first saw the area a decade before while he was held as a prisoner with the Shawnee and vowed that if he survived, he would return. In April 1799, Kenton and his associate, Colonel William Ward, led a group of families from Mason County, Kentucky to an area between present-day Springfield and Urbana, Ohio. In 1810, Kenton moved to Urbana, Ohio, where he achieved the rank of brigadier general of the state militia. He served in the War of 1812 as both a scout and as leader of a militia group in the Battle of the Thames in 1813. This was the battle in which the Indian chief Tecumseh was killed. Kenton was chosen to identify Tecumseh's body, but recognizing both Tecumseh and another fallen warrior named Roundhead, and seeing soldiers gleefully eager to carve up Tecumseh's body into souvenirs, he identified Roundhead as the chief. Marriage and family Kenton married Martha Dowden and they had four children together. After she died in a house fire, the widower married Elizabeth Jarboe as his second wife. He had six children with her. Prior to his first marriage, Simon's first son (Simon Ruth Kenton) was born to Christina Ruth in 1773. Kenton died in (and was initially buried at) New Jerusalem in Logan County, Ohio. His body was later moved to Urbana, Ohio. Later, his widow Elizabeth Jarboe Kenton and a number of their children moved to northwestern Indiana, to an area straddling Jasper, White, and Pulaski Counties. It was heavily settled by families who migrated from Champaign County, Ohio, where Kenton is buried. Namesakes Simon Kenton is the namesake of Kenton, the county seat of northwestern Ohio's Hardin County. Kenton County, Kentucky, is named for him, as is Simon Kenton High School in Independence, the county seat. A statue honoring him was erected in Covington, Kentucky's Riverside Drive Historic District, overlooking the Ohio River. Simon Kenton Elementary Schools were named in Xenia and Springfield, Ohio. Singer/songwriter Tyler Childers wrote the song "Middle Ground" in reference to Kenton and his expeditions. Simon Kenton Post #20 in Elsmere, Kentucky, of the Kentucky Department of the American Legion is named in his honor. Simon Kenton Road is a residential street at the base of Bull Run Mountain in Prince William County, Virginia. The Boy Scouts of America have the Simon Kenton Council, a division covering central Ohio to northern Kentucky. In the Frontiersman Camping