While she wrote many poems, her brief tribute to Col. William Logan Crittenden, kinsman of John J. Crittenden, who was a member of Lopez's filibustering expedition to Cuba, in 1850, has preserved her name for the present generation. Colonel Crittenden was captured by the Cubans, shot, and his brains beaten out. Before the shots were fired he was requested to kneel, but he made his now famous reply: "A Kentuckian kneels to none except his God, and always dies facing his enemy!" When, in her far-away Kentucky home, Mrs. Betts learned of Crittenden's fate, she wrote her tribute to the memory of the gallant son of Kentucky, which was first printed in the Maysville Flag. The editor introduced the little poem thus: "The lines which follow are from one of Kentucky's most gifted daughters of song. Upon gentler themes the tones of her lyre have oft been heard to breathe their music. To sing to the warrior, its cords have ne'er been strung till now; the tragic death, and last eloquent words of the gallant Crittenden, have caused this tribute to his memory." This poem has been republished many times and in various forms. During the Spanish-American war in 1898 it was often seen in print as being typical of the courage of the soldiers of this country.
Bibliography. Lopez's Expeditions to Cuba, by A. C. Quisenberry (Louisville, 1906); Kentuckians in History and Literature, by J. W. Townsend (New York, 1907).
A KENTUCKIAN KNEELS TO NONE BUT GOD!
[From The Maysville Flag]