U.S. Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on the following page: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Girty, Simon (1741-1818) ------------------------------------------------------------------- History of Harrison County, West Virginia, From the Early Days of Northwestern Virginia to the Present. by Henry Haymond Acme Publishing Company, Morgantown, W.Va., 1910 Pages 394-395 Simon Girty. This white renegade by his assisting and encouraging parties of savages to murder women and children, was the terror of the Virginia frontier and the most despised and hated man in the employ of the British Government. He was born on the Susquehanna River in 1741. His father, Thomas Girty, was an Indian Trader and was killed by an Indian in a drunken row in 1751. This Indian was in turn killed by John Turner a friend of Girty's, who in 1753 married the widow Girty. In 1756 a party of French and Indians invaded the settlements on the Juniata, and killed and captured many of the settlers. Among those captured was John Turner his wife and family, including the four Girty boys. The prisoners were taken to the Indian villages on the Allegheny River near the present town of Kittaning. Here John Turner was tortured to death in the presence of his family. Girty remained with the savages until the capture of Fort Duquesne from the French in 1758. After his surrender he remained in the vicinity being employed by the Military authorities as an interpreter. When the Revolution broke out he took sides with the colonies. Alexander McKee, who lived at MfcKees Rocks just below Fort Pitt and who had been employed as a British Indian Agent, on the night of March 28, 1778 with a small party, one of them being Simon Girty, who was won over by McKee, escaped down the river in canoes and finally reached Detroit, which was the British Military Headquarters for operations against the American frontier. Girty was at once given employment as an interpreter and for years spent most of his time with the Indians under the orders of the Military Commandant, engaged in scouting and leading small parties of savages against the settlers. Even after the close of the Revolutionary War, he still took part in the Indian wars being present at St. Clair's defeat in 1791 and against General Wayne in 1794, although he was then a British subject and there was peace between the two nations. When the Americans took possession of Detroit in 1796 this ended Girty's operations among the Indians on this side of the line, and he settled on the Canadian side, but still being employed by the British in Indian matters. In the war of 1812 when Detroit was captured by the British, Girty paid a visit to the town, it being the first time he had been on American soil since 1796, and he celebrated the event by getting gloriously drunk. He died in 1818, to the last being the inveterate enemy of his former countrymen. On several occasions he used his influence to save white prisoners from being tortured, and caused some of them to be released from captivity. This can be said to his credit, but in all other respects he was a white Indian, possessed of all the brutal instincts of the savage. ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you've reached this file through a SEARCH, you can access other biographies for Harrison County, WV by going to the following URL: http://www.us-data.org/wv/harrison/bios.html -------------------------------------------------------------------