He soon rose to have a great and bad influence on all the tribes.

He became noted for his assisting the Indians in marauds, for his midnight forays, for his scalpings, and his efforts to capture white women, and for his devilish cunning and cruelty.
For many years Girty was the Deathshead of the frontier.

The mention of his name alone created terror in any household; in every pioneer's cabin it made the children cry out in fear and paled the cheeks of the stoutest-hearted wife.
It is difficult to conceive of a white man's being such a fiend in human guise.

The only explanation that can be given is that renegades rage against the cause of their own blood with the fury of insanity rather than with the malignity of a naturally ferocious temper.

In justice to Simon Girty it must be said that facts not known until his death showed he was not so cruel and base as believed; that some deeds of kindness were attributed to him; that he risked his life to save Kenton from the stake, and that many of the terrible crimes laid at his door were really committed by his savage brothers.
Isaac Zane suffered no annoyance at the hands of Cornplanter's braves until the seventh day of his imprisonment.