Simon Kenton Festival

Now this is cool…

A two-day historical adventure in the Old Washington. The 47th Annual Simon Kenton Festival includes presentations from our founding heroes such as Simon Kenton and Daniel Boone, pioneer games, music, museum tours, artisans, and much more. This weekend will be sure to provide you with historical knowledge, a treasured keepsake, and memories that will last a lifetime.

Does my heart good to see suchlike, so it does. If there is an archetypal Frontier Partisan, Simon Kenton is it. He was a professional scout, hunter and warrior, a self-actualizing 18th Century special operator of extraordinary skill and fortitude. For two decades, he was the great defender of Kentucky settlers. Yet he was never brutalized by the terrible cycle of violence that held the Ohio River in its grip for so long. Unsurpassed as a warrior, he never succumbed to cruelty and slaughter for its own sake.

Maysville can claim Simon Kenton like no other spot in Kentucky. The spot is where he entered Kentucky from the Ohio River in 1775, and it was here that he established Kenton’s Station in 1784. Being on the northern rim of settlement, it was highly exposed to raids from across the Ohio, which persisted for many years after the end of the American Revolution. Kenton’s Station was the base of operations for Kenton’s Boys, an informal cadre of minutemen under Kenton’s command that patrolled the river, pursuing native raiders and horse thieves. Biographer Edna Kenton wrote that Kenton’s Boys were:

“…Kenton’s own unique contribution to Kentucky’s defense … When word was sent Kenton of horses or people taken, he and his ‘boys’ tucked some parched corn and jerk into their hunting shirts, laid hold of their guns, mounted their horses, and picked up the trail.”

Kenton may have been a rough frontiersman, but he built a prosperous and dignified life in Maysville, and then again across the river in Ohio. He built the first brick house in Mason County, and presided there as a kind of Clan Chief. The fictional depiction of Jamie & Claire Fraser’s settlement at Fraser’s Ridge in Outlander is very much in line with Kenton’s status and role in pioneer Kentucky.

His son James recalled:

“He was truly the master spirit of the time in that region of the country. He was looked upon by all as the great defender of the inhabitants … ready to fly at a moment’s warning to the place of danger.”

His prosperity didn’t last. His wealth in land attracted predatory parasites who used complicated legal moves to juke him out of it. He gave one sharp slicker a devil of a caning, but he couldn’t fight his way free of all of them. He was vulnerable to exploitation because he was an honorable and trusting man, and was inattentive and lax about business and financial matters — a tendency that is often observed among the adventuring class. Daniel Boone suffered similar indignities. Business ventures failed because people stole from him. Rather poignantly, he observed late in life:

“I had a lot of property, and maybe they saw my weak parts enough … to know how to use me.”

The man was a genuine hero, and has been on my Frontier Partisans Mount Rushmore since I was about 13 years old. Might have to make it to this festival one day — but it won’t be this year. I’ll be in Cody, Wyoming, at that time on business, some of which will be Frontier Partisans-related.

I can, however, conduct my own Simon Kenton Ruck. I can also supply music while my friends who are thus inclined can handle the bourbon tastings. I’m thinking this informal festival is a must-do. A virtual Simon Kenton Festival? Why not? Maybe we can set a date this fall and each roll out our own Kenton tribute and share it around the campfire…