Simon Girty - In literature

American soldier, born near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA. Illiterate and brutal, he deserted the Continental army in 1778 to fight with the British and their Indian allies in the Northwest Territory. Known as ‘the great renegade’, he had many atrocities charged to him, including the burning at the stake of a captured American officer. He fled to Canada after the war, from where he continued to foment Indian resistance to European settlement in Ohio and Michigan.

Simon Girty (1741 – February 18, 1818) was an American colonial of Scots-Irish ancestory who served as a liaison between the British and their Native American allies during the American Revolution.

Born in Pennsylvania, Girty and his brothers were taken prisoners when still children by the Senecas and adopted by them. It would be 7 years before Girty returned to his family, during which time he had come to prefer the Native American way of life.

Girty was present during the torture and execution of Colonel William Crawford by Native American leader Captain Pipe.

Girty is also credited with saving the lives of many American prisoners of the natives, often by buying their freedom at his own expense.

After the end of the war, Simon Girty settled in Canada. Despite popular myths to the contrary, Simon Girty had no part in that war, except as a refugee when the British retreated from Fort Malden. Girty returned to his farm after the war, and died completely blind in 1818.

In literature

Simon Girty served as one of the jury members in Stephen Vincent Benet's The Devil and Daniel Webster. The story gives a highly biased view of him: "Simon Girty, the renegade, who saw white men burned at the stake and whooped with the Indians to see them burn" - which is needed for the story's dramatic purposes, as all members of that jury, called by Satan, are supposed to be the worst villains of American history. Canadian playwright Ed Butts wrote a play entitled The Fame of Simon Girty.