Source: "Simon Kenton: His Life and Times 1755-1836" by Edna Kenton, Garden City, New Yor: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1930.

p. 70: In October Kenton and Williams met four white men at the Blue Licks. For there, according to Robert Patterson's manuscript narrative, "we met with Simon Butler and John Williams, who knew of no other white person in the country." And yet again at the Blue Licks, evidently after his meeting with Patterson, Kenton, taking to a tree while a herd of buffalo were passing, discovered someone treed a short distance from him. "Come out-show yourself," called Kenton, and the treed man replied with, "Come out yourself." Their common language was introduction enough; each promptly descended, and Kenton discovered his new friend to be John Hinkston, who had just put up a few cabins he called a station about forty miles from Kenton's camp.

pp. 71-72: From Stoner's description of the localities of the new settlements and stations in Kentucky, Kenton contrived to make his way to them, and for several months he and Williams went from one to the other. "Thus," says Marshall, "he became acquainted with the first settlers in the country; to whom he was everywhere serviceable; and with whom he everywhere partook of danger, for the residue of that and the whole of the next year."

They settled finally for the winter at Hinkston's blockhouse on the north side of South Licking. One of Kenton's depositions, made July 8, 1823, gives the list of his progressive "stands": "I first made a stand at Hinkston's blockhouse which was afterwards Riddle's Station then to McClelland's fort where Georgetown now is, then to Harrodsburgh, then to Boonesborough."

At Hinkston's he hunted for the settlers, and going off one day to the Upper Blue Licks with two favorite dogs to hunt, witnessed a singular sight. There appeared suddenly along the trail a large buffalo bull, taking a solitary ramble over the icy road. The dogs made a rush and seized him by the ears, and all staggered down the hill together and skidded out upon the frozen river. Suddenly the ice gave way and all went through-dogs and buffalo together. Kenton said it was the greatest loss of his life-as it then seemed to him; for the dogs "used to sleep each on one side of, and guard him of nights when camped alone in the wilderness."

pp. 76-77: According to Kenton's Manuscript Statement, he was in Leestown "about June, 1776." "I there heard," he said," that the explorers of the country were requested to meet at Harrodsburg to select somebody to go to Virginia to see if they could not get some aid." He went on to Harrodsburg: "Then it was concluded that we ought to select two men, to apply to Virginia for aid, and we selected George Rogers Clark and John Gabriel Jones."

On his way back from Harrodsburg he met for the first time his good friend John Todd and gave him and his party word of Clark's mission. He told of this in his Statement and added some details of the Indian troubles:

"I and a few more had attempted to raise corn in Mason County, near Maysville that is now-there were John Lair and Robert Todd and Daniel Turner in a company and discovered their sign and hunted them up. I was the first that told that company what was in hand. I stayed all night with them, and returned to where Samuel Arrowsmith and I had planted some corn.

"A few days after they killed Joshua House at the Upper Blue Licks, and took two daughters of Col. Callaway and one of Col. Boone at Boonesborough, and took two of Andrew McConnell's sons. It occasioned Arrowsmith and me to quit raising corn, and we went to Hinkston's settlement on South Licking. The explorers and us attempted to build a blockhouse. In a few days the Indians killed James Cooper and made several other attempts,

" McClelland had moved his family to where Georgetown now is. They broke at Leestown and at Hinkston's block-house. A number of explorers met at McClellan's and a party of us agreed to build a fort at McClellan's. There I met with the Todds again-and built the fort, expecting aid from Virginia."

But this was midsummer and aid from Virginia was long in coming-it did not reach them until the following January.

pp. 83-85: With the breaking of winter the real fortification of Harrodsburg began; so far it was like all the restno more than a group of cabins. And when spring came Logan left Harrodsburg and reestablished himself and his people at St. Asaph's.

Early in 1777 a commission arrived from Virginia, giving the command of the colony to Major George Rogers Clark, with authority to appoint his officers, and on March 5th the first militia of Kentucky was assembled and organized at Boonesborough and Harrodsburg. His appointments were-wrote Kenton to General Robert Pogue in 1821-"Daniel Boone, James Harrod and John Todd captains; Joseph Lindsay was then appointed commissary-Silas Harlan, Samuel Moore, Ben. Lynn, Thomas Brooks and myself appointed spyes. The whole country was then under the command of Major Clark, who was charged by the Governor of Virginia with the defense of the Western frontiers." The number and pay of Clark's officers was fixed; he was allowed nothing for spies. But he appointed them regardless, because he needed them so much, and for their payment he "pledged the faith of Virginia."

The very next day, because the Harrodsburg people were in extreme need of clothing, Kenton, John Haggin, and four others set out for the deserted clearings at Hinkston's, "to break out some flax and hemp which had been left at that place."' Haggin, riding ahead, discovered a party of Indians at the cabinsome of Black Fish's two hundred warriors just come over the Ohio to avenge Pluggy's death by wiping out the three stations left in Kentucky-and when Ken'ion heard this, with his characteristic caution he proposed a retreat. But when Haggin retorted that only cowards would think of retreating without giving the Indians a fire, all but "the Dutchman" dismounted, tied their horses, and prepared to steal the camp. The Indians, however, had caught sight of Haggin and had followed so swiftly that the whites were all but surrounded. Only the Dutchman was mounted; the rest took to their heels and all lost their horses.

Clark had told Kenton to take two men, after the flax had been dressed, and go on to Boone's Station with part of it. But during their flight from Hinkston's Kenton saw so many signs of a large Indian party out and evidently on their way to Harrod's that he sent the other five back to take part in its defence and went on alone to Boonesborough. He reached its neighborhood two days later but in the daytime, and knowing that it was highly probable Indians were here also, ready to pick off from tree tops any unwary person leaving or entering it, decided to wait till night to cross the clearing. He lay by for several hours, but finally grew impatient and took the risk of crossing in the daytime. He made the dash safely, but the delay quite likely saved his life, for a small detachment of Black Fish's party had just crept up on some workers in the Boonesborough field, one of whom was killed and several wounded; their bodies were being carried into the fort when Kenton came in with his warning of the war party on the, way.

The same morning on which Kenton and his party left for Hinkston's, Clark at Harrodsburg was fully apprised of an Indian party near by, for four men from the fort, making sugar at the Shawnee Springs, four miles northeast of the station, were attacked by some seventy Shawanese under Black Fish himself. Only one escaped to give the alarm, and the work of fortification went desperately on, aided late in the day by Haggin and his flax party from Hinkston's. That night the Indians encamped near by and early the next morning attacked, but the incomplete fort held its own against them.

pp. 153-155: Kentucky turned as one man from Bowman to Clark when Bird and his Indians came down from Detroit in June and took Martin's and Ruddell's stations. All the Girtys were with him and McKee joined him on the Miami with six hundred Indians. Bird's first intention was to attack Clark at Louisville, but when McKee's savages learned that the British general carried two cannon with him, they persuaded him to go instead against the Kentucky stations.

One cannon shot disposed of Ruddell's, which surrendered immediately on condition that the three hundred inhabitants should be British, not Indian, prisoners. But the Indians had their way with them and Bird admitted to Ruddell that he was powerless to control his savage allies. Martin's Station was taken, with fifty prisoners surrendered; then the Indians were for going against Bryan's Station and Lexington. But already their success had defeated them; they had three hundred and fifty more mouths to feed; they had taken the horses but slaughtered the cattle; they had not enough meat, and Bird finally prevailed on them to leave. A little more of British wisdom or British control and all of the Kentucky settlements could have been wiped out with one shot each from Bird's cannon. Hinkston was among the captives-he made his escape on the second night and got to Lexington where he gave the first alarm.

"In the Spring [it was in June] Of 1780," says Kenton's Manuscript Statement, "the Indians with Captain Bird, a British officer and his men, came into Kentucky, and took Riddle's and Martin's Stations. The Kentuckians then sent on a request to George Rogers Clark desiring him to command us against the Indians. He sent an answer that he would. Charles Gatliffe and myself went on to Riddle's and Martin's Stations,, and found them both taken, and a number of people lying about killed and scalped. We then took Captain Bird's trail from there on to the South Fork of Licking, where Falmouth now stands; and when we got there, we found that Captain Bird had built a block-house, and made a stockade fort-and Bird and the Indians had both left there. We returned back to Harrodsburg."

But not without accomplishing something not set down in the records. Clark took a brass cannon with him on this summer's campaign, and Kenton's son William told Dr. Draper that his father once pointed out a white oak at Boston on Mad River) in which a ball from this cannon had lodged, and said it was fired from a brass six-pounder that had been "captured" from Bird's retreating force on Bird's Trace"thinks Kenton (and Gatliffe) stole the cannon in the night." As these two were the entire pursuing party after Bird and his eight hundred and fifty warriors, it is a fairly drawn conclusion that they did.