Tag: Lord Dunmore’s War

April 3, 1755: Pioneer Simon Kenton Born in Fauquier Co., Va.

Simon Kenton was born in Fauquier County, Virginia, on April 3, 1755. He left home at age 16, after he mistakenly thought he’d killed a neighbor. Kenton first traveled north through present West Virginia to Pittsburgh. Then, during the 1770s, he spent several winters trapping game along the Ohio River between the Big Sandy and Kanawha rivers.

In 1774, Kenton served as a scout during the Muskingum War and Lord Dunmore’s War, which culminated in the Battle of Point Pleasant. He was a scout under George Rogers Clark during the Revolutionary War and was one of the best-known scouts for early settlers. He also was a celebrated hunter and trapper. And in 1777, he saved the life of Daniel Boone during an Indian attack in Kentucky.

He founded his own station in what is now Mason County, Kentucky. After losing his wife to a fire, he moved to Ohio in 1798.

Late in life, Kenton fell upon rough times, spending more than a year in prison for bad debts. He died in Ohio in 1836 at age 81. He’s remembered as one of western Virginia’s legendary pioneers.

April 30, 1774: Family of Chief Logan Slaughtered in Hancock County

On April 30, 1774, one of the worst atrocities of the frontier era occurred in present-day Hancock County. A band of frontiersmen led by Daniel Greathouse slaughtered a group of Indians, including the family of Logan. Logan was chief of the Mingo Indians, a multi-tribal confederation allied to the Six Nations. During the four years he’d lived in the area, he had consistently tried to maintain peace.

After the murder of his family, though, Logan went on the warpath. He led raids throughout the upper Ohio Valley and into the Monongahela Valley. Shawnee and Delaware tribes then attacked settlements along the Ohio River. The summer of 1774 was one of the bloodiest on record in western Virginia.

In response to the violence, Virginia Governor Lord Dunmore launched a two-pronged assault. Dunmore’s War came to a head at the Battle of Point Pleasant, where, that October, Virginia militia defeated Shawnee warriors.

Logan skipped the subsequent peace negotiations but delivered to John Gibson a famous speech that was later quoted by Thomas Jefferson. In it, Logan grieved for his family and asked poignant, lingering questions about the treatment of Indians. 

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