Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Watson's Mag... Girty...


Watson's magazine [serial] (1906)

Author: Watson, Thomas E. (Thomas Edward), 1856-1922, ed
Volume: 15,2 (1912)
Publisher: Thomson, Ga. : Jeffersonian Pub. Co.
Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT
Language: English
Call number: b5297193
Digitizing sponsor: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Book contributor: Watson-Brown Foundation, Thomson, Georgia
Collection: unclibrariesamericana
Scanfactors: 10
Full catalog record: MARCXML

Description

Description based on: v. 18, no. 1 (Nov. 1913); title from cover
Editor: - , T. E. Watson

Reviews

Selected metadata

Page-progression:lr
Scanningcenter:chapelhill
Mediatype:texts
Identifier:watsonsmagazines154wats
Ppi:400
Camera:Canon 5D
Operator:alicia@...
Scanner:scribe1.chapelhill.archive.org
Scandate:20090501194856
Imagecount:96
Identifier-access:http://www.archive.org/details/watsonsmagazines154wats
Identifier-ark:ark:/13960/t7fr0896k
Ocr:ABBYY FineReader 8.0
Sponsordate:20090930


[emphasis added:]
"Girty, The White Indian 
A Study in Early Western History 
Geo. W. Ranck 
 THOUGH Simon Girty was one of 
the most unique and lurid characters that ever figured in the 
annals of the West; though the part he played among the Indian tribes was 
frequently important and sometimes 
conspicuous, and though his life was a 
tragic romance from the cradle to the 
grave, yet all that was known of him 
for more than a hundred years from 
the time that he first made himself 
feared and hated was comprised in a 
few widely scattered fragments written 
entirely by his enemies and disfigured 
by errors and inconsistencies. Probably 
no minor personage in American history who has received as little attention as Girty has had more written of 
him in ignorance or been the subject 
of so many wild and conflicting statements. Even as late as 1883, a book, 
with an indorsing preface by a distinguished historian, was published, 
which gave as facts the fairy tales 
about Girty which, strange to say, have 
been accepted as authentic down to the 
present time. [Nelsons History of Cincinnati?] These very circumstances made the life of Girty attractive to the writer as an historical study, 
and interested him in an effort to draw out and straighten the thread of truth 
that has so long been knotted in this 
tangled skein.
     The eventful story of the White 
Indian, which is here attempted for 
the first time, is mainly drawn from 
original sources, and needs neither the 
intense colorings of prejudice nor the 
embellishments of fancy to make it 
entertaining. 

Simon Girty was born in 1744 at the 
then little backwoods settlement of 
Paxton, in the colony of Pennsylvania, 
and not far from the site of the present 



city of Harrisburg. His father, "old Girty of Paxtang," as he was irreverently called, a lawless, intemperate 
Irishman, immigrated to the colony 
about the year 1740, adopted the congenial pursuit of pack-horse driver in 
the Indian trade, married one Mary 
Newton, and made his home for a number of years at "Paxtang." Finding 
it profitable to exchange red paint, 
glass beads and bad whiskey for valuable furs and skins, he became a trader 
himself and fell into the clutches of 
the law as an unlicensed trafficker, and 
later on, in 1750, got himself into the 
same predicament again for appropriating certain unpurchased Indian 
lands on Sherman Creek, in the present 
Perry County, Pennsylvania. This 
last venture did not increase his popularity with the red men, and shortly 
after it he was killed by an Indian 
named "The Fish" near his home on 
the Susquehanna, and not far from 
the land he had attempted to borrow. 
There is no doubt that "old Girty of 
Paxtang" was more of a sot than a 
saint, and that fact certainly did not 
increase his wife's affection for him, 
but the dramatic episode of her fall, 
and the assertion oft-repeated and now 
so ancient that her husband was slain 
by her paramour turns out to be a 
pure fabrication. Surely the life of 
Mary Girty was wretched enough and 
the story of the family sufliciently 
tragic without the sombre addition of 
such an infamy. The widow of the 
murdered man was left to battle with poverty and privations, and her four 
little sons, Simon, James, George and 
Thomas, looked helplessly out upon an 
unfriendly world with no inheritance 
but a love of liquor, with no memories

 GIRTY, THE WHITE INDIAN. 



281 

but bitter ones, and with a future overshadowed by a relentless fate.
     About the year 1755, just in time to 
share the sufferings and horrors of the 
French and Indian war, the widow 
Girty married John Turner, who was 
then living on the Juniata, not far 
from the protecting walls of Fort Granville, near the present Lewiston, 
and there at his rude cabin and clearing, for a brief season, did the unfortuate family have such scant happiness 
as the war and a howling wilderness 
afforded. But more misery was impending. In the summer of 1750, not a year 
and a half after Mrs. Turner's marriage, and while she was rejoicing in 
the smiles and dimples of an infant 
son, the danger signal was suddenly 
heard and the family barely had time 
to rush into Fort Granville when it 
was attacked by a large number of 
French and Indians, who had evidently heard of the absence of the commandant of the fort, who had left it with all his men but a handful under 
Lieutenant Armstrong to guard some 
reapers in Sherman's valley. The fort 
was fired, Armstrong and one man had 
been killed, several others wounded 
and destruction was imminent, when 
the enemy offered quarter to the 
beseiged if they would surrender, and 
John Turner, too desperate to wait for 
a formal acceptance of the offer, threw 
open the gates. Savage mercy fol [sic] followed. The fort was given up to 
the flames and the prisoners, already 
worn out, were driven by forced 
marches to Kittanning, an Indian 
town on the Alleghany, where Mary 
Newton became a widow for a second 
time and the climax of her sufferings 
was reached. The whole village turned 
out with whoops and yells of rejoicing 
to meet the victors, and the few grown 
male prisoners who had not already 
been tomahawked were summarily disposed of. John Turner was consigned 
to the stake before the eyes of his agonized family, and the carousing savages amused themselves by boring holes 
through his flesh with red-hot gun-barrels. Finally, when flames and torture had nearly done their work, the 
dying man was tomahawked by a little Indian boy who was lifted up in 
the arms of his admiring father for 
the purpose. If we will just here recall 
the fact that the Christian government 
of Pennsylvania was at this very date 
offering rewards in cash for the scalps 
of Indian men, women and children, 
we may form some idea of the spirt 
which prevailed during this desperate 
and vengeful struggle.
     During this festive halt at Kittaning the surviving captives were parceled out among the representatives of 
the different tribes engaged in the expedition. Thomas and George Girty 
were assigned to the Delawares; Simon 
to the Senecas, and James Girty, his 
mother and her infant son John Turner were delivered over to the Shawanese. On the 8th of the following September, when Colonel Armstrong 
attacked and destroyed Kittanning, he 
recaptured Thomas Girty, who thus 
escaped the savage education in store 
for his brothers. He found a home 
near Fort Pitt, the site of the present 
Pittsburg, where he resided ever after, 
and gave his name to Girty's Run in 
the same neighborhood. The fate of 
his singularly unfortunate mother has 
givn rise to many romantic but conflicting traditions, and is still involved 
in obscurity. There is nothing to show 
that she ever escaped from the clutches 
of the dusky demons who must have 
seemed to her as special agents to work 
out the family doom. Her baby, the 
little John Turner, to whom she clung 
so frantically through many a heart-rending scene, remained for years 
among the slayers of his father; but 
though longer in captivity than any 
of his family, he seems to have been 
the least affected by savage life, and, 
strange to say, when at last released he 
sought out his brother Thomas and 
 282 WATSON'S MAGAZINE. 
 lived with the whites to the end of his 
day. 

Unheard of for years the other captive brothers roamed, with their 
adopted tribes, the great North-western Wilderness, and day by day their 
savage guardians sought  to destroy 
within them every feeling and instinct 
of race and civilization. The Girty 
blood was naturally wild and lawless, 
and they succeeded only too well. In 
1764, at the close of Pontiac's war, the 
able and gallant Bouquet of the British army accomplished that wholesale 
rescue of prisoners from the Indians 
so eloquently portrayed in the noted 
painting of Benjamin West, and the three Girty brothers were among the 
number. But they had now become 
indifferent to deliverance. They 
returned with Bouquet to Fort Pitt, 
but they returned with souls imbued 
with savage feelings and with natures 
perverted by savage education. They 
had been taught to love the destroyers 
of their parents, and charmed with the 
wild, free life of the forest and the 
prairie, they hated to their dying day 
the restraints and artificial habits of 
white society. It is even said that they 
returned to their tribes, but that the 
Indians were again compelled to give 
them up. They were for a time apparently weaned away from their adopted 
brethren, but they never even then 
fought against them, were always at 
ease in their company, and, as will be 
seen later on, ultimately took up the 
savage life again. Much of their time 
after their rescue was spent about Fort 
Pitt, and the then wild and wooded 
locality in that vicinity, which later 
received the name of Squirrel Hill, 
seems to have been one of their favorite haunts. It was there that their 
more fortunate brother Thomas and 
their long absent half-brother John 
Turner settled, and the early history 
of the hill teems with highly entertaining but confused and unreliable 
legends of the family. 



The three white savages followed in 
a desultory way the pursuits which 
harmonized most with their restless 
and unsettled dispositions. James and George pursued for a while their 
father's old business of trading with  the Indians, while Simon made a reputation as scout and interpreter. It was in this last capacity that he descended 
the Ohio with Lord Dunmore in 1771, 
during the Cresap War, and assisted 
the Governor at the treaty interview at Camp Charlotte with that great-souled and magnificent Indian, Cornstalk, a fact which contradicts the wonderful and too thrilling story of his 
rage and treachery just before the battle of Point Pleasant. It was while he was with Dunmore that he became 
the friend and comrade of Simon Kenton, and made the acquaintance of 
Boone, Clark, Harrod and others who 
took part in the expedition and afterward figured in early Kentucky history. It was about this time, while the 
glowing spark of the American Revolution was being blindly fanned into a 
blaze, that Simon Girty fell under the 
malign influence of Conally, the Troy Commandant of Fort Pitt, who finally 
brought down upon the unfortunate 
man the crowning curse of his already 
perverted life. The wily and talented 
commandant, deep in his plot to secure 
the Indians to the English, sweep the 
frontier settlements from existence, 
and decide the fortunes of the West in 
favor of the crown, was corrupting 
every man corruptible about the fort. 
Alexander McKee and Matthew Elliott, both of whom were destined to 
achieve an infamous notoriety, had not 
only themselves succumbed already to 
the power of British gold but were 
busy helping to seduce Girty also, and 
it is probable that the lieutenant's commission in the Virginia militia which waas given him by Conally only a few weeks before the battle of Lexington, was presented with a view to secure 
him as a henchman. But the plot was 
 GIRTY, THE WHITE INDIAN. 



283 
discovered, Conally was arrested, the 
militia reorganized, and the tempted 
Girty relegated to his former and less 
brilliant position of interpreter. He 
was employed in that capacity during 
the most of 1776 by the Indian agent 
Colonel George Morgan, but he was 
restless and dissatisfied, and his conduct was such that he was discharged 
by his employer, "for ill behavior," in 
August of that year. It has been 
asserted by various authors that Girty 
was busy this year — 1776 — assisting 
the Indians against the Americans, and 
Abbott and Perkins both make him 
the leader of the savage attack on Fort 
Henry in the fall of 1777, when the 
Elizabeth Zane incident is said to have 
occurred, but both statements, though 
elaborated in a highly entertaining way, are utterly without foundation. 
He was still at Fort Pitt at the times 
mentioned, but in no very amiable 
mood. Corrupted by Conally, disappointed in his military hopes, sore over 
his discharge, and too much of an 
Indian to be moved by the feelings 
and principles then stirring the patriotic garrison, but little was needed to 
induce him to cast his lot with the people of his adoption and their powerful 
employers. 

Early in 1778, while the American General Hand was commanding at 
Fort Pitt, where Girty was once more 
acting as interpreter, it became plainly 
evident to all its inmates that the fiercest of the North-western tribes had 
united against the Americans and that 
the whole frontier would be involved 
in savage warfare. All the Indian in 
Girty impelled him to side with the 
dusky companions of his forest life, 
and when at this dangerous crisis he 
was again approached with specious 
arguments and seductive promises by 
Elliot and McKee, who had been for 
months in the secret pay of the British 
commander at Detroit, the untaught 
creature, with the face of a white man 
and the heart of an Indian, and with 



no feeling of loyalty to any flag either 
English or American, threw in his lot 
with the savages and their allies. On 
the night of the 28th of March, 1778, 
three or four years later than some 
writers claim, this now notorious trio 
together with seven soldiers fled from 
the long familiar walls of Fort Pitt 
and severed their connection with their 
country forever. The date of their 
departure and the attendant circumstances are established beyond question 
by the official records of Major Isaac 
Craig, now in the hands of his grandson the accurate and accomplished 
Isaac Craig, Esq., of Alleghany, Pennsylvania. Major Craig, in command 
of artillery was ordered to Fort Pitt 
during the Revolution and remained 
there until the close of the war. Girty 
soon put in an appearance at Detroit, 
where he was warmly welcomed by the English commandant Hamilton, whom 
that great soldier, Clarke, stigmatized 
as ''the hair-buyer general." Girty's 
skill as a woodsman and scout, his 
knowledge of the Indian languages, 
his proficiency in all the savage arts, 
but above all his influence with his 
dusky kinsmen, made him exceedingly 
valuable to the English, who needed 
his services in advancing their interests 
among the North-western tribes. A 
few weeks before Simon's flight his 
brother James had been sent from Fort 
Pitt with presents and mollifying messages to the Shawnees, who were boiling over with righteous wrath at the 
cowardly murder of Cornstalk and his 
son. He heard the news of Simon's 
flight while on this mission, renewed 
at once his kinship with his ancient 
tribe and returned to Fort Pitt no 
more. The following year his brother 
George, the only one of the three regularly enlisted in the Continental army, 
renewed for life his connection with 
the people of his choice. Simon, or 
'Katepacomen," as the Indians called him, now allied himself with the 
Wyandots, "the bravest of the tribes," 
 284 



WATSON'S MAGAZINE. 
with whom he was more or less identified until the day of his death. They 
had known him ever since his childhood, and they received him now as 
an adopted Indian, and he soon became 
one of their most trusted and efficient 
leaders, a fact which of itself did no 
little toward making his voice so potent in the councils of the North-Western tribes. Much of his time during the Revolution was spent within 
the present boundary of the State of 
Ohio, his favorite haunt being the 
Wyandotte town of Upper Sandusky, 
which was located about four miles 
north-east of the Upper Sandusky of 
today. Here the British paid their 
savage allies of the West their annuities, and here Girty helped to plan and 
direct many of the blows that were 
aimed at the frontier settlements. 
It was while Girty was in the Ohio 
country, and in the fall of the same 
year that he fled from Fort Pitt, that 
the most creditable act of his life took 
place. The Indians who were then 
constantly on the war-path brought 
home many captives, and among them 
the redoubtable Simon Kenton, whom 
they had taken to Wapakoneta and had 
already doomed to the stake, when 
he was recognized by Girty with 
astonishment and delight as his old 
comrade of the Dunmore expedition. 
At once and at the risk of destroying 
both his standing and influence among 
his inflamed and suspicious people, 
Girty exerted himself to the utmost to 
save him, and at length, after the most 
earnest and impassioned speeches, the 
power of which is attested by the effect 
it had upon a crowded council of 
prejudiced and revengeful savages, he 
succeeded, and taking the rejoicing 
Kenton to his own cabin, he fed him, 
clothed him and dressed his neglected 
wounds. White Indian as he was and 
renegade, if such he can strictly be 
called, he exhibited on this occasion 
at least a generosity and nobility of 
soul which would have done credit to 



a more enlightened and more civilized 
character. The British, however, soon 
made use of him to perpetrate acts the very reverse of this one, and not very 
long after the Kenton incident he made 
his first appearance in the character of 
an emissary among the Moravian 
Indians with his evil advisers Elliott 
and McKee, aud with them sought to 
instigate that peaceful community to 
join in the war against the Americans. 
He is first heard of in a militray capacity in January, 1771, when as the 
leader of a band of savages he attacked 
and defeated a party of Continental 
soldiers under Captain John Clarke 
not far from his old familiar haunt, Fort Pitt. The following summer, 
when Colonel Bowman was engaged in 
his attack on old Chillicothe, Girty was 
back in Ohio, and the report that ho 
was advancing with a hundred warriors to the relief of that place may 
have had something to do with Bowman's strange and sudden order for 
the retreat of the expedition. 
The Girty brothers accompanied 
Colonel Byrd when he invaded Kentucky in 1780, and it was when the 
force was returning to the Indian 
country that one of its detachments, 
commanded, it is alleged, by Simon 
Girty, defeated Colonel David Rogers 
at the mouth of the Licking as he was 
conveying a load of ammunition up the 
Ohio for the Americans at Fort Pitt. 
This victory, though not remarkable 
for the number of men concerned, was 
one of the most complete and crushing 
of the minor engagements of the struggle, and must have convinced the 
Indians that their white brother was a 
brave of more than ordinary military 
capacity, for when Clarke retaliated 
on the Pickaway towns immediately 
after Byrd's unexplained retreat, Girty 
was given no insignificant part in the 
conflict, though it is claimed that on 
one occasion the reckless bravery of the 
Kentuckians caused him to draw off 
his savages with the remark that "it 
 GIRTY, THE WHITE INDIAN. 



285 
was useless to fight fools and madmen." 
George Girty, the only one of the Girty 
brothers who, contrary to the popular 
impression, ever actually deserted from 
the American army, was duly heard 
from in the summer of 1781. General 
Irvine, then in command of Fort Pitt, 
records the fact that a band of Indians 
under this loyal savage and the noted Brandt attacked on the 24th of August 
and below the mouth of the Great 
Miami a force of volunteers on their way to join Clarke, and killed or captured every man in the expedition. 
Both the date and the facts of the 
second demonstration against Fort 
Henry. which occurred very early in 
September, 1781, have been badly 
mixed by different writers, but it is 
quite evident that the Girtys participated in the siege, which failed 
through timely notice given the settlers 
hy the Moravian missionaries — a fact 
which caused the disappointed Wyandots to turn 'round upon the buffeted 
and badgered Christian Indians, 
located about the site of the present 
Coshocton on the Muskingum, and 
break up their settlements. Girty took 
part in the brutality of his tribe, and 
though according to Heckewelder, a 
most authentic witness, "Elliott was 
the principal instigator of their sufferings," Girty also made himself conspicuous as a raging persecutor of the 
missionaries and their unresisting converts. His outrageous conduct at this 
time is attributed to drink— an overwhelming inherited passion. "No 
Indian we ever saw drunk," says 
Heckewelder, "would have been a 
match for him." But at this stage of 
the game in the West there was but 
little choice between the mercy of an 
Indian and the compassion of a white 
man, and deeds of cruelty were not confined to one side only. The spring of 
1782, the last year of the Revolution, 
had barely come when Captain David 
Williamson and a party of American 
frontiersmen, as if bent upon surpassing the inhumanity of Girty and the Wyandots, also pounced down upon the 
defenceless Moravian Indians and 
murdered in the most cowardly and 
cold-blooded manner about a hundred 
of their men, women and children. 
The victims were deliberately slaughtered like so many unresisting cattle, 
their bodies burned in one of their own 
churches, and their property carried 
off to the settlements. It was a deed 
as infamous as any ever committed by 
the fanatical Sepoy or "the unutterable 
Turk," and was doubly atrocious from 
the fact that the murdered people had 
befriended the Americans. The 
Indians, though they felt free themselves to worry and abuse this little 
band of their own people, resented this 
massacre as a deadly insult and outrage upon their whole race. They 
never forgot it, they never forgave it, 
and there was no mercy in store for 
any man who had part or lot in the 
matter. Howe, in his Historical Collections says that even at late as eight years after the affair a settler captured 
near Wheeling was killed by the 
Indians for having been concerned in 
that awful crime. About the same 
time that Williamson murdered the 
Moravians, occurred the celebrated 
defeat of Estill by the Wyandots, two events that aroused the worst passions 
of both sides to the highest pitch. The 
settlers proceeded at once to organize 
the ill-fated expedition of Crawford, with the declared intention of exterminating the Wyandots and Delawares of 
the Sandusky root and branch. No 
quarter was to be asked or given, no 
prisoners were to be taken, every 
Indian, be he friend or foe, was to die. 
The savages heard of this determination and met it with a resolution as 
merciless at is was inflexible. The 
tragic story of the Crawford expedition is well known. In June, 1782, 
with the murderer Williamson second 
in command and accompanied by a 
number of others who had participated 
 286 



WATSON'S MAGAZINE. 
in the Moravian massacre, he marched 
upon the Sandusky towns, failed disastrously, and fell with many of his 
troops into the hands of the Indians, 
whose hearts were burning with feroity and the thirst for vengeance. The guilty Williamson, who so well merited 
death, unfortunately escaped, but 
Crawford was doomed. He was burned 
at the stake, on the 11th of June, near 
Upper Sandusky, in the present Wyandot County, Ohio, after prolonged and 
horrible sufferings from all the tortures that savage ingenuity could 
invent. Simon Girty, who had been a 
prominent leader in the conflict, and 
who witnessed this terrible scene, had 
known Crawford during the Dunmore 
war; had often enjoyed his hospitality, 
and, tradition says, had even formed a 
romantic attachment for his daughter. 
It is therefore easy to believe that the 
blackest thing that has ever been 
alleged against him is that he not only 
did not save the tortured and slowly-dying colonel, but answered him with 
a mocking laugh when he begged him 
to shoot him and relieve him of his 
agony. It is said that even the devil 
is not as black as he is painted, and it 
is possible that the same may be said 
of Girty. Exactly how far his savage 
and perverted nature carried him on 
this occasion will never probably be 
accurately known, but the commonest princip]es of justice require that some 
things that are known should be stated. 
It should be remembered right at the 
beginning that Crawford was a prisoner of the Delawares, and that they 
only could therefore decide his fate; 
and that he was burnt at a Delaware 
town and in retaliation for an outrage 
upon the Delawares, for the Moravians 
were of that tribe. The statement 
printed time and again that the ill-fated colonel was burnt by Girty's 
tribe, the Wyandots, betrays a gross 
ignorance, both of the transaction 
itself, and of the customs peculiar to 
the different tribes of that day. The 



writer was not surprised therefore that 
a Canadian descendant of Wyandot 
Indians, with whom he corresponded, 
should energetically protest that his 
ancestral tribe did not at that time, if 
ever, burn prisoners of war. Regarded 
simply from a tribal stand-point, Girty 
had no authority whatever to release 
Crawford. As to the influence which 
he might have exerted in favor of the 
condemned man, that is another matter, for he was certainly a person of 
no little power and importance among 
the Indians at that time. Dr. Knight, 
who was captured with Crawford and 
witnessed his tortures, and who has 
long been accepted as a most reliable 
authority on this subject, while he says 
that Girty refused the prayer of the 
tortured man to shoot him and "by all 
his gestures seemed delighted at the 
horrid scene," does not make him in 
any way an assistant at it. On the 
contrary, he even asserts that Crawford said to him: "Girty has promised 
to do all in his power for me, but the 
Indians are very much inflamed 
against us." An examination of the 
principal authorities on this subject 
will convince any unprejudiced person 
that Girty was true to his promise to 
Crawford, but that he was uterly powerless to save him. Heckewelder, who 
certainly had not one spark of love for Girty and whose testimony is unimpeachable, says of Crawford: "It was 
not in the power of any man, or even 
body of men, to save his life." Wingemund, a Delaware chief, when 
appealed to by Crawford, replied: "If Williamson had been taken you might 
have been saved, but, as it is, no man 
would dare to interfere in your behalf; 
the King of England, if he were to 
come in person, could not save you; we 
have to learn barbarities from you 
white people." (See Howe, 547.) If the statements of the savage but brave 
and manly Wyandots are to be 
believed, Girty did not forget the 
sacred obligations of accepted hospi- 
 GIRTY, THE WHITE INDIAN. 



287 
tality, but remebered old ties in Crawford's case as he did in Kenton's. 
McCutchen, who claims to have 
obtained his information from Wyandots, says, in the American Pioneer, 
that Girty tried to save Crawford at 
the only time when it was possible to 
do it, viz., the night before his capture. 
That he went to him in Indian dress, 
and, under a flag of truce, warned him 
that he would be surrounded that 
night, and told him how he might 
escape; that Crawfovd tried to act on 
his advice, but that his men were too 
much demoralized to carry out the 
plan. After saying this, McCutcheon 
strangely adds that afterward, as a 
matter of speculation, Girty offered the 
Delaware war-chief, Pipe, three hundred and fifty dollars for Crawford, 
but was himself threatened with the 
stake for his inteference; that he was 
afraid after that to show the sympathy 
he felt for the doomed man, but sent 
runners, however, to Lower Sandusky, 
to traders there, to hasten to buy Crawford, but that he was fatally burned 
by the time they arrived. The latest 
contribution to this subject is from the 
venerable Mrs. McCormick, of Pelee 
Island, now in her ninety-sixth year, 
and it is doubly interesting from the 
fact that she was not only personally 
acquainted with Simon Girty, but 
received her information directly from 
her mother-in-law, who was captured 
by the Ohio Indians when she was 
about grown, and was at the Delaware 
town when Crawford was burnt. Mrs. 
McCormick kindly sent the writer the 
following statement, often repeated 
to her by her mother-in-law, in recounting the incidents of her captivity. She 
says: "I have often heard my mother-in-law speak of Simon Girty. She both 
saw and heard him interceding with the 
Indian chief for the life of Colonel 
Crawford, and he offered the chief a 
beautiful horse which he had with him, 
and the stock of goods he then had on 



hand, if he would release him, but the 
chief said 'No. If you were to stand 
in his place it would not save him.' 
She also went to see Colonel Crawford, 
and talked with him, and he told her 
that Girty had done all he could to 
save his life. This was no Kenton 
case. Crawford had invaded the 
Indian country with the declared intention of granting no quarter, and, what 
was even worse in the eyes of the infuriated savages, his intimate associate 
and right-hand man was the guilty 
Williamson. Crawford was burnt by 
the Delawares in retaliation for the 
wanton and cowardly massacre of their 
Moravian kindred, and there was no 
hope for him from the moment of his 
capture. Authorities differ as to the 
motives which actuated Girty's conduct toward Crawford, but 
close inquiry renders positive the 
declaration that Girty was not 
only powerless to save him, but that 
he would have endangered his own life 
if he had persisted in an open effort to 
do so. 
 It was during the days immediately 
following Crawford's defeat that 
James and George Girty so greatly 
increased their unsavory reputations by 
their brutal treatment of Slover and 
other captives, and more than one writer expresses the opinion that much of 
the odium now resting upon Simon 
Girty is due to the fact that many of 
the cruel acts of these brothers were 
either ignorantly or intentionally 
placed to his credit. The power of circumstances and education to affect the 
lives and conduct of men is here strikingly exemplified. Thomas Girty, 
reared among patriotic and civilizing 
influences, was now one of the respected 
and substantial citizens of Pittsburg 
(Fort Pitt), and at the very time his 
three Indian brothers were joining in 
the war-hoop of the braves as they 
gathered for the destruction of Crawford's command, he was known as a 
lover of his country and was seeking to 
 288 WATSON'S MAGAZINE. 
 increase the security and good order of 
his town. 
 Elated by their victory over Crawford and spurred on by rumors of a peace which would leave the choicest of 
their hunting-grounds forever in the possession of thier enemies, the Indians were eager to make a crowning effort for the recovery of Kentucky, and early in August of this year, 1782, a 
grand council of the North-western 
tribes was held at Chillicothe to decide 
the question of invasion. Simon Girty, 
who was now one of the most trusted 
and devoted of the Indian leaders, was 
the foremost figure at this meeting, 
and is credited by Bradford with having made the decisive speech of the occasion. Nearly six feet tall, straight, 
strong and broad-chested, with massive 
head and big black eyes, deeply bronzed 
by exposure, dressed in savage fashion 
and adorned with paint, feathers, and 
all the war trappings of his tribe, he 
looked every inch the Indian leader 
that circumstances and his peculiar talents had made him. To the assembled 
chiefs his words were the words of 
Katepacomen, their adopted brother, 
who was as faithful to them as the 
panther to her cubs; whose tent-poles 
had been strung with the scalps of their 
enemies, whose cunning was that of the 
fox and whose heart had never failed 
him in time of battle. In his speech, 
which aroused the warriors to the 
highest pitch of excitement, he depicted 
the ruin the whites were making of 
their favorite hunting-ground, urged  an immediate blow for its recovery, 
and then with significant flourishes of 
his tomahawk he closed his impassioned 
words by a fiery call for the extermination of their enemies, which was 
answered by a wild and unanimous 
yell of approval. The council promptly 
declared for invasion. Girty was 
chosen the leader of the savage army 
of nearly six hundred warriors, and 
Bryant's and Lexington stations, which 
were only five miles apart, were marked 



as the first in order of destruction. By 
the middle of the month the dusky 
horde, after a swift and stealthy 
march, reached the center of the 
wilderness now so widely known as 
"the Blue Grass Region of Kentucky," 
and on the night of the 14th of 
August silently settled around famous 
Bryant's Station, which they had 
expected would fall at once into their 
hands through the absence of its usual 
male defenders. With admirable skill 
the wily Girty had maneuvered to 
draw them out to the relief of Hoy's Station, which he had caused to be 
threatened several days before for that very purpose, and the pioneers, competely deceived by the device, were 
busy with preparations for a march by 
sunrise, when he arrived fortunately 
for them a few hours before their 
intended departure. The deceiver was 
himself deceived. Mistaking the bustle 
and the lights within the fort to mean 
tliat his presence had been discovered,  Girty ordered a premature attack, 
which revealed to the unsuspecting and 
astounded garrison the imminence of 
its danger and ultimately resulted in 
the failure of its enemies. The gallant 
charge of the men of Lexington 
through the Indian lines and into the 
beleaguered fort; the heroic exploit of 
the women who marched into the jaws 
of death to get water for the garrison, 
and the successful defense of Bryant's 
Station are now too celebrated in story 
and in song to need another telling. At 
this siege Girty displayed his usual 
courage. He led on the Indians when 
they stormed the palisades, and in 
close encounter with a Lexington rifle-man barely escaped with his life. His parley with the garrison, however, 
when he tried to negotiate a surrender, 
resulted only in his mortification and 
the taunt of the fearless Reynolds that 
"they knew him, and he himself had a 
worthless dog that looked so much like 
him that he called him "Simon Girty," 
must have convinced the White Indian 
 GIRTY, THE WHITE INDIAN. 



289 
 how greatly he was detested by the pioneers. The alarm had now gone 
forth, the rescue was sounded and the 
siege was abandoned. Girty's plan, so 
admirably conceived, so well conducted 
and so nearly realized, failed, but in 
the very face of defeat and while the 
brave hunters of Kentucky were gathering and marching against him, beset 
by difficulties but undiscouraged, he 
formed a scheme still deeper and more 
dangerous to his foes. He retreated, 
but it was a subtle and seductive 
retreat, which lured the small but 
dauntless band of his pursuers to the 
fatal hills and deadly ravines of the 
Blue Licks, where the advice of the 
sagacious Boone was disregarded, and 
where, on the 19th of August, 1782, the 
Indians struck a blow that sent horror 
and grief to every cabin in the wilderness of Kentucky and invested the 
name of a barren and rugged spot of 
earth with a sad and sanguinary 
immortality. The criminal rashness of 
McGary, the precipitate crossing of the 
fatal ford, the unequal struggle, the 
desperate heroism of the pioneers and 
the sickening slaughter of the flower of 
Kentucky's soldiery, constitute one of 
the most familiar and interesting episodes of Western history; but the part 
played in it by the principal actor, 
Girty, has for some reason been substantially ignored by the writers who 
have treated the event during the entire 
century that has elapsed since its occurrence. The borderers of 1782, exasperated at Estill's defeat, inflamed by the 
burning of Crawford and lashed into 
a fury of mortification and grief over 
this last and great disaster, were in no 
mood to admit the ability of the man 
they hated and despised as a renegade. 
The disaster was charged entirely to 
the recklessness of the hot-headed 
McGary and the odious Girty was 
treated with silent contempt. The 
example thus set seems to have been 
followed by all the Western chronicles 
since that day. But viewing now the 



cold facts with eyes undimmed by 
either prejudice or passion, it becomes 
evident that the soldiership of Girty 
had more to do with the defeat of the 
gallant pioneers than the rashness of 
McGary, which dramatic incident has 
not gone unchallenged from the fact 
that Boone makes no mention of it 
whatever in his letter to the Governor 
of Virginia, written only a few days 
after the battle. The man who led on, 
entrapped, outgeneraled and overwhelmed such able and wary leaders as 
Boone, Todd and Harlin may be 
scorned as a renegade but not as a military chieftain. It does but little honor 
to the memory of the brave who battled at the Blue Licks to assert that 
they were beaten by a creature who had 
neither character nor brains. 

How great was the alarm of the 
settlers, even after Girty had retired 
beyond the Ohio, may be inferred from 
the above-mentioned letter of Boone, 
in which he urges the Governor of Virginia to send troops to aid in the 
defense of Fayette County, in which 
the two greatly exposed stations, Bryant's and Lexington, were located. He 
declares : "If the Indians bring another 
campaign into our country this fall, it 
will break up these settlements." Girty 
was now by far the most prominent 
and influential leader among the Ohio 
Indians, and was dreaming of still 
greater military achievements, when 
fortunately for the distressed and 
weakened pioneers his career as a soldier was checked for a while by the 
close of the War of Independence, but 
not before he had, according to Bradford, made a narrow escape from the 
swiftly-moving forces of George Rogers Clarke, "the Napoleon of the West," who pursued him to the valley 
of the Miami. The autumn, so dreaded 
by Boone, instead of bringing Indians, 
brought the glad tidings of the cessation of hostilities, an event which 
crushed all the hopes of the savages of 
ever recovering Kentucky — hopes 
 290 



WATSON'S MAGAZINE. 
which seemed just after their great 
victory at the Blue Licks to be on the 
very verge of a glorious realization. 
Girty learned with disgust of the 
return of peace while at the head of an 
Indian force operating about Fort Pitt, 
and the news, strange to say, was first 
made known to him by the salutes of 
rejoicing fired from the very fort that he had shamelessly abandoned, and 
whose downfall he had so confidently predicted. 

The great struggle in which the 
savages had been so actively engaged 
was now over, and Girty, resigning for 
a reason the ambitions of military life, 
betook himself again to his old desultory occupations of trader, hunter and 
interpreter. It was during the, to him, 
monotonous calm of the first year after 
the war, 1783, that he secured a white 
wife by marrying Catharine Malotte, 
a young lady about half as old as himself, and reputed to have been at that 
time the beauty of Detroit. There is 
an air of romance even about his marriage. His wife, like himself, had 
been a victim of a border tragedy and 
a prisoner among the Indians. A party 
of settlers, including her own family, 
while descending the Ohio in a flat-boat, seeking new homes in the wilds 
of Kentucky, were fired into by a band 
of Shawanese, who seized the boat, 
killed several of the party, and carried 
into a miserable captivity all the survivors, including the then young girl, Catharine Malotte. She was released 
tlirough the interposition of Girty. 
(Gratitude paved the way for love, and 
when her delivirer returned from the War as the victor of the Blue Licks, 
she turned away from her red-coated 
and more civilized admirers of the 
British post, and accepted their strange 
and notorious white savage confederate. About two years after his marriage, 1785, Girty did an act of kindness, as singular as it was unexpected, 
and the motive for which has never 
been clearly explained. According to 



Colonel Thomas Marshall, he posted 
his brother, James Girty, who was himself a thorough savage, on the northern 
bank of the Ohio, near the mouth of 
the Kanawha, to warn immigrants 
traveling by boat of the danger of 
being decoyed ashore by the Indians. 
McClung says that this timely notice 
was of service to many families, and 
that those who did not heed it suffered. 
It is asserted that Girty did this to 
curry favor with the Americans, and 
to help pave the way for his return to 
the people he had abandoned, but nothing has been produced to support this 
opinion. His conduct otherwise did 
not indicate it. The Indians at this 
time, and for years after, were constantly aggravated by the encroachments of the whites upon their North-western lands, and certainly Girty did 
his best to fan the increasing flame, 
which finally resulted in Harman's 
campaign of 1790. The very name of 
the White Indian seemed an omen of 
evil to the pioneers, for it was at "Girty's Town," now St. Mary's, Ohio, 
that Hardin was defeated in this same campaign. 

Hostilities between the Americans 
and Indians continued, and Girty's 
services being in demand, he was once 
more in his element. In February, 
1791, at the head of a large force of 
savages, he attacked and beseiged Dunlap's Station on the Great Miami, but 
he failed as he did at Bryant's, after 
trying by every device of skill and 
terror to induce the brave and determined garrison to surrender. It was 
at this place that Abner Hunt met his 
death, but exactly how will probably 
never be known. O. M. Spencer, who 
was captured by the Indians about this 
time, and while he was yet a child, 
says in his Captivity that Hunt was burned and tortured to death by Girty's Indians. Judge Burnet, in his  Well-known and valuable Notes, makes 
no mention whatever of the burning, 
but says : "Mr. Hunt was killed before 
 GIRTY, THE AVIIITE INDIAN. 



291 
 he could reach the fort." Spencer is 
remarkable for his exuberant imagination. He pictures Girty as a regular 
Italian assassin of the Borgia period, 
with the regular stage "make-up," 
scowl and all, but unfortunately betrays himself by giving Girty a flat 
nose. He evidently dressed up his 
character to suit the popular demand, George and James Girty were so completely identified with the Indians all 
this time as if they had been actually 
born savages. They lived with them, 
fought wIth them, and apparently 
wanted no other society, and did all 
they could to make Indians out of the 
white children they frequently captured. They participated in the attack 
on Dunlap's Station, and each took an 
Indian's part in the struggle then in 
progress. 
 Simon Girty figured in the terrible 
defeat of the brave but unfortunate St. 
Clair, November 4, 1791, and was evidently a personage of some importance, 
but owing to the fact that the Indian 
side of the story of these early and 
bloody days is not recorded, the part 
he took is not clear. He is said to have 
received a saber-cut in this battle, but 
Spencer, who saw no bravery in him, 
and who calls him "a murderous renegade and villain of diabolic invention," 
says that "he was informed," while he 
was a badly scared child captive, "that 
the wound was made by the celebrated 
Brandt while he and Girty were 
engaged in a drunken frolic." That 
Girty could get as drunk as a lord and 
display all the brute that was in him 
when he was drunk there is no manner 
of doubt, but his daring character and 
his contempt for danger are sufficiently 
established to refute the imputation of 
cowardice. It is said that on one occasion, while engaged in a violent quarrel with a Shawanese, the Indian 
questioned his courage. Savage-like 
Girty sought satisfaction at once, and 
got it. Securing a keg of powder he 
instantly knocked it in the head, 



snatched a blazing fagot from the 
camp fire, and then, in the presence of 
a crowd of dusky spectators, called on 
the Shawanese to stand by him while  he waved the sparkling torch above the 
powder. But the taunting Indian 
decamped amid the derisive laughter 
and yells of the Indians. 

An incident which is thought to have 
occurred shortly after St. Clair's 
defeat, and which is given on British 
authority, indicates that Girty shared 
the feelings of his tribe against the 
horrible practice of burning prisoners. 
Several captives who had been taken 
during the recent battle, by some of the 
Indian allies, were condemned to the 
stake, and, in spite of every influence 
that Girty could bring to bear, the 
fatal fires were kindled to the delight 
of the assembled multitude of drunken 
braves, screeching squaws and capering children of all ages. Among the 
prisoners was an American officer, in 
whose behalf Girty especially exerted 
himself, but withont effect. Finally, 
when his doom seemed inevitable, 
Girty, who was always fertile in expedients, seized a favorable moment 
when unobserved and dropped him a 
significant hint. The officer, very fortunately, instantly comprehended it, 
and, as he was being taken to the stake, 
he suddenly snatched a papoose from the arms of a squaw and threw it 
towards the flames where another prisoner was burning. The wildest excitement instantly ensued; men, women 
and children fell over each other in the 
simultaneous rush that was made to 
save the baby. The child was rescued, 
but, in the midst of the frantic and 
indescribable confusion, the officer 
made good his escape. To his credit 
be it said, that he never forgot his 
deliverer, and, as will be seen further 
on, did his best to prove his gratitude 
in 1812 when the fortunes of war 
brought trouble to Girty. 

During the years 1792-3, when the 
Federal Government through commis- 
 292 



WATSON'S MAGAZINE. 
sioners was seeking to establish a permanent peace with the North-western 
tribes, Girty was conspicuous as the 
adviser and interpreter of the Indians. He counseled them with all the earnestness of a natural-born savage to resist 
every effort of the Americans to 
acquire their lands north of the Ohio, 
and his voice seems to have been as 
potent with them as ever. In fact, he 
is said to have been the only man with 
a white skin allowed to be present at 
the most important private consultations of the red men. Girty and his 
Wyandots were found arrayed against 
the Americans in the campaign of 1804, and they took part in the desperate attack on Fort Recovery on the 30th of June, and were present at the 
battle of Fallen Timber on the 20th 
of the following August, when old Mad Anthony Wayne visited such a 
crushing defeat upon the brave but 
fated savages. Girty was now getting 
on in years, and when the treaty of 
Greenville, in the summer of 1795, 
closed the old Indian wars of the West 
and brought his hunting-grounds and 
his adopted kinsmen under the authority of the people he had fought 
so long and hated so cordially, the battle-scarred warrior, disappointed, disgusted and furious, abandoned forever 
his old home on the St. Mary's and followed the retiring British to Detroit. 
He was there in July, 179G, when the 
English gave up to the United States 
this the last of the military posts they 
held in the North-west, and the 
advancing troops of Wayne felt sure 
that now at last the daring and notorious "White Indian" would fall into 
their clutches. But the wily old fox 
scented the danger just in time, and 
desperately determined to risk the 
chance of drowning, to capture by his 
enemies, he boldly plunged his horse 
into the Detroit River as the soldiers 
came in sight, fought his way successfully through the sweeping current to 
the Canada shore, and there, with the 



water streaming from his clothing but 
still seated firmly upon his panting 
horse, he shook his fist at his balfled 
pursuers and poured out upon them 
and the United States Government a 
torrent of the wildest and most savage 
curses. 

Driven at last from American soil, 
Girty found a refuge at Fort Malden, 
a post which had been established by 
the British on the east side of Detroit 
River, on the Canadian frontier just 
before the evacuation of Detroit, and 
distant only fifteen miles from that 
stockaded village so famous in the annals of Indian warfare. Fort Malden commanded the entrance to Detroit 
River and from its walls the red-coatod 
sentinel could look for many a mile up the stream which separated him from 
the territory of the new Republic, and 
turning, view the beautiful waters of 
Lake Erie spreading out before him as 
far as the eye could reach. The ground 
once occupied by this defense is now 
the property of Hon. John McLeod, 
ex-member of the Canadian Parliament. A platform of elevated earth 
cast up in the long ago by the veterans of George III., and the stump of 
the flag-staff that once surmounted it, 
are now the only remains of the fort 
from whence issued the invading forces 
which brought death and disaster to 
the American soldiers of the war of 
1812. The very name '"Malden'' has 
almost disappeared from the maps, and 
its successor, "Amherstburg," now 
designates the picturesque spot in the 
County of Essex, Upper Canada, 
where once the royal stronghold stood. 
But the Malden of 1796 which Girty 
sought, though but an outpost of the 
wilderness frontier, was busy enough just then, surrounded as it was by 
hundreds of hungry refugee Indians 
from the war-desolated North-West, 
who were clamoring for aid and comfort from their British employers. 
Here he found many warriors of his 
own tribe preparing to settle on lands 



GIRTY, THE WHITE INDIAN. 



293 
granted them as allies of the crown, 
and here safely ensconced were Elliott 
and McKee, his corruptors of Fort Pitt 
and his boon companions for twenty 
years. They had found it convenient 
to be among the earliest arrivals. These 
educated white mercenaries grew rich 
from the fruits of their treason, while 
the illiterate Girty, Indian-like, waxed 
poorer and poorer. It was well said 
lately to the writer by a scholarly correspondent who owns original papers 
bearing upon the Girty case, that 
"Girty was terribly punished for his 
conduct, whilst men who deserved it 
more escaped almost unscathed." As 
this society (about Malden), Indians, 
refugees and British, was the most 
home-like Girty could expect to find, 
the soil fertile, the region sufficiently 
wild and abounding with game and no 
war promising immediate excitement, 
he settled with his family on a piece 
of land at the head of Lake Erie and 
about a mile and a half below Malden, 
the same now owned by W. C. Mickle. 
Following on with other fugitives 
came James Girty, the most degraded, 
blood-thirsty and uncivilized member 
of the family, a thorough Indian in 
feelings, manners and life. Caring for 
no society but that of his fellow-savages, he settled with his Shawnee squaw, 
his dogs and his wild young children, 
on Middle Sister Island, not far from 
his brother. After his settlement at 
Malden, Simon Girty resumed the 
occupation of interpreter, and was 
among the Indians who constantly 
visited the fort and camped upon his 
land. But the monotony of peace, 
which accorded so little with a nature 
that was fiery, untamed and adventurous to the last, pushed him to 
extremes for relief. Sometimes he 
sought excitement in the rum he loved 
so much and which was dealt out so 
freely at the fort, and then he was an 
Indian indeed, and would tear around 
on horseback flourishing an Indian 
war club, singing Indian war songs, 



and filling the air with the terrible sounds of the scalp halloo. Sometimes 
his recreation would be a long hunt 
with a party of savage kindred, and 
again it would be some dangerous 
expedition. Tradition reckons with 
this last his celebrated trip to Pennsylvania in 1711 [sic?], when, in disguise he 
risked his life to see once more his 
relatives and old haunts at Squirrel 
Hill, east of Pittsburg, where his brother Thomas and a half-brother 
John Turner lived and died respected. 
John Turner, who seems to have 
always been loyal and affectionate to 
the notorious and hated Simon, is 
known as "the benefactor of Squirrel 
Hill," from the fact that he donated a 
burying-ground to the citizens of that 
locality at his death, which occurred 
in 1840, after he had attained the 
advanced age of eighty-five. All sorts 
of wonderful and improbable tales are 
told of this bold appearance of Simon in the very midst of his enemies. One 
of the wildest recounts an attack that 
was made upon him while he was concealed at Turner's house, and the statement is made that he even received a 
saber-cut in the head which ultimately 
caused his death. Unfortunately for 
this thrilling tale the saber-cut dated 
back to St. Clair's defeat. He was convinced however that he was still cordially detested, and especially at that 
time when the hostile movement of the 
Wabash Indians caused the savage 
horrors of the past to be so vividly 
recalled. His presence was detected 
and vengeance was threatened, but he 
escaped, and returning home found all 
Upper Canada in excited commotion 
over the rapidly approaching war 
between the United States and England and the certain invasion of the 
province. 

War was proclaimed on the 19th of 
June, 1812, to the delight of the savage beneficiaries of Great Britain, who 
had for weeks been gathering in 
swarms about Fort Malden, and the 
 294 



WATSON'S MAGAZINE. 
very name of that post soon became to 
the Americans the synonym for defeat 
and death. Girty was an old man 
when the war commenced, but not too 
old to encourage a band of Wyandots 
to rally around Tecumseh and the 
British standard. After the lapse of  many years the aged victor of the Blue 
Licks, and the reuniant of his broken people, were again united against their 
ancient and inveterate North-western 
foes. But the health of Girty was 
shattered, and he was so nearly blind 
that he could lead no more his dusky 
hosts to battle, but he dimly saw the 
flash of the guns which announced the 
shameful surrender of Hull; stood 
once again within the stockaded walls of Detroit, to which he had been so 
long a stranger, and heard the exultant 
shouts of his lessening tribe as it 
returned from the bloody massacre of 
Raisin, a deed which inspired every 
Kentucky soldier with the feelings of 
an avenger, revieved bitter memories of 
the Indian tragedies of the past, and with them the name of Girty, which was mentioned again with threats and 
curses. And fate as usual was against 
him. The tide of war turned, the 
British fleet was destroyed. Malden 
was captured, and Girty became a 
fugitive. But one at least of the soldiers who pursued the retreating forces 
of Proctor wished the White Indian 
no evil. It was the American officer whose life he had saved by suggesting 
the desperate expedient of casting the 
Indian papoose toward the flames. A 
British authority asserts that, though 
this officer had retired from the American army, he rejoined it in 1813 with 
the express purpose of doing his best to 
protect Girty in the event of his capture. It was an exhibition of that 
rarest of noble qualities, gratitude, 
which makes one think better of his 
race. But the ill-starred Girty, from 
whom happiness always stood afar off, 
was denied the pleasure of ever knowing that he had a single friend among 



the advancing Americans. They never 
met. With panic and difficulty Girty 
followed the retreating British and 
Indians until the 5th of October, 1713 [sic?], when Harrison virtually closed the 
struggle in the North-West by his victory at the Thames. And here also, 
according to the veracious Campell, was ended the checkered career of the 
notorious White Indian. Campbell 
says: "It was the constant wish of Girty that he might breathe his last 
in battle. So it happened. He was at 
Proctor's defeat on the Thames, and was cut to pieces by Colonel Johnson's 
mounted men." Nearly three-quarters of a century have elapsed since the battle of the Thames occurred, and though 
in that long period books and pamphlets without number on Western history and the War of 1812 have been 
published, still, strange to say, in spite 
of all this investigation, this statement 
of Judge Campbell was the nearest 
approach that writers made to the 
actual truth concerning Girty's death, 
and was, with one very late exception 
(Mr. Butterfield) received by all as 
authentic history. Simon Girty was 
not only not killed in the battle of the 
Thames, but he was prevented by blindness and rheumatism from taking 
any part whatever in the engagement. 
His brother James, however, followed the brash Tecumseh that day into the 
thickest of the fight, his younger 
brother George is said to have died 
about this time, and it was during this 
war that Simon lost his son Thomas, 
from sickness occasioned by over-exertion in gallantly carrying a wounded 
officer from the field of battle, and it 
is possible that the error so long perpetuated about the death of Simon 
may have arisen from a confusion of 
these events, all of which involved the 
Girty name. The collapse of the British army at the Thames found Simon 
Girty homeless and a wanderer, but, 
moved by the same instinct of savage 
brotherhood which ever characterized 
 GIRTY, THE WHITE INDIAN. 



295 
him, he sought and found a refuge at 
a village of tlie Mohawks on Grand 
River. This village, which was located 
in the midst of some of the finest land 
in the Dominion, and on probably the 
most picturesque of Canadian streams, 
was settled at the close of the American 
Revolution, under the leadership of 
Girty's Indian friend and comrade, 
the distinguished Brandt. It is a singular coincidence that Campbell, the 
celebrated poet, should have made a 
mistake about Brandt so similar to the 
one made by another and more obscure 
Campbell about Girty. In Gertrude 
of Wyoming "the monster Brandt" is 
mentioned as a participant in that cold-blooded massacre, of which Thomas 
Campbell so touchingly sung, though 
the fact is established that he was not 
present on that tragic occasion. 

Girty shared the whiskey and venison of his Indian friends until the close 
of the war in 1815, when he returned to 
his solitary farm near Malden. It was 
solitary indeed. His two daughters 
were married, and in homes of their 
own; the son of his heart had died during the war; and his wife, worn out by 
his wild and irregular life and Indian-like way's, had left him long ago. Only 
one of his family, his son Prideaux, 
lingered about him. To add to his 
gloomy reflections, his savage brother 
James was nearing the grave. Shunned by white people, and deserted even by 
his Indian squaw, the miserable creature lingered on through months of 
pain, and at last was found dead on 
the beach of Middle Sister Island, on 
the 15th of April, 1817. The final 
shadows were gathering thick and fast 
about the aged victor of the Blue Licks 
also. Blind, rheumatic, and shattered 
in health, the terrible Canadian Winter 
succeeding his brother's death told with 
fatal effect upon him. He declined 
rapidly, but showed no concern whatever about his condition, and bore his 
sufferings with the proverbial stoicism 
and fortitude of his adopted race. 



During the bitter weather prevailing 
but few bothered themselves about the 
now desolate and sinking recluse. The 
remnant of his old tribe, however, did 
not entirely forget him in his extremity, and occasionally a solitary Wyandot, as seamed and scarred and grizzled as himself, would come to his bedside suddenly and unannounced, take 
the thin hand of his dying brother 
"Katepacomen," and with tender grasp, 
but impassive countenance, greet him 
in the familiar tongue of his dusky 
people. Girty died in the month of 
February, 1818; his troubled and tempestuous life fitly ended in the midst 
of a driving snow storm. He had paid 
no attention to religion as understood  by white men, and if he died in any faith at all it was in that of the Indian 
— a simple trust in the power and the 
goodness of the Great Spirit. He was buried near Amherstburg (Malden) on 
his farm, now known as the W. C. 
Mickle place, while the snow was so 
deep that his body had to be carried 
over the fences. His grave can still be 
pointed out, thou it is entirely 
unmarked, and so utterly neglected 
that a common farm gate swings over 
the spot, And so ended the unhappy 
life of a creature who became by the 
force of warping circumstances the 
anomaly of early Western history. 

No estimate of Girty can be either 
correct or just which does not take into 
account the influence which captivity 
and savage training had on his 
character. How powerful it was is 
shown by the significant facts that it 
not only effaced the natural antipathy 
for the destroyers of his parents, but so perverted his normal instinct of race 
that he was never again in full sympathy with his own people, while as far 
as known, he was always true to the 
Indians, and retained their confidence 
and friendship to the end of his days. 
The early settlers knowing that he was 
a white man by birth, but ignorant of 
his captivity and its effects, very natu- 
 296 



WATSON'S MAGAZINE. 
rally hated and despised him as a renegade. The term, however, does not 
apply to him in its infamous sense as it 
applies to Elliott and McKee, who had 
nothing whatever in common with the 
Indians, while Girty was one of them 
in almost everything but complexion. 
He was more of a savage than a renegade; more of a Brandt than an Elliott, 



and took part in the forays and outrages against the whites, not with the 
cowardice and mean malice of an outcast, but as a leader of his adopted people, and with the bravery and open 
hatred of an Indian. He was substantially an Indian; was neither better nor worse than an Indian, and 
should in the main be judged as such..."