When you're talking about the history of the wild frontier, forget about the Alamo. Think about Simon Kenton as the real king of the wild frontier.

        And as legacies go, Kenton County is far bigger today than Boonesboro.

        “Simple, rude, uneducated, and perhaps uncouth, he was yet the magician that enhanced the song of the wild bird into the hum of modern life. He followed the trail of the buffalo and civilization followed him,” said Donn Piatt, an Ohio legislator in the late 1860s, quoted in The Land Beyond the Mountains, by Ray Crain.

        Here's a sketch of Northern Kentucky's pioneer, according to The Kentucky Encyclopedia:
       Born: April 3, 1755 in Fauquier County, Va.
       Died: April 29, 1836 in New Jerusalem, Ohio.
       Wives: Martha Dowden, Elizabeth Jarboe
       Children: 9
       Schooling: None. Learned only how to sign his name.
       Height: Tall
       Resume: Scout, explorer, hunter, Indian fighter, land speculator, store keeper.
       Little-known fact: He was imprisoned for debt.
       Chronic state: Worried about money.
       Famous feature: Homely.
       Three interesting things about him: He told people his name was Simon Butler because he thought he killed a man named Willie Leachman in a fight over a girl; he learned much later he hadn't, but Leachman was accused of killing him because he disappeared. George Rogers Clark hired him to be a spy. He fought with “Mad” Anthony Wayne in Ohio's Indian wars.

— The Cincinnati Enquirer

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