Kenton, Ohio
Kenton is the county seat of Hardin County, Ohio. Kenton became the county seat in 1833, the same year that the state legislature created Hardin County. Residents named the county seat in honor of frontiersman Simon Kenton.
In 1840, Kenton only had three hundred inhabitants. Six years later, the town consisted of just two churches, twelve stores, one newspaper office, one saw mill, one grist mill, and an iron foundry. Located on the Scioto River and along the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad, Kenton grew quickly. By 1880, almost four thousand people resided in the town. In 1886, four newspaper offices, eight churches, and three banks existed in Kenton. The largest employer in the town was the Champion Iron Fence Company with 125 employees. Numerous other businesses existed in the community, the majority of which manufactured goods for or processed the crops of farmers in the surrounding countryside. Today, Hardin County residents continue to be involved in farming, with Kenton’s inhabitants working in various businesses designed to meet the needs of their agricultural neighbors. With a population of 8,336 people, Kenton was the county’s largest community in 2000. Over twenty-five percent of Hardin County’s inhabitants lived in Kenton.
Simon Kenton
Simon Kenton was born April 3, 1755, in Fauquier County, Virginia. He grew up helping his father on their family farm and therefore had no opportunity to go to school. At the age of sixteen, Kenton became involved in a fight involving a woman. Believing he had killed a man, he fled to Ohio where he changed his name to Simon Butler.
Kenton spent the next two years hunting along the Ohio River. In 1774, he served as a scout during Lord Dunmore's War. By 1775, Kenton had moved to Boonesborough, Kentucky. For the next few years he was employed as a scout for the settlement, often coming in contact with the local Indians and at one point saving the life of Daniel Boone.
During the American Revolution, Kenton participated in a number of military engagements against the British and Indians. In 1778, he joined George Rogers Clark on an expedition down the Ohio River to the Mississippi, harassing British outposts as well as Indian settlements. Returning home, he accompanied Daniel Boone in an attack on the Shawnee Indians' settlement at Chillicothe. That same year, Kenton was captured by Indians who tortured him and attempted to burn him at the stake. Simon Girty rescued him and, instead of being killed, Kenton was sent to Fort Detroit as part of a prisoner trade with the British. By mid-1779, Kenton was once again free and had returned to service under George Rogers Clark. In 1782, he discovered that the man that he thought he had killed had actually lived, and therefore he was able to resume using his own name once again.
During the next several years Kenton lived a relatively quiet life. He settled near Maysville, Kentucky, marrying Martha Dowden and purchasing some large tracts of land. This life continued until 1794, when Kenton served in the militia under General Anthony Wayne and fought at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. After the death of his wife, Kenton remarried in 1798 and, the same year, moved to Ohio. He first lived near present-day Springfield but a few years later settled in Urbana. Kenton's military career continued, and by 1805 he had become a brigadier generalin the Ohio militia. During the War of 1812, he participated in the Battle of the Thames.
Kenton moved to the Zanesfield, Ohio, area circa 1820. During the last years of his life, Kenton lived in poverty because of land ownership disputes and mismanagement of his money. He survived on a government pension of twenty dollars a month. In 1836, Kenton died in Logan County near Zanesfield and was buried there, but in 1865, his remains were moved to Urbana. The state of Ohio constructed a monument to mark his grave in 1884.
On the Web: www.kentoncity.com