NOTE- HISTORICAL.
R. W. M'FARLAND, OXFORD, OHIO.
People familiar with the early annals of
the West, know
something of Simon Kenton. They know
also of the rivalry be-
tween him and Leitchman for the hand of
a young lady-that
Kenton was unsuccessful in his
suite-that there was a fight
in consequence and that in the first
encounter Kenton again lost,
but in the second, by wrapping
Leitchman's long hair about a
sapling, Kenton won, and so severely
beat his opponent that
thinking him fatally injured, he left at
once for the West, not
returning to his home for additional
clothing. He changed his
name to Butler and was known by that
name for twelve or thir-
teen years next following.
Ellis in his Life of Kenton says that in
1782, Kenton learn-
ing that Leitchman did not die, returned
to Virginia and came
back with his relatives to Kentucky. The
statement is repeated
on p. 192 in this Journal for October, 1901. The question
is
whether that statement is correct.
The writer of this note is one of the
few men now living
who knew Simon Kenton personally. The
families were connected
by marriage, and the first twenty-two
years of my life were spent
among the Kentons, children and
grandchildren of Simon and
of his older brother, William. For more
than half a century a
family record was kept by one of
William's daughters. Years
ago I copied out the chief parts of that
record and have it be-
fore me.
In 1832 McClung's Sketches of Western
Adventure was pub-
lished, containing an account of Simon
Kenton. About two years
after Simon's death, I read this account
to Thomas Kenton, son
of Wm. Kenton and nephew of Simon. This
Thomas was in his
fourteenth year when the Kenton family
and about forty other
persons left Fauquier county, Virginia,
on the 16th of September,
1783, for Kentucky. In a month they
reached Redstone (Brown-
ville) on the Monongehela. At this place
they took boats. Si-
mon's father, Mark Kenton, then
eighty-two years old, was one
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