e emigration to Kentucky, by way of the Ohio River, in the year
1785, would seem to give color to this opinion. But if the intention
ever was seriously indulged, it is most likely that fear of the
treatment he would receive on being recognized in the frontier
settlements, on account of his many bloody enormities, prevented him
from carrying it into effect. He remained with the Indians in Ohio till
Wayne's victory, when he forsook the scenes of his former influence and
savage greatness, and established himself somewhere in Upper Canada.
He fought in the bloody engagement which terminated in the defeat and
butchery of St. Clair's army in 1791, and was at the battle of the
Fallen Timbers in 1794; but he had no command in either of those
engagements, and was not at this time a man of any particular influence.

In Canada, Girty was something of a trader, but gave himself up almost
wholly to intoxicating drinks, and became a perfect sot. At this time
he suffered much from rheumatism and other diseases; but he had grown
a great braggart, and amidst his severest pains he would entertain his
associates, and all who were willing to listen, with stories of his past
pranks and cruelty. He had now the most exaggerated notions of the honor
attaching to the character of a great warrior; and for some years before
his death his constantly-expressed wish was, that he might find an
opportunity of signalizing his last years by some daring action, and
die upon the field of battle. Whether sincere in this wish or not, the
opportunity was afforded him. He fought with the Indians at Proctor's
defeat on the Thames in 1814, and was among those who were here cut
down and trodden under foot by Colonel Johnson's regiment of mounted
Kentuckians.

Of the birth-place and family of Simon Girty we have not been able to
procure any satisfactory information. It is generally supposed, from
the fact that nearly all of his early companions were Virginians, that
he was a native of the Old Dominion; but one of the early pioneers,
(yet living in Franklin County,) who knew Girty at Pittsburg before his
defection, thinks that his native State was Pennsylvania. This venerable
gentleman is likewise of the opinion, that it was the disappointment
of not getting an office to which he aspired that first filled Girty's
breast with hatred of the whites, and roused in him those dark thoughts
and bitter feelings which subsequently, on the occurrence of the first
good oppo