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rARBOH i

Presented to the

LIBRARY of the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

by

Ontario Legislative Library

"HUR H. ChARK COMPANY .l.<'rsan(i nookiellera, 1

DM'

CHRISTOPHER GIST'S JOURNALS '■'''^^

■.' '* WITH

f-

HISTORICAL, GEOGRAPHICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL NOTES

AND

Biographies of his Contemporaries

BY

WILLIAM M. DARLINGTON

9i

'^ ''^^V.?J #^ PITTSBURGH

f);^?"""'" J. R. WELDIN & CO.

•89?

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Introductory Memoir 9

Gist's Three Journals 3'

Christopher Gist 88

Notes to Christopher Gist's First Journal of 1750-51 90

Notes to Gist's Second Journal, 1751-52 i37

Notes to Christopher Gist's Third Journal, 1753 i47

A Journal Descriptive of Some of the French Forts 148

The Montours 'S^

Andrew Montour '59

George Croghan *76

Thomas Cresap 202

General James Grant 207

Guyasuta 2'°

Treaty of Lancaster 217

Ohio Company 220

Walpole Grant 241

Wm. Trent & Co 245

Captain Trent 249

John Peter Salley 253

Scheme for a New Settlement 261

Robert Orme 267

Extracts from Analysis of Map ; . . . . 271

Pownall's Account of Lead Plate 273

Ensign Ward's Deposition 275

Letters and Speeches to Indians 279

INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR.

The riches realized by Spain and Portugal in the sixteenth century from their newly acquired possessions in America excited amongst enterprising Englishmen a determination to establish colonies in that part of the Northern Continent extending from Canada to Florida, claimed for England in right of its discovery by the Cabots ; also, to seek new dis- coveries, and especially a short passage through the interior of the country to the South Sea.

In April, 1585, colonists were sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh, and in the following month of August they landed on the island of Roanoke, on the eastern border of the present State of North Carolina, and there commenced the first English settlement in America. After exploring the neighboring rivers and sounds, they were induced by the relation of the Indians respecting the river Meratue (Roanoke) to attempt its exploration and endeavor to reach the head thereof, which the natives told them sprang from a huge rock near the sea, thirty or forty days' voyage westward, and " in that abundance that it forth- with maketh a most violent stream."

In March, 1586, Governor Ralph Lane, with two boats and forty men, ascended the river about one hundred miles (near to the present town of Halifax), hoping, as he afterwards wrote, for the discovery of a gold mine or a passage to the South Sea ; but they were assailed by hostile Indians and so nearly starved that " they ate their two mastiff dogs boiled

a (9)

10 CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNALS.

with Sassafras leaves, and were compelled to return." ' Their voyage is memorable for being the earliest attempt by the English to explore the interior of America from the Atlantic westward. The relation of the Indians to the col- onists has been stigmatized by historians as "extravagant tales, which nothing but cupidity could have credited."'' Now as the Roanoke, by its meanderings, is four hundred miles in length, thirty to forty days would be required to ascend to its source. Its various head springs, on the main ridge of the Alleghenies, in Montgomery County, Virginia, are scarce a mile from the waters of the Kanawha, or New River, and but eight miles from its main channel. The rela- tion of the Indians was, in this respect at least, true, for the Roanoke does "forthwith make a most violent stream;" issuing by numerous creeks from this elevated tract and unit- ing into one body, it soon becomes the "rapid Roanoke," and on reaching Salem, in Roanoke County, " has fallen one thou- sand feet in little more than twenty miles." '

The natives, probably, meant, if their " tales " were rightly interpreted, that the head of the Roanoke was near another stream whose waters flowed to another and distant sea. The city, rich with gold and pearls, they called Chaunis Temocatan, was Mexico or Tetuan, its ancient name.

Discouraged by the prospect, the colonists abandoned their settlement and returned to England, with the fleet of Sir Francis Drake, in the following month of June. Subsequent attempts by Raleigh and some of his associates to re-estab- lish the colony at Roanoke failed disastrously, almost ruining the fortune of the illustrious author of the project.

1 Hakluyt's " Voyages," Vol. III. Lane and Harriot's Relation. » Bancroft's " History of the United States," Vol. I, p. 99. Burke's "History of Virginia," Vol. I, p. 56. « Martin's "Geographical Gazetteer of Virginia," p. 53.

INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. II

\

Twenty years later, on May 14, 1606, the first permanent settlement by the English in America commenced at James- town, on the Powhatan or James River, and a week thereafter Captain Christopher Newport, with Captain John Smith and a company of twenty-three persons, sailed in a shallop from "James Fort " up the river, "with a perfect resolution not to return, but either to finde the heade of this ryver, the lake mentioned by others heretofore, the Sea againe, the moun- taynes Apalatsi or some issue."'

They reached the Falls, at the site of the present city of Richmond, and on an islet in the river erected a wooden cross and proclaimed King James "with a greate showte.'" The Governing Council in England had instructed them that the "Discovery of the South Sea (Pacific) as the certain and infallible way to immense riches was an object of which they were ever solicitous and intent." '

The successful establishment of the colony was of much less importance than searching for mines of gold or explora- tions westward by means of navigable rivers. In the summer of the following year Captain John Smith explored the Chesa- peake Bay to the Susquehanna, entering into all the rivers and inlets as far as he could sail, of all of which he constructed an admirable map. In the fall of the same year Captain Newport returned from a visit to England with a private com- mission " Not to return without a lump of gold, a certainty of the South Sea, or one of the lost colony of Sir Walter Raleigh." He also had a large barge built, in five pieces, for convenience of carriage beyond the Falls, to convey them to« the South Sea. With a number of boats and one hundred

1 Captain Newport's " Discoveries," 1607. British State Paper Office. "Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society," Vol. IV, p. 40.

2 Id., p. 47. Smith's "Virginia," Vol. I, p. 151. ' Smith's "Virginia," p. 43.

12 CHRISTOPHER GISTS JOURNALS.

and twenty men he ascended the river to the Falls, and thence explored by land about forty miles farther on the south side of the stream to two towns of the Monacan Indians, return- ing, wearied and disappointed, by the same path after an inef- fectual search for rich mines. The " quartered boat " was too cumbrous to be carried around the Falls, as Smith states, by even five hundred men, sarcastically adding " that if burned to ashes one might have carried her in a bag." ' The desire for further exploration seems to have subsided for many years ; wars with the natives, their own dissensions, a con- stant struggle for the means of subsistence, and the cultiva- tion of tobacco occupied the attention of the colonists. In 1624 the petition of the Virginia Company to the House of Commons enumerates among other advantages accruing to England in their view and expectation, by the success of the colony, is the " no small hopes of an early and short passage to the South Sea, either by Sea or Land."

The prevailing illusion respecting the short distance across the continent was not entirely dispelled until near the close of the century and after the discovery and exploration of the Mississippi by the French became generally known.

Sir William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia, was informed by the Indians, in 1648, " that within five dayes journey to the Westward and by South there is a great high mountaine, and at foot thereof great Rivers that run into a great Sea ; and that there are men that come hither in ships, (but not the same that ours be) they wear apparell and have reed caps on their heads, and ride on Beasts like our horses, but have much longer ears, and other circumstances they declare for the cer- tainty of these things." ^ These rivers, doubtless, were those

> Smith's " History," Vol. I, p. 201.

.2 «j^ Perfect Description of Virginia," 1649, Vol. Ill, of Tracts, p. 13. Also in Massachusetts Historical Society Collection, Vol. IX, Second Series, p. 105.

INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. 1 3

now known as the Kanawha, Kentucky, Cumberland and Tennessee, whose waters flow from the western slope of the Allegheny Mountains to the Ohio and Mississippi and into the Gulf of Mexico, long before frequented by Spaniards. Governor Berkeley made preparations for discovery in person, with a company of fifty horse and fifty footmen, but abandoned the enterprise, probably in consequence of the disastrous results to the king in his contest with the Parliament engag- ing his attention — Berkeley being a firm Royalist.

The author of a tract — entitled " A Perfect Description of Virginia, etc.,"' published in London in 1649, wrote, that "for their better knowledge of the Land they dwell in, the Planters resolve to make a further Discovery into the Country, West and by South up above the Fall, and we are confident upon what they have learned from the Indians to find a way to a West or South Sea by Land or rivers, and to discover a way to China and East Indies, or unto some other Sea that shall carry them thither ; " and that " Sir Francis Drake was on the back of Virginia in his Voyage about the World in 37 degrees just opposite to Virginia, and called Nova Albion. And now all the question is only how broad the Land may be to that place from the head of James River above the Falls, but all men conclude if it be not narrow, yet that there is and will be found the like rivers issuing into a South Sea or West Sea on the other side of those Hills, as there is on this side, when they run from the West into an East Sea, after a course of 150 miles,"

Prior to Governor Berkeley's administration, Walter Austin and others obtained from the Assembly, in 1642, the passage of an Act, authorizing them " to undertake the discovery of a new river or unknown land, bearing west, southerly from Appo-

1" Force's Tracts," Vol. II. Massachusetts Historical Collection, Vol. IX, Second Series, p. 105.

14 CHRISTOPHER GIST S JOURNALS.

matake River."' It does not appear, however, that any attempt at exploration was made until the year 1650, when Edward Bland having petitioned the Assembly and obtained like authority in August and September of that year, in company with Edward Pennant, Abrahame Wood and Sackford Brew- ster, two Indian chiefs as guides, and two servants, explored southwest from Appomattox (now Petersburgh) to the Falls of Roanoke, or as they named the rapids, Blandina, above and near the present city of Halifax, North Carolina, and not far above the point on that river reached by Raleigh's colonists, sixty-five years before. This discovery was deemed of such importance as to occasion, in the year following, the publica- tion in London of a narrative of the journey. In 1652 Col- onel William Clayborne, Captain Henry Fleet, and their associ- ates, were authorized by the Assembly to make discoveries, "and take up lands by pattents and enjoy benefits and trades as they shall find out in places where no English have ever been and discovered." The same day "the like order is granted to Major Abra Wood and his associates."

In the following year, the Assembly authorized any per- sons "to discover the Mountains, Provided they go with a considerable partie and strength, both of men and ammuni- tion."^ No farther attempt at exploration seems to have been made until the year 1669, when John Lederer, a German Sur- geon, commissioned by Governor Berkeley to make discoveries, on March 9th, with three Indians, left the Falls of Pemen- cock (Pamunky) on York River, from an Indian village called Schickehanini — probably the old Indian town near the now noted "White House."* The next day he passed through the marshy grounds between the Pamunky and head-waters of

'"Laws of Virginia," p. 267.

^ " Oldmixon's British Empire in America," Vol. I, p. 382.

5 Jefferson, 1751.

INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. 15

the Matenenenhah (Mattepony), in the present King William County, and crossed the Pamunky at its head/ formed by the confluence of the North and South Anna Rivers, in Hanover County.'' Continuing along the South Anna River, on the 13th he reached the first spring of the Pamunky,' a head of the South Anna, near the present Gordonsville. On the 14th he discovered from a high hill,* the "Apelatean" Mountains' to the west. Next day, the iSth, they passed over the South Branch of the Rappahannock, or Rapid Anne River," and on the 17th reached the Blue Ridge, in the present county of Madison. He ascended to the top of the mountain and found it very cold, with much snow ; noticed the high mountain ranges westward and the Atlantic Ocean southeastward ; descended and returned by the course he went out.

On the 20th of May, 1670, Lederer began his second expe- dition, in company with one Major Harris,' twenty Christian horsemen and five Indians. They marched from the Falls of James River to the Monakin^ village, probably the same as marked on Fry and Jefferson's Map of 1751, on James River, in the present county of Cumberland, and continued westward one hundred miles farther to what he calls "the south branch of James River," and which " Major Harris vainly supposed to be an arm of the Lake of Canada," as he observed it ran

» In 1656.

^ The peninsula between these two rivers he mentions bears the name of Tottopottemen, a great Indian king, slain in battle for the whites against their Indian enemies.

' A small creek that still bears this name. , * Southwest mountain in Orange County.

5 Blue Ridge.

^ In Orange County.

' Major William Harris of the Regiment of Charles City and Henrico Counties.

* Tuscarora.

l6 CHRISTOPHER GISX's JOURNALS.

northward, " and was inclined to erect a pillar in memory of the Discovery." It seems evident from the description, dis- tance given and his map, that they had reached the James River, at its bend to the north, a few miles east from the the present city of Lynchburg, in Campbell County. Here he parted from his company, excepting one Susquehanna Indian, and then went south to the Roanoke, to the Island and town of Akenatzi^ where he was well received. Here he met four strange Indians, survivors of fifty who had come, Lederer says, "from some land by the Sea to the northwest," (probably the great Lakes.) He calls them Rickahickans and states that " they were treacherously killed in the night by the Indians of Akenatzi." He conjectured that these strange Indians came from an arm or bay of the Sea of California, which he sup- posed stretched up into the continent. From Akenatzi he journeyed southward into Carolina and thence returned to Akamatuch.

These strange Indians, or Rickahickans, doubtless were fugitives of the tribe known as Eries, or the Nation of the Cat, whose country was on the south shore of Lake Erie. They were conquered and destroyed as a nation by the Iro- quois in 1654-5.

The Fathers call the tribe Riguehronnous, or those of the Cat Nation.'' The considerable number of the defeated Eries or Rickahickans appear to have reached Virginia in 1655, about which time the Iroquois completed their conquest.' A

1 On " Fry and Jefferson's " Map the Occoneachy is laid down at the junction of the Staunton (Roanoke) and Dan Rivers, in the present Meck- lenburg County. See also " Byrd's Journey to the Land of Eden." Rich- mond, 1866, p. 5.

2 "Jesuit Relations," 1660, p. 7, Vol. III. Id., 1661, p. 29.

» See Charlevoix's " History of New France," Vol. II, p. 266 and note. Parkman's "Jesuits in America," pp. 438-441.

INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. I?

special law was passed to remove by force "the new-come western and inland Indians drawn from the Mountaines and lately sett downe near the falls of James River to the number of six or seven hundred.'"

Captain Edward Hill, at the head of lOO men, assisted by Tottopottemen, King of the Pomukies, with lOO warriors, attacked the Rickahickans. The allies were defeated, Totto- pottemen slain. Captain Hill was cashiered for his conduct and his estate charged with the cost of procuring a peace with the Rickahickans. It is probable that with the fugitive Eries were some of the Neutres and Hurons, kindred tribes, and also routed by the Iroquois.'

On August 30th of the same year, Lederer again set out, in company with Captain Collet, nine Englishmen and five Indians. They first went to the Falls of Rappahannock, near the present Fredericksburg ; next day they passed the junction of the Rapid Anna, in Culpepper County, and keeping along the north side of the Rappahannock, on the 26th reached the Blue Ridge, in the present county of Rappahannock; there they ascended the summit of the mountain, observed and noted the great mountain range east and west. The cold prevented them from proceeding any farther, and they re- turned, having penetrated much farther northwestward than any one previously. Inconsiderable as the distance may now seem, Lederer was convinced those persons were in error who supposed it but eight or ten days' journey from the At- lantic to the Indian Ocean, and that an arm or bay of the Sea of California extended up into the country. Nor were there to be found on the west of the mountains large rivers, like

' Hening, p. 402.

' Hening, p. 423, Burke's "History of Virginia," Vol. II, pp. 104-107. See also Galletin, in " Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society," Vol. II, p. 73. Evan's "Analysis," 1755, p. 13.

l8 CHRISTOPHER GIST'S JOURNALS.

those on the east. His opinions evidently were changed by the information obtained from the unfortunate stranger or Erie Indians.

In the year 1671, under authority of Governor Berkeley, a commission was granted by Major-General Abrahame Wood, "for ye finding out of the ebbing and flowing of ye water behind the mountains in order to the Discovery of the South Sea." Accordingly, Thomas Batts, Thomas Woods and Robert Fallam, with Jack Nesan, servant, and Perecute, chief of the Appomattox Indians, as guide, left the town of Appomattox, near where Petersburgh now stands, on the first day of September, 1671, and travelling westward, on the 4th arrived at the " Sapong Town," in the present county of Charlotte, near the little Roanoke River ; there they were joined by seven Appomattox Indians and a Sapon also, as a guide, and by nightfall of the day following, the 5th, they reached the " Hanohaski " ^ Indian town, on an island in the Sapon River, (evidently the Long Island in the Roanoke, op- posite the mouth of Seneca Creek, in Campbell County). On the next day they recommenced their journey, leaving Thomas Woods at the Indian town " dangerously sick."

On the 7th they came in sight of the mountains (the Blue Ridge, in Bedford County) ; on the 8th and 9th they passed along the Roanoke River and over the Blue Ridge. Arriving at a town of the Totero Indians "encircled about with mountains" (probably near the site of Salem in Roanoke County), they remained three days, resting. On the 12th they " set forward afoot leaving their horses at the Totero town," and travelling south and north, as the path went, over several high mountains and deep, descending valleys. Several times crossing the Roanoke River, by four o'clock in the afternoon, Perecute's ague and their own weariness made them encamp 1 Akenatzi ?

INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. 19

" by the side of the Roanoke, very near the head thereof, at the foot of a very high peat mountain."'

On the 13th they ascended a very high and steep mountain (probably Craig's Creek Mountain, in Craig County) and con- tinuing a northwest course over mountains (evidently Potts' and Peters' Mountains) and " many small streams and rich meadows with grass above a man's hight," they came to a very steep descent, where they found a great current that emptied itself, as they supposed, into the great river " Nuth- uardly ; " they encamped in the evening by the side of this "great current" (probably the Greenbrier River). On the 14th, their path continued north by west (in the present County of Greenbrier) ; they saw " to the southwest a curious prospect of hills like waves," and " Mr. Batts supposed he saw houses, but Mr. Fallam rather took them to be white cliffs," as doubtless they were the limestone cliffs on New River ; " they marched about twenty miles this day."

On the 15th "they came to a large current, it emptied itself W. and by N. as they supposed into a. great river," (prob- ably the Meadow or main fork of the Gauley River, between the counties of Nicholas and Fayette). On the i6th they travelled ten miles, when " they had sight of a curious river like the Thames at Chelsea, but had a fall that made a great noise ; its course was North and they supposed ran west about certain pleasant mountains which they saw to the westward." Here they found Indian fields with cornstalks in them and understood afterward three Mohetans (Monakens or Tusca- roras) had lived there not long before. They found the river broad as the Thames at Wapping. They supposed by the marks that it flowed there about three feet, but ebbed very slowly.'

1 Probably the North Mountain, in the county of Montgomery.

2 Clayton, 1688. Force's Tracts, Vol. Ill, p. 20.

30 CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNALS.

On the 17th they proclaimed the King in these words : " Long live King Charles ye 2d King of England Scotland France Ireland and Virginia and all the teritory thereunto belonging ; deffender of ye faith." Guns were fired and with a pair of marking irons they marked trees " ist C R " for his Sacred Majesty ; " 2d W B " for the governor ; " 3d A W " for the Major-General, Abrahame Wood ; another for Perecute, and also for the rest of the company.

They had reached the Kanawha at the Great Falls, eighty miles from the Ohio River. On their return to the town of the Toteros they found a Mohetan (Tuscarora) Indian, who was sent to inquire the object of their journey ; satisfying him with a little powder, he informed them they had been from the mountains half way to that town, and at the next town beyond there was a level plain with abundance of salt. (This description applies correctly to the locality, as the Falls are about half way by the road from Sewall's mountain to the Salines, above Charleston, where there are wide river bot- toms.)

They left the Toteros on the 21st and on the 24th reached the Hanahaskis (Long Island) where they found Mr. Woods was dead and buried. Continuing homeward by the Sapong town and the Appomattox town they arrived safe at Fort Henry on the 1st of October. This journey is remarkable for being the very earliest exploration, by the English, to the waters of the Ohio, and about the same time of the discovery of that stream claimed by La Salle at the Falls of the Ohio.

It has been incorrectly noticed by various authors : Bev- erley's " History of Virginia, 1722," p. 62. Burke's ditto, as in Beverley. In Coxe's "Carolina, Florida and the River Mississippi," published in 1722, it is stated, p. 120, that Colo- nel Wood, inhabiting at the Falls of James River from the year 1654 to 1664, discovered at several times several branches

INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. il

of the great rivers Ohio and Meschacehe, " and further that he was possessed, about twenty years ago, of the Journal of Mr. Needham, employed by the aforesaid Colonel." Campbell's " Virginia," pp. 268, 9. See also " State of the British Colo- nies in North America, 1755," p. 118.

The Kanawha was first known to the whites as " Wood's River," so called for Colonel Abrahame Wood, the originator of the expedition which discovered it. (" Contest in America, by an impartial hand," London, 1757, p. 176.) On Fry and Jefferson's Map of Virginia of 1751 it is marked "Great Ken- haway," called also "Wood's River" and "New River," North American Review, January, 1839. Parkman's "Dis- covery of the Great West." Introduction, p. 20, " The Jour- nal and Relation of a New Discovery made behind the Apu- leian Mountains, to the West of Virginia Plantations." Gene- ral Papers, State Paper Office, i, 21. "New York Colonial History," Vol. Ill, p. 193.

No further attempt at discovery or exploration westward was made for many years, although away at the north, in 1677, Wentworth Greenhalgh journeyed westward from Al- bany to the Seneca villages, near the Genesee River. Nar- rated in the " New York Colonial History," Vol. Ill, p. 250. In 1709, and for several years subsequent, it was not known that the Potomac River flowed through the Blue Ridge.^

In August, 17 16, Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, with a company of about fifty persons, gentlemen, rangers, Indians and servants, made his famous transmontane expedition of discovery.

Proceeding from Williamsburgh to Germantown, ten miles below the Falls of Rappahannock (the present Fredericks- burgh), and thence by easy stages, with much feasting and parade, on the thirty-sixth day the party reached the summit

'Byrd MSS., Vol. II, p. 125. Richmond, 1866.

22 CHRISTOPHER GIST S JOURNALS.

of the Appalachian Mountains (Blue Ridge), at the pass now known as the " Swift's Run Gap," in the counties of Madison and Rockingham ; thence they descended to the Shenandoah River, which they named the " Euphrates ; " crossed it, re- turned, and encamped on the right bank, at "Spotswood Camp," named for the Governor. Returning, they arrived at home on the 17th of September, after an absence of sixteen weeks, Four years afterwards the new county of Spotsylvania was formed, with the Shenandoah for its western boundary.'

Colonel William Byrd, one of the most intelligent and ac- complished men in Virginia, wrote in 1729 that "we hardly know anything of the Apalatean mountains that are no where above two hundred and fifty miles from the sea," ^ and farther "that the Sources of the Potomac, Roanoke and even of the She- nandoah are unknown to the Virginian authorities ; although woodsmen tell them they head in the same mountains with a branch of Mississippi." Colonel Byrd calls this "conjectured Geography." '

In 1728 Colonel Wm. Byrd and the Commissioners of Vir- ginia and North Carolina surveyed the dividing line between these two provinces from Currituck Inlet, on the Atlantic, westward in a straight line two hundred and forty-one miles to Peter's Creek, in the present county of Patrick. Twenty- one years later, in 1749, Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson, with the Commissioners of North Carolina, surveyed the line ninety miles further, to " Steep Rock Creek," the White Top or Laurel Fork, of Holston River, in the present county of Grayson, and in 1779 Dr. Thomas Walker and Daniel Smith

•Journal of John Fontaine, in the " Memoirs of a Huguenot Family," New York, 1872. Jones' " Present State of Virginia," 1724, p. 14. Camp- bell's " History of Virginia," i860, p. 387. Hening's " Statutes of Vir- ginia," Vol. IV, p. 77.

2 Burke's "History of Virginia," Vol. Ill, p. 114.

'Byrd's "Virginia," Vol. I, p. 137. Richmond, 1S66.

INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. 23

continued the survey of the line from Steep Rock Creek to the Tennessee River. The boundary-line between the States of Kentucky and Tennessee, from the Tennessee River to the Mississippi, was run in 1819.'

In the report made in August, 1737, of the " Proceedings of the Commissioners to Lay out the Bounds of the Northern Neck " ' of Virginia, or Lord Fairfax's Grant, it appears that they employed Colonel Wm. Mayo, who, at the head of a party of surveyors, in 1736, explored and surveyed the Co- hongoronta, or Potomac, up to its head spring, in a ridge of the Alleghenies, at the southwest point of the boundary between Virginia and Maryland. Near it they found waters flowing northward into the Monongahela River, the southern fork of the upper Ohio. At that point, " the spring head of the Potomac, the Fairfax Stone was placed by the Commis. sioners at a subsequent survey in 1746." '

The first of our American race who seem to have pene- trated the canebrakes of what has since been termed Ken- tucky, were Dr. Walker and Christopher Gist, both of Vir- ginia, and James Smith, of Pennsylvania. Thomas Walker was born in King and Queen County, Virginia, in 17 10. He studied medicine and became a skilful physician. His home was at Castle Hill, Albemarle County. He was an ex- tensive land speculator. In 1748 he went on a tour of dis- covery down the Holston. In the month of March, 1750, in company with five others, he started upon a trip to explore the country west of the back settlements of Virginia. Be- fore his return he penetrated far into the present State of

* " History of the Dividing Line," in Byrd, Vol. I.

' Fry and Jefferson's Map of Virginia. " Report of Survey." Hen- ing's " Statutes," Vol. IX, p. 562.

'Byrd, Vol.11. Mayo's Map, 173. Faulkner's Report, in Kercheral's " History of the Valley of Virginia."

24 CHRISTOPHER GIST S JOURNALS.

Kentucky. His party in April erected a small cabin in what is now Knox County, the first one probably ever built by an American within the limits of that State. " Walker's Settle- ment" is noted on some of the old maps. He died at Castle Hill, in 1794. He ranked high in Virginia, as»is proved by his frequent appointments under that colony. He was with the Virginia troops at the defeat of Braddock, in 175s, of which he gave a graphic description to Judge Yeates, in August, 1776, on the battle-field. He was a member of the Virginia Assembly in 1758. In 1768, Commissioner from Virginia at the Treaty held at Fort Stanwix with the Indians of the Six Nations. In 1769 he was appointed, with Colonel Andrew Lewis, Commissioner, relative to settling a boundary- line with the Cherokees. He was at the head of the Com- mittee of Louisa County, May 8, 1775 ; also member of the Virginia Committee of Safety, and Delegate to the Conven- tion of Virginia, 1775-76, and to the House of Burgesses, in

1775-

To reconcile the conflicting statements relative to the pre- cise year of the first visit of Dr. Thomas Walker to the east- ern part of Kentucky is a difficult but not hopeless task. It appears that in 1747 Dr. Walker, with a small party, Colonel James Wood, Colonel James Pattin, Captain Charles Camp- bell, and others, having large grants of land to the west of the mountains, explored as far as Powell's Valley, in the present Lee County, southwestern Virginia, near the great Laurel Ridge of the Alleghenies, which he named the Cum- berland.

Misled by information as to the distance of the Ohio River and the correct course to be taken to reach it expeditiously, they turned northeastwardly and came to the heads of the Totery or Big Sandy River, in Buchanan County, which they named Frederick's River, after the Prince of Wales, (now Russell's

INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. 2$

Fork). Continuing the same course, they struck on the next Fork, which they named Louisa, a designation it still retains ; (on Evans' Map of 1755 it is made to flow to the Kanawha) passing thence eastward, after a toilsome journey along the foot of the mountain range and stream, in Giles and Bland Counties, called Walker's, to the New River, and thence to Albemarle County.

Lewis Evans, in his "Analysis of a Map of the Middle Colonies of 1755," says : "As for the branches of the Ohio, which head in the New Virginia, I am particularly obliged to Mr. Thomas Walker for the intelligence of what names they bear and what rivers they fall into northward and westward;" and at page 29 he mentions Louisa as a branch of the Ka- nawha, and so places it on the accompanying map.

The Valley of the Ohio remained unexplored and almost unknown for near two centuries after the discovery of Amer- ica in 1492.*

The Spaniard, Hernando De Soto, reached the Mississippi in 1 541, pausing with his forces on the eastern bank of the mighty stream but a few days, to build boats to cross it and continue westward in his fruitless search for a land abound- ing in gold and silver.' Jean Nicollet was the first to reach the waters of the upper Mississippi. In 1639 he ascended the Ottawa from the St. Lawrence;' thence across Lake Huron and through the Straits of Mackinaw to Green Bay, and up the Fox River to the portage across the Wisconsin River, but no further. The route by the Ottawa was usually taken by the French missionaries and fur traders, until 1669- 70, when they first traversed Lake Erie by its northern shore and thence by the Detroit River to Lake Huron.

* " Jesuit Relations," 1640.

' " Histoire de la Colonie Franfaise," i866.

* Charlevoix.

26 CHRISTOPHER GIST'S JOURNALS.

The Ohio, the " Beautiful River " of the Iroquois, was dis- covered by Robert Cavalier— the Sieur de la Salle— in 1670- 71. He was a native of Rouen, France; came to Canada and engaged in the fur trade. Being an ardent and indefatigable explorer and ambitious to discover new countries, he was authorized by Talon, the Intendant (Justice) of Canada, to explore southwest and south for the discovery of a passage to the South Sea. Among the Iroquois near Lake Ontario, in the present Western New York, he found a Shawnee prisoner who informed him of the Ohio.

Procuring a guide from the Onondagas, he proceeded to the Allegheny River and descended it and the Ohio as far as the Falls, at the site of the present city of Louisville, Ken- tucky.' Then, deserted by his men, he returned through the forests to Canada, subsisting on game and roots, and be- friended by the Indians he met on his way.' Three years later (1673) Marquette and Joliet reached the Mississippi by way of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers.^ They descended it as far as the mouth of the Arkansas and then returned." They saw the Ohio at its junction with the great river and noted it on their map and in their journal as the Oubaskison (Wabash), coming from the country inhabited by the Chouo- nans (Shawnese) in great numbers.

In 1682 La Salle made his great voyage of discovery, de- scending the Mississippi from the Illinois to its mouth ; on his way he remained a short time at the mouth of the Ohio, which was noted as being more than five hundred leagues in length, and the river by which the war parties of the Iroquois descended to make war against the Southern Nations.

' Gravier. « Ferland. 8 La Salle. * Charlevoix.

t

INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR, 27

On the shore of the Gulf of Mexico La Salle, with great ceremony, proclaimed possession taken for Louis XIV of all the country watered by the Mississippi, St. Louis, Ohio. Al- legheny, and their tributaries. For more than fifty years after Its discovery by La Salle, the Ohio above the Wabash was unavailable to the French as a route to the Mississippi owmgto the hostility of the Iroquois, in whose country ii had its source.

Early in the eighteenth century emigrants from Canada came by way of the Lakes to the head of Lake Michigan and thence to the Illinois and Mississippi, or by the Maumee and Wabash, forming settlements along these rivers and also at Detroit and its neighborhood, while the Ohio remained still m an unknown wilderness and of minor importance. As late as i;so to 1756 it was considered by the French authorities as a tributary of the Wabash, and it is so mentioned in official documents and laid down on most of their maps

In 1726. by consent of the Iroquois, the French reconstructed the fort at Niagara, which they had abandoned in 1688 By 1728-9 the Shawanese were settled along the Allegheny to which region they were drawn chiefly by the measures adopted by the Marquis Vaudreuil in 1724.

The way being now open, in 1729 M. de Lery. Chief En- gmeer of Canada, with a detachment of troops, crossed from Lake Erie to the Chautauqua Lake and thence to the Cone wango Creek and the Allegheny River, descending it and the Ohio. They made a careful topographical survey of the course of the rivers, with observations of the latitude, longi- tude and distances as far as the Great Miami.

The French, down to the surrender of Canada to the British m 1763, derived their right against that of the Iroquois to' the Ohio country, asserting it to be theirs by virtue of its dis- covery by La Salle, and of their resorting to it when no other

28 CHRISTOPHER GISX'S JOURNALS.

Indians occupied it but their allies, the Shawanese, with whom the Iroquois were at war. The latter tribe claimed it by reason of their conquest of the Shawanese, and the English claimed that it was ceded to ttiem by the Six Nations at the Treaty of Lancaster, 1744. It is remarkable, however, that the French never made any attempts to form settlements on the Ohio ; confining themselves to the Wabash, Illinois, Mississippi and Detroit.

In 1753 Forts Presque Isle (Erie, Pennsylvania) and Le Boeuf (now Waterford, Erie County, Pennsylvania) were erected.

In 1754 Forts Franklin (at Venango, now Franklin) and Du Quesne (now Pittsburgh) were built, and in 1756 the erec- tion of Fort Massac (now in Massac County, Illinois) com- pleted the chain of forts deemed essential by French policy for the connection of Canada and Louisiana and the main- tenance of possession of the Valley of the Ohio.

The steady increase of the English settlements towards the AUeghenies, the great numbers of their traders through, out the country west of the mountains, and, above all, the immense land grants on the waters of the Ohio by the British King and the Council of Virginia, incited the French to vig- orous measures. Accordingly, Captain Celeron de Bienville was dispatched by Governor de la Galissonniere, in 1749, to expel the English traders and take military possession of the Ohio country. With a detachment of two hundred soldiers and thirty Indians he proceeded, by way of Chautauqua Lake and the Conewango Creek, to its junction with the Allegheny or Ohio as he called it. There he buried a leaden plate, on the 29th of July, with a suitable inscription, as a monument of having retaken possession of the said river Ohio and branches and the lands thereon. This plate was stolen by the Seneca In- dians, probably directly after its deposit, and sent to Colonel

INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. 29

William Johnson. (Governor Clinton's letter to Governor Hamilton.') Letter of Governor Clinton to Board of Trade, and fac-simile of the plate, with its "devilish writing," as the Indian chief called it, who took it to Colonel Johnson.

Celeron, with his flotilla, proceeded down the river, deposit- ing plates at different points, generally at the mouths of streams emptying into the main river. The inscriptions on the plates were all alike, except the name of the place and date of deposit. A number of them were found in after- years ; one, at the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio, at Pittsburgh, was dated, August 3, 1749, at the " Three Rivers." (MSS. copy of plate by Governor Pownall in my possession.) Another was found in 1798 near Marietta, at the mouth of the Muskingum. It bore date August 16, 1749, at the entrance of the river " Yenangue." " The last discovered was at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, near Point Pleasant, in April, 1846. It was dated August 18, 1749, at the entrance of the river Chinodahichatha. (See fac- simile and account of in the " History of Western Virginia," by de Hass, 185 1, p. 50).' On his way down Celeron encamped for a few days at Logstown, eighteen miles below Pittsburgh, from which he expelled the English traders, by whom he sent letters to Governor Hamilton of Pennsylvania, dated the 6th and loth of August, and explained the object of his mission.*

In 1750 and 1751 Christopher Gist, the Agent of the Ohio Company of Virginia, explored the greater portion of the region now included within the boundaries of the States of Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia, and parts of Western Maryland and Southwestern Pennsylvania. These explora-

> " New York Colonial History," Vol. VI. 2 Hildreth's" Pioneer." ' See " Fort Pitt " for complete history. ♦" Colonial Records."

30 CHRISTOPHER GIST S JOURNALS.

tions were the earliest made, so far west, for the single object of examining the country, as they are the first also of which a regular journal was kept. The result of Gist's journeys, however, was not made known generally, being in the interest of a great Land Company; but in 1776 the Journal of 1750 was published by Governor Pownall, in London, in the Appen- dix to his " Topographical Description of North America." At that time but few copies of that work could have found their way to America, and at the close of the Revolutionary War it seemed to have become comparatively scarce and is now but little known. The second Journal has never before been printed here or elsewhere. The third, 1753, was printed for James Mease, by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

FRY AND JEF

JEF

RSON MAP, 1755.

FOR THE HONORABLE ROBERT DINWIDDIE

ESQUIRE, GOVERNOR & COMMANDER

OF VIRGINIA.

INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN M' CHRISTOPHER GIST BY THE

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY THE 1 1*

DAY OF SEPTEMBER 1750.

You are to go out as soon as possible to the Westward of the great Mountains, and carry with you such a Number of Men, as You think necessary, in Order to search out and discover the Lands upon the River Ohio, & other adjoining Branches of the Mississippi down as low as the great Falls thereof : You are particularly to observe the Ways & Passes thro all the Mountains you cross, & take an exact Account of the Soil, Quality, & Product of the Land, and the Wide- ness and Deepness of the Rivers, & the several Falls belong- ing to them, together with the Courses & Bearings of the Rivers & Mountains as near as you conveniently can : You are also to observe what Nations of Indians inhabit there, their Strength & Numbers, who they trade with, & in what Comodities they deal.

When you find a large Quantity of good, level Land, such as you think will suit the Company, You are to measure the Breadth of it, in three or four different Places, & take the Courses of the River and Mountains on which it binds in Order to judge the Quantity : You are to fix the Beginning & Bounds in such a Manner that they may be easily found again by your Description ; the nearer in the Land lies, the

(30

32 CHRISTOPHER GIST S JOURNALS.

better, provided it be good & level, but we had rather go quite down the Mississippi than take mean broken Land. After finding a large Body of good level Land, you are not to stop, but proceed farther, as low as the Falls of the Ohio, that We may be informed of that Navigation ; And You are to take an exact Account of all the large Bodies of good level Land, in the same Manner as above directed, that the Com- pany may the better judge where it will be most convenient for them to take their Land.

You are to note all the Bodies of good Land as you go along, tho there is not a sufficient Quantity for the Com- pany's Grant, but You need not be so particular in the Men- suration of that, as in the larger Bodies of Land.

You are to draw as good a Plan as you can of the Country You pass thro : You are to take an exact and particular Journal of all your Proceedings, and make a true Report thereof to the Ohio Company.

1750. — In Complyance with my Instructions from the Com- mittee of the Ohio Company bearing Date the 1 1* Day of September 1750

Wednesday Oct' 31. — Set out from Col° Thomas Cresap's at the old Town on Potomack River in Maryland, and went along an old Indian Path N 30 E about 1 1 Miles.

Thursday Nov i. — Then N i Mile N 30 E 3 M here I was taken sick and stayed all Night.

Friday 2. — N 30 E 6 M, here I was so bad that I was not able to proceed any farther that Night, but grew better in the Morning.

Saturday 3. — N 8 M to Juniatta, a large Branch of Susque- hannah, where I stayed all Night.

Sunday 4. — Crossed Juniatta and went up it S 55 W about 16 M.

Monday 5. — Continued the same Course S 55 W 6 M to

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 33

the Top of a large Mountain called the Allegany Mountain, here our Path turned, & we went N 45 W 6 M here we en- camped.

Tuesday 6 Wednesday 7 and Thursday 8. — Had Snow and such bad Weather that We could not travel for three Days ; but I killed a young Bear so that we had Provision enough.

Friday 9. — Set out N 70 W about 8 M here I crossed a Creek of Susquehannah and it raining hard, I went into an old Indian Cabbin where I stay'd all. Night.

Saturday 10. — Rain and Snow all Day but cleared away in the Evening.

Sunday 11. — Set out late in the Morning N 70 W 6 M crossing two Forks of a Creek of Susquehannah, here the Way being bad, We encamped and I killed a Turkey.

Monday 12. — Set out N 45 W 8 M crossed a great Laurel Mountain.

Tuesday 13. — Rain and Snow.

Wednesday 14. — Set out N 45 W 6 M to Loylhannan an old Indian Town on a Creek of Ohio called Kiscominatis, then N I M NW i M to an Indian's Camp on the said Creek.

Thursday 15. — The Weather being bad and I unwell I stayed here all Day : The Indian to whom this Camp be- longed spoke good English and directed Me the Way to his Town, which is called Shannopini Town : He said it was about 60 M and a pretty good Way.

Friday 16. — Set out S70 W 10 M. . Saturday 17. — The same Course (S 70 W) 15 M to an old Indian's Camp.

Sunday 18. — I was very sick, and sweated myself according to the Indian Custom in a Sweat-House, which gave Me Ease, and my Fever abated.

Monday 19. — Set out early in the Morning the same Course (S 70 W) travelled very hard about 20 M to a small Indian

34 CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNALS.

Town of the Delawares called Shannopin on the SE Side of the River Ohio, where We rested and got Corn for our Horses.

Tuesday 20 Wednesday 21 Thursday 22 and Friday 23.— I was unwell and stayed in this Town to recover myself ; While I was here I took an Opportunity to set my Compass pri- vately, & took the Distance across the River, for I under- stood it was dangerous to let a Compass be seen among these Indians: The River Ohio is 76 Poles wide at Shannopin Town : There are about twenty Families in this Town : The Land in general from Potomack to this Place is mean stony and broken, here and there good Spots upon the Creeks and Branches but no Body of it.

Saturday 24. — Set out from Shannopin's Town, and swam our Horses across the River Ohio, & went down the River S 75 W 4 M, N 75 W 7 M W 2 M, all the Land from Shan- nopin's Town is good along the River, but the Bottoms not broad ; At a Distance from the River good Land for Farming, covered with small white and red Oaks and tolerable level ; fine Runs for Mills &c.

Sunday Nov 25.— Down the River W 3 M, NW 5 M to Loggs Town ; the Lands these last 8 M very rich the Bot- toms above a Mile wide, but on the SE side, scarce a Mile wide, the Hills high and steep. In the Loggs Town, I found scarce any Body but a Parcel of reprobate Indian Traders, the Chiefs of the Indians being out a hunting : here I was informed that George Croghan & Andrew Montour who were sent upon an Embassy from Pensylvania to the Indians, were passed about a Week before me. The People in this Town, began to enquire my Business, and because I did not readily inform them, they began to suspect me, and said, I was come to settle the Indian's Lands and they knew I should never go Home again safe ; I found this Discourse was like to be of

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 3$

ill Consequence to me, so I pretended to speak very slight- ingly of what they had said to me, and enquired for Croghan (who is a meer Idol among his Countrymen the Irish Traders) and Andrew Montour the Interpreter for Pensylvania, and told them I had a Message to deliver the Indians from the King, by Order of the President of Virginia, & for that Rea- son wanted to see M Montour : This made them all pretty easy (being afraid to interrupt the King's Message) and obtained me Quiet and Respect among them, otherwise I doubt not they woud have contrived some Evil against me — I imediately wrote to M Croghan, by one of the Trader's People.

Monday 26. — Tho I was unwell, I prefered the Woods to such Company & set out from the Loggs Town down the River NW 6 M to great Beaver Creek where I met one Barny Curran a Trader for the Ohio Company, and We continued together as far as Muskingum. The Bottoms upon the River below the Logg's Town very rich but narrow, the high Land pretty good but not very rich, the Land upon Beaver Creek the same kind ; From this Place We left the River Ohio to the SE & travelled across the Country.

Tuesday 27. — Set out from E side of Beaver Creek NW 6 M, W 4 M ; up these two last Courses very good high Land, not very broken, fit for farming.

Wednesday 28. — Rained, We could not travel.

Thursday 29. — W 6 M thro good Land, the same Course continued 6 M farther thro very broken Land ; here I found myself pretty well recovered, & being in Want of Provision, I went out and killed a Deer.

Friday 30. — Set out S 45 W 12 M crossed the last Branch of Beaver Creek where one of Curran's Men & myself killed 12 Turkeys.

36 CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNALS.

Saturday Dec' i. — N 45 W lo M the Land high and tolera- ble good.

Note; by M' Gist's Plat he makes these 2 Courses N 45 W lo M, & N 45 W 8 M, to be W 8 M and N 45 W 6 M.

Sunday 2. — N 45 W 8 M the same Sort of Land, but near the Creeks bushy and very full of Thorns.

Monday 3. — Killed a Deer, and stayed in our Camp all Day.

Tuesday 4. — Set out late S 45 W about 4 M here I killed three fine fat Deer, so that tho we were eleven in Company, We had great Plenty of Provision.

Wednesday 5. — Set out down the Side of a Creek called Elk's Eye Creek S 70 W 6 M, good Land, but void of Timber, Meadows upon the Creek, fine Runs for Mills.

Thursday 6. — Rained all Day so that we were obliged to continue in our Camp.

Friday 7. — Set out SW 8 M crossing the said Elk's Eye Creek to a Town of the Ottaways, a Nation of French Indians ; an old French Man (named Mark Coonce) who had married an Indian Woman of the six Nations lived here ; the Indians were all out a hunting ; the old Man was very civil to me, but after I was gone to my Camp, upon his understanding I came from Virginia, he called Me the Big Knife. There are not above six or eight Families belonging to this Town.

Saturday 8. — Stayed in tlie Town.

Sunday 9. — Set out down the said Elk's Eye Creek S 45 W 6 M to Margarets Creek a Branch of the said Elk's Eye Creek.

Monday Dec 10. — The same Course (S 45 W) 2 M to a large Creek.

Tuesday 11. — The same Course 12 M killed 2 Deer.

Wednesday 12. — The same Course 8 M encamped by the Side of Elk's Eye Creek.

Thursday 13. — Rained all Day.

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 37

Friday 14. — Set out W 5 M to Muskingum a Town of the Wyendotts. The Land upon Elk's Eye Creek is in general very broken, the Bottoms narrow. The Wyendotts or little Mingoes are divided between the French and English, one half of them adhere to the first, and the other half are firmly attached to the latter. The Town of Muskingum consists of about one hundred Families. When We came within Sight of the Town, We perceived English Colours hoisted on the King's House, and at George Croghan's ; upon enquiring the Reason I was informed that the French had lately taken several English Traders, and that M' Croghan had ordered all the White Men to come into this Town, and had sent Expresses to the Traders of the lower Towns, and among the Pickweylinees ; and the Indians had sent to their People to come to Council about it.

Saturday 15 & Sunday 16. — Nothing remarkable happened.

Monday 17. — Came into Town two Traders belonging to M Croghan, and informed Us that two of his People were taken by 40 French Men, & twenty French Indians who had carried them with seven Horse Loads of Skins to a new Fort that the French were building on one of the Branches of Lake Erie.

Tuesday 18. — I acquainted M' Croghan and Andrew Mon- tour with my Business with the Indians, & talked much of a Regulation of Trade with which they were much pleased, and treated Me very kindly.

From Wednesday 19 to Monday 24. — Nothing remarkable.

Tuesday 25. — This being Christmass Day, I intended to read Prayers, but after inviting some of the White Men, they informed each other of my Intentions, and being of several different Persuasions, and few of them inclined to hear any Good, they refused to come. But one Thomas Barney a Black Smith who is settled there went about and talked to

38 CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNALS.

them, & then several of them came ; and Andrew Montour invited several of the well disposed Indians, who came freely; by this Time the Morning was spent, and I had given over all Thoughts of them, but seeing Them come, to oblige All, and offend None, I stood up and said. Gentlemen, I have no Design or Intention to give Offence to any particular Sec- tary or Religion, but as our King indulges Us all in a Liberty of Conscience and hinders none of You in the Exercise of your religious Worship, so it would be unjust in You, to endeavour to stop the Propagation of His ; The Doctrine of Salvation Faith, and good Works, is what I only propose to treat of, as I find it extracted from the Homilies of the Church of England, which I then read them in the best Manner I coud, and after I had done the Interpreter told the Indians what I had read, and that it was the true Faith which the great King and His Church recomended to his Children : the Indians seemed well pleased, and came up to Me and returned Me their Thanks ; and then invited Me to live among Them, and gave Me a Name in their Language Annosanah : the In- terpreter told Me this was a Name of a good Man that had formerly lived among them, and their King said that must be always my Name, for which I returned them Thanks ; but as to living among them I excused myself by saying I did not know whether the Governor woud give Me Leave, and if he did the French woud come and carry me away as they had done the English Traders, to which they answered I might bring great Guns and make a Fort, that they had now left the French, and were very desirous of being instructed in the Principles of Christianity ; that they liked Me very well and wanted Me to marry Them after the Christian Manner, and baptize their Children ; and then they said they woud never desire to return to the French, or suffer Them or their Priests to come near them more, for they loved the English, but had seen little

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 39

Religion among Them : and some of their great Men came and wanted Me to baptize their Children ; for as I had read to Them and appeared to talk about Religion they took Me to be a Minister of the Gospel ; Upon which I desired M' Mon- tour (the Interpreter) to tell Them, that no Minister coud venture to baptize any Children, until those that were to be Sureties for Them, were well instructed in the Faith them- selves, and that this was according to the great King's Religion, in which He desired his Children shoud be instruc- ted & We dare not do it in any other Way, than was by Law established, but I hoped if I coud not be admitted to live among them, that the great King woud send Them proper Ministers to exercise that Office among them, at which they seemed well pleased ; and one of Them went and brought Me his Book (which was a Kind contrived for Them by the French in which the Days of the Week were so marked that by moving a Pin every Morning they kept a pretty exact Account of the Time) to shew Me that He understood Me, and that He and his Family always observed the Sabbath Day.

Wednesday Dec' 26. — This Day a Woman, who had been a long Time a Prisoner, and had deserted, & been retaken, and brought into the Town on Christmass Eve, was put to Death in the following manner : They carried her without the Town, & let her loose, and when she attempted to run away, the Persons appointed for that Purpose pursued her, & struck Her on the Ear, on the right Side of her Head, which beat her flat on her Face on the Ground ; they then stuck her several Times, thro the Back with a Dart, to the Heart.scalped Her, & threw the Scalp in the Air, and another cut off her Head : There the dismal Spectacle lay till the Evening, & then Barny Curran desired Leave to bury Her, which He, and his Men, and some of the Indians did just at Dark.

From Thursday Dec' 27 to Thursday Jan" 3 1751. — Nothing remarkable happened in the Town.

40 CHRISTOPHER GIST S JOURNALS.

Friday Jan 4. — One Teafe (an Indian Trader) came to Town from near Lake Erie, & informed Us, that the Wyen- dott Indians had advised Him to keep clear of the Ottaways (these are a Nation of Indians firmly attached to the French, & inhabit near the Lakes) & told Him that the Branches of the Lakes are claimed by the French ; but that all the Branches of Ohio belonged to Them, and their Brothers the English, and that the French had no Business there, & that it was expected that the other Part of the Wyendott Nation woud desert the French and come over to the English Inter- est, & join their Brethren on the Elk's Eye Creek, & build a strong Fort and Town there.

From Saturday 5 to Tuesday 8. — The Weather still contin- uing bad, I stayed in the Town to recruit my Horses, and tho Corn was very dear among the Indians, I was obliged to feed them well, or run the Risque of losing them as I had a great Way to travel.

Wednesday 9. — The Wind Southerly, and the Weather something' warmer : this Day came into Town two Traders from among the Pickwaylinees (these are a Tribe of the Twigtwees) and brought News that another English Trader was taken prisoner by the French, and that three French Soldiers had deserted and come over to the English, and sur- rendered themselves to some of the Traders of the Pick Town, & that the Indians woud have put them to Death, to revenge their taking our Traders, but as the French Prisoners had surrendered themselves, the English woud not let the Indians hurt them, but had ordered them to be sent under the Care of three of our Traders and delivered at this Town, to George Croghan.

Thursday 10. — Wind still at South and warm.

Friday 11. — This Day came into Town an Indian from over the Lakes & confirmed the News we had heard.

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 4I

Saturday 12. — We sent away our People towards the lower Town intending to follow them the next Morning, and this Evening We went into Council in the Wyendott's King's House — The Council had been put off a long Time expecting some of their great Men in, but few of them came, & this Evening some of the King's Council being a little disordered with Liquor, no Business coud be done, but We were desired to come next Day.

Sunday Jan'" 13.— No Business done.

Monday 14. — This Day George Croghan, by the Assistance of Andrew Montour, acquainted the King and Council of this Nation (by presenting them four Strings of Wampum) that the great King over the Water, their Roggony [Father] had sent under the Care of the Governor of Virginia, their Brother, a large Present of Goods which was now landed safe in Virginia, & the Governor had sent Me to invite Them to come and see Him, & partake of their Father's Charity to all his Children on the Branches of Ohio. In Answer to which one of the Chiefs stood up and said, " That their King and " all of Them thanked their Brother the Governor of Virginia " for his Care, and Me for bringing them the News, but they " coud not give Me an Answer untill they had a full or gen- " eral Council of the several Nations of Indians which coud "not be till next Spring : & so the King and Council shaking " Hands with Us, We took our Leave.

Tuesday 15. — We left Muskingum, and went W 5 M, to. the White Woman's Creek, on which is a small Town ; this. White Woman was taken away from New England, when she was not above ten Years old, by the French Indians ; She is now upwards of fifty, and has an Indian Husband and several Children — Her name is Mary Harris, she still remembers they used to be very religious in New England, and wonders how the White Men can be so wicked as she has seen them in these Woods. 4

42 CHRISTOPHER GISTS JOURNALS.

Wednesday i6. — Set out SW 25 M, to Licking Creek — The Land from Muskingum to this Place rich but broken^ — Upon the N Side of Licking Creek about 6 M from the Mouth, are several Salt Licks, or Ponds, formed by little Streams or Dreins of Water, clear but of a blueish Colour, & salt Taste the Traders and Indians boil their Meat in this Water, which (if proper Care be not taken) will sometimes make it too salt to eat.

Thursday 17. — Set out W 5 M, SW 15 M, to a great Swamp.

Friday 18. — Set out from the great Swamp SW 15 M.

Saturday 19. — W 15 M to Hockhockin a small Town with only four or five Delaware Families.

Sunday 20. — The Snow began to grow thin, and the Weather warmer ; Set out from Hockhockin S 5 M, then W 5 M, then SW 5 M, to the Maguck a little Delaware Town of about ten Families by the N Side of a plain or clear Field about 5 M in Length NE & SW & 2 M broad, with a small Rising in the Middle, which gives a fine Prospect over the whole Plain, and a large Creek on the N Side of it called Sci- odoe Creek. All the Way from Licking Creek to this Place is fine rich level Land, with large Meadows, fine Clover Bot- toms & spacious Plains covered with wild Rye : the Wood chiefly large Walnuts and Hickories, here and there mixed with Poplars Cherry Trees and Sugar Trees.

From Monday 21 to Wednesday 23 — Stayed in the Maguck Town.

Thursday 24. — Set out from the Maguck Town S about 1 5 M, thro fine rich level Land to a small Town called Har- rickintoms consisting of about five or six Delaware Families, on the SW Sciodoe Creek.

Friday 25. — The Creek being very high and full of Ice, We coud not ford it, and were obliged to go down it on the SE Side SE 4 M to the Salt Lick Creek — about i M up this Creek

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 43

on the S Side is a very large Salt Lick, the Streams which run into this Lick are very salt, & tho clear leave a blueish Sediment : The Indians and Traders make salt for their Horses of this Water, by boiling it ; it has at first a blueish Colour, and somewhat bitter Taste, but upon being dissolved in fair Water and boiled a second Time, it becomes tolerable pure Salt.

Saturday 26. — Set out S 2 M, SW 14 M.

Sunday 27. — S 12 M to a small Delaware Town of about twenty Families on the SE Side of Sciodoe Creek — We lodged at the House of an Indian whose Name was Windaug- halah, a great Man and Chief of this Town, & much in the English Interest. He entertained Us very kindly, and ordered a Negro Man that belonged to him to feed our Horses well ; this Night it snowed, and in the Morning tho the Snow was six or seven Inches deep, the wild Rye appeared very green and flourishing thro it, and our Horses had fine Feeding.

Monday Jan^ 28. — We went into Council with the Indians of this Town, and after the Interpreter had informed them of his Instructions from the Governor of Pensylvania, and given them some Cautions in Regard to the French, they returned for Answer as follows. The Speaker with four Strings of Wampum in his Hand stood up, and addressing Himself as to the Governor of Pensylvania, said, " Brothers, " We the Delawares return You our hearty Thanks for the " News You have sent Us, and We assure You, We will not " hear the Voice of any other Nation for We are to be directed " by You our Brothers the English, & by none else : We shall " be glad to hear what our Brothers have to say to Us at the " Loggs Town in the Spring, and to assure You of our hearty " Good will & Love to our Brothers We present You with " these four Strings of Wampum This is the last Town of the Delawares to the Westward — The Delaware Indians by

44 CHRISTOPHER GIST S JOURNALS.

the best Accounts I coud gather consist of about 500 fight- ing Men all firmly attached to the English Interest, they are not properly a Part of the six Nations, but are scattered about among most of the Indians upon the Ohio, and some of them among the six Nations, from whom they have Leave to hunt upon their Lands.

Tuesday 29.— Set out S W 5 M, S S M, to the Mouth of Sciodoe Creek opposite to the Shannoah Town, here We fired our Guns to alarm the Traders, who soon answered, and came and ferryed Us over to the Town — The Land about the Mouth of Sciodoe Creek is rich but broken fine Bottoms upon the River & Creek— The Shannoah Town is situate upon both Sides the River Ohio, just below the Mouth of Sciodoe Creek, and contains about 300 Men, there are about 40 Houses on the S Side of the River and about 100 on the N Side, with a Kind of State-House of about 90 Feet long, with a light Cover of Bark in w"" they hold their Councils — The Shanaws are not a Part of the six Nations, but were formerly at Variance with them, tho now reconciled : they are great Friends to the English who once protected them from the Fury of the six Nations, which they gratefully remember.

Wednesday 30. — We were conducted into Council, where George Croghan delivered sundry Speeches from the Gov- ernment of Pensylvania to the Chiefs of this Nation, in which He informed them, "That two Prisoners who had been " taken by the French, and had made their Escape from the " French Ofificer at Lake Erie as he was carrying them towards " Canada brought News that the French offered a large Sum " of Money to any Person who would bring to them the said " Croghan and Andrew Montour the Interpreter alive, or if " dead their Scalps ; and that the French also threatened "these Indians and the Wyendotts with War in the Spring " the same Persons farther said " that they had seen ten French

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 45

" Canoes loaded with Stores for a new Fort they designed on the S Side Lake Erie. M' Croghan also informed them of several of our Traders having been taken, and advised them to keep their Warriors at Home, until they coud see what the French intended which he doubted not woud appear in the Spring — Then Andrew Montour informed this Nation as He had done the Wyendotts & Delawares " That the King of " Great Britain had sent Them a large Present of Goods, in " Company with the six Nations, which was under the Care "of the Governor of Virginia, who had sent Me out to invite "them to come and see Him, & partake of their Father's "Present next Summer" to which We received this Answer — Big Hannaona their Speaker taking in his Hand the several Strings of Wampum which had been given by the English, He said " These are the Speeches received by Us from your " great Men : From the Beginning of our Friendship, all that "our Brothers the English have told Us has been good and " true, for which We return our hearty Thanks " Then taking up four other Strings of Wampum in his Hand, He said " Brothers I now speak the Sentiments of all our People ; "when first our Forefathers did meet the English our Bro- " thers, they found what our Brothers the English told them " to be true, and so have We— We are but a small People, & " it is not to Us only that You speak, but to all Nations— We " shall be glad to hear what our Brothers will say to Us at the " Loggs Town in the Spring, & We hope that the Friendship " now subsisting between Us & our Brothers, will last as long " as the Sun shines, or the Moon gives Light — We hope that " our Children will hear and believe what our Brothers say to " them, as We have always done, and to assure You of our "hearty Good-Will towards You our Brothers, We present "You with these four Strings of Wampum" After the Council was over they had much Talk about sending a Guard

46 CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNALS.

with Us to the Pickwaylinees Towns (these are a Tribe of Twigtwees) which was reckoned near 200 Miles, but after long Consultation (their King being sick) they came to no Determination about it.

From Thursday Jan 31 To Monday Feb*^ 11. — Stayed in the Shannoah Town, while I was here the Indians had a very extraordinary Kind of a Festival, at which I was present and which I have exactly described at the End of my Journal — As I had particular Instructions from the President of Vir- ginia to discover the Strength & Numbers of some Indian Nations to the Westward of Ohio who had lately revolted from the French, and had some Messages to deliver them from Him, I resolved to set out for the Twigtwee Town.

Tuesday 12.— Having left my Boy to take Care of my Horses in the Shannoah Town, & supplied myself with a fresh Horse to ride, I set out with my old Company viz George Croghan Andrew Montour, Robert Kallandar, and a Servant to carry our Provisions &c NW 10 M.

Wednesday 13. — The same Course (NW) about 35 M.

Thursday 14. — The same Course about 30 M.

Friday 15. — The same Course 15 M. We met with nine Shannoah Indians coming from one of the Pickwaylinees Towns, where they had been to Council, they told Us there were fifteen more of them behind at the Twigtwee Town, waiting for the Arrival of the Wawaughtanneys, who are a Tribe of the Twigtwees, and were to bring with them a Shan- noah Woman and Child to deliver to their Men that were be- hind : this Woman they informed Us had been taken Prisoner last Fall, by some of the Wawaughtanney Warriors thro a Mistake, which had like to have engaged these Nations in a War.

Saturday 16. — Set out the same Course (NW) about 35 M, to the little Miamee River or Creek

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 47

Sunday 17. — Crossed the little Miamee River, and altering our Course We went SW 25 M, to the big Miamee River, opposite the Twigtwee Town. All the Way from the Shan- noah Town to this Place (except the first 20 M which is broken) is fine, rich level Land, well timbered with large Walnut, Ash, Sugar Trees, Cherry Trees &c, it is well watered with a great Number of little Streams or Rivulets, and full of beautiful natural Meadows, covered with wild Rye, blue Grass and Clover, and abounds with Turkeys, Deer, Elks and most Sorts of Game particularly Buffaloes, thirty or forty of which are frequently seen feeding in one Meadow : In short it wants Nothing but Cultivation to make it a most delightfuU Country — The Ohio and all the large Branches are said to be full of fine Fish of several Kinds, particularly a Sort of Cat Fish of a prodigious Size ; but as I was not there at the proper Season, I had not an opportunity of seeing any of them — The Traders had always reckoned it 200 M, from the Shannoah Town to the Twigtwee Town, but by my Computation I could make it no more than 1 50 — The Miamee River being high, We were obliged to make a Raft of old Loggs to transport our Goods ■ and Saddles and swim our Horses over — After firing a few Guns and Pistols, & smoaking in the Warriours Pipe, who came to invite Us to the Town (according to their Custom of inviting and welcoming Strangers and Great Men) We entered the Town with English Colours before Us, and were kindly received by their King, who invited Us into his own House, & set our Colours upon the Top of it — The Firing of Guns held about a Quarter of an Hour, and then all the white Men and Traders that were there, came and welcomed Us to the the Twigtwee Town — This Town is situate on the NW Side of the Big Miamee River about 150 M from the Mouth there- of ; it consists of about 400 Families, & daily encreasing, it is accounted one of the strongest Indian Towns upon this Part

48 CHRISTOPHER GISx's JOURNALS.

of the Continent — The Twigtwees are a very numerous Peo- ple consisting of many different Tribes under the same Form of Government. Each tribe has a particular Chief or King, one of which is chosen indifferently out of any Tribe to rule the whole Nation, and is vested with greater Authorities than any of the others — They are accounted the most power- ful People to the Westward of the English Settlements, & much superior to the six Nations with whom they are now in Amity : their Strength and Numbers are not thoroughly known, as they have but lately traded with the English, and indeed have very little Trade among them : they deal in much the same Comodities with the Northern Indians. There are other Nations or Tribes still further to the Westward daily coming in to them, & 'tis thought their Power and Interest reaches to the Westward of the Mississippi, if not across the Continent ; they are at present very well affected to the Eng- lish, and seem fond of an Alliance with them — they formerly lived on the farther Side of the Obache, and were in the French Interest, who supplied them with some few Trifles at a most exorbitant Price — they were called by the French Miamees ; but they have now revolted from them, and left their former Habitations for the Sake of trading with the English ; and notwithstanding all the Artifices the French have used, they have not been able to recall them.

After We had been some Time in the King's House M' Montour told Him that We wanted to speak with Him and the Chiefs of this Nation this Evening upon which We were invited into the long House, and having taken our Places M' Montour began as follows — " Brothers the Twigtwees as " We have been hindered by the high Waters and some other " Business with our Indian Brothers, no Doubt our long Stay "has caused some Trouble among our Brethren here, There- " fore We now present you with two Strings of Wampum to

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 49

" remove all the Trouble of your Hearts, & clear your Eyes, "that You may see the Sun shine clear, for We have a great " Deal to say to You, & We woud have You send for one of " Your Friends that can speak the Mohickon or the Mingoe " Tongues well, that We may understand each other thoroughly, "for We have a great Deal of Business to do" — The Mo- hickons are a small Tribe who most of them speak English, and are also well acquainted with the Language of the Twig- twees, and they with theirs — M' Montour then proceeded to deliver Them a Message from the Wyendotts and Delawares as follows " Brothers the Twigtwees, this comes by our Bro- " thers the English who are coming with good News to You : " We hope You will take Care of Them, and all our Brothers " the English who are trading among You : You made a Road "for our Brothers the English to come and trade among You, " but it is now very foul, great Loggs are fallen across it, and "We would have You be strong like Men, and have one " Heart with Us, and make the Road clear, that our Brothers " the English may have free Course and Recourse between *' You and Us — In the Sincerity of our Hearts We send You "these four Strings of Wampum, to which they gave the usual Yo Ho — Then they said they wanted some Tobacco to smoak with Us, and that tomorrow they woud send for their Interpreter.

Monday Fely i8. — We walked about viewed the Fort which wanted some Repairs, & the Trader's Men helped Them to bring Loggs to line the Inside.

Tuesday 19. — We gave their Kings and great Men some Clothes, and Paint Shirts, and now they were busy dressing and preparing themselves for the Council — The Weather grew warm and the Creeks began to lower very fast.

Wednesday 20. — About 12 of the Clock We were informed that some of the foreign Tribes were coming, upon which

50 CHRISTOPHER GIST S JOURNALS.

proper Persons were ordered to meet them and conduct Them into the Town, and then We were invited into the long House ; after We had been seated about a Quarter of an Hour four Indians, two from each Tribe (who had been sent before to bring the long Pipe, and to inform that the rest were com- ing) came in, & informed Us that their Friends had sent these Pipes that We might smoak the Calamut Pipe of Peace with Them and that they intended to do the same with Us.

Thursday Feb'' 21. — We were again invited into the long House where M' Croghan made them(with the foreign Tribes) a Present to the Value of ;^ioo Pensylvania Money, and delivered all our Speeches to Them, at which they seemed well pleased, and said, that they would take Time and con- sider well what We had said to Them.

Friday 22. — Nothing remarkable happened in the Town.

Saturday 23.— In the Afternoon there was an Alarm in the Town which caused a great Confusion and running about among the Indians, upon enquiring into the Reason of this Stir, they told Us that it was occasioned by six Indians that came to war against Them, from the Southward : three of them Cutaways, and three Shanaws (these were some of the Shanaws who had formerly deserted from the other Part of the Nation, and now live to the Southward) Towards Night there was a report spread in Town that four Indians, and four hundred French, were on their March and just by the Town : But soon after the Messenger who brought this News said, there were only four french Indians coming to Council, and that they bid him say so, only to see how the English woud behave themselves ; but as they had behaved themselves like Men, He now told the Truth.

Sunday 24. — This Morning the four French Indians came into Town and were kindly received by the Town Indians ; they marched in under French Colours, and were con-

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. $1

ducted into the long House, and after they had been in about a Quarter of an Hour, the Council sate, and We were sent for that We might hear what the French had to say to them — The Pyankeshee King (who was at that Time the principal Man, and Comander in Chief of the Twigtwees) said. He woud have the English Colours set up in this Council as well as the French, to which We answered he might do as he thought fit. After We were seated right opposite to the French Embassadors, One of Them said, He had a Present to make Them, so a Place was prepared (as they had before done for our Present) between Them and Us, and then their Speaker stood up, and layed His hands upon two small Caggs of Brandy that held about seven Quarts each, and a Roll of Tobacco of about ten Pounds Weight, then taking two strings of Wampum in his Hand, He said, "What he had to deliver Them was "from their Father (meaning the French King) "and he desired they woud hear what he was about to say to "Them;" then he layed them two Strings of Wampum down upon the Caggs, and taking up four other Strings of black and white Wampum, he said, "that their Father remembring "his Children, had sent them two Caggs of Milk, and some " Tobacco, and that he now had made a clear Road for them, "to come and see Him and his Officers; and pressed them " very much to come ; then he took another String of Wampum in his Hand, and said, "their Father now woud forget all lit- " tie Differences that had been between Them, and desired "Them not to be of two Minds, but to let Him know their "Minds freely, for He woud send for Them no more" — To which the Pyankeshee King replyed, "it was true their " Father had sent for them several Times, and said the Road "was clear, but He understood it was made foul & bloody, " and by Them— We (said He) have cleared a Road for our " Brothers the English, and your Fathers have made it bad,

52 CHRISTOPHER GIST S JOURNALS.

" and have taken some of our Brothers Prisoners, Which We "look upon as clone to Us, and he turned short about and " went out of Council " — After the French Embassador had delivered his Message He went into one of the private Houses and endeavoured much to prevail on some Indians, and was seen to cry and lament (as he said for the Loss of that Nation.

Monday Feb'' 25. — This Day We receieved a Speech from the Wawaughtanneys and Pyankeshees (two Tribes of the Twigtwees) One of the Chiefs of the former spoke " Broth- " ers. We have heard what You have said to Us by the Inter- " prefer and We see You take Pity upon our poor Wives and "Children, and have taken Us by the Hand into the great " Chain of Friendship ; therefore We present You with these " two Bundles of Skins to make Shoes for your People, and "this Pipe to smoak in, to assure You that our Hearts are "good and true towards You our Brothers ; and We hope that " We shall all continue in true Love and Friendship with one "another, as People with one Head and one Heart ought to " do ; You have pityed Us as You always did the rest of our "Indian Brothers, We hope that Pity You have always shewn, "will remain as long as the Sun gives Light, and on our Side " you may depend upon sincere and true Friendship towards " You as long as We have Strength " — This Person stood up and spoke with the Air and Gesture of an Orator.

Tuesday 26. — The Twigtwees delivered the following Answer to the four Indians sent by the French — The Cap- tain of the Warriors stood up and taking some Strings of black and white Wampum in j;his Hand he spoke with a fierce Tone and very warlike Air — " Brothers the Ottaways, " You are always differing with the French Yourselves, and " yet You listen to what they say, but We will let You know by " these four Strings of Wampum, that We will not hear any

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 53

" Thing they say to Us, nor do any Thing they bid Us ' ' — Then the same Speaker with six Strouds two Match-Coats, and a String of black Wampum (I understood the Goods were in Return for the Milk and Tobacco) and directing his Speech to the French said, "Fathers, you desire that We " may speak our Minds from our Hearts, which I am going to " do ; You have often desired We shoud go Home to You, " but I tell You it is not our Home, for We have made a Road " as far as the Sea to the Sun-rising, and have been taken by " the Hand by our Brothers the English, and the six Nations, " and the Delawares Shannoahs and Wyendotts, and We as- " sure You it is the Road We will go ; and as You threaten " Us with War in the Spring, We tell You if You are angry " We are ready to receive You, and resolve to die here before " We will go to You ; And that You may know that this our " Mind, We send You this String of black Wampum." After a short Pause the same Speaker spoke again thus — " Brothers " the Ottaways, You hear what I say, tell that to your Fath- " ers the French, for that is our Mind, and We speak it from " our Hearts.

Wednesday 27. — This Day they took down their French Colours, and dismissed the four French Indians, so they took their Leave of the Town and set off for the French Fort.

Thursday 28. — The Crier of the Town came by the King's Order and invited Us to the long House to see the Warriors Feather Dance ; it was performed by three Dancing-Masters, who we're painted all over with various Colours, with long Sticks in their Hands, upon the Ends of which were fastened long Feathers of Swans, and other Birds, neatly woven in the Shape of a Fowls Wing: in this Disguise they performed many antick Tricks, waving their Sticks and Feathers about with great Skill to imitate the flying and fluttering of Birds, keeping exact Time with their Musick ; while they are danc-

54 CHRISTOPHER GIST S JOURNALS.

ing some of the Warriors strikes a Post, upon which the Musick and Dancers cease, and the Warrior gives an Account of his Atchievements in War, and when he has done, throws down some Goods as a Recompence to the Performers and Musicians ; after which they proceed in their Dance as before till another Warrior strikes y" Post, and so on as long as the Company think fit

Friday March i. — We received the following Speech from the Twigtwees the Speaker stood up and addressing himself as to the Governor of Pensylvania with two Strings of Wampum in his Hand, He said — " Brothers our Hearts are "glad that You have taken Notice of Us, and surely Brothers "We hope that You will order a Smith to settle here to " mend our Guns and Hatchets, Your Kindness makes Us " so bold to ask this Request. You told Us our Friendship " should last as long, and be as the greatest Mountain, We " have considered well, and all our great Kings & Warriors "are come to a Resolution never to give Heed to what the " French say to Us, but always to hear & believe what You " our Brothers say to Us — Brothers We are obliged to You "for your kind Invitation to receive a Present at the Loggs " Town, but as our foreign Tribes are not yet come, We must " wait for them, but You may depend We will come as soon "as our Women have planted Corn to hear what our Brothers "will say to Us — Brothers We present You with this Bundle " of Skins, as We are but poor to be for Shoes for You on " the Road, and We return You our hearty Thanks for the " Clothes which You have put upon our Wives and Children " — We then took our Leave of the Kings and Chiefs, and they ordered that a small Party of Indians shoud go with Us as far as Hockhockin ; but as I had left my Boy and Horses at the lower Shannoah Town, I was obliged to go by myself or to go sixty or seventy Miles out of my Way, which I did not

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 55

care to do ; so we all came over the Miamee River together this Evening, but M' Croghan & M' Montour went over again & lodged in the Town, but I stayed on this Side at one Robert Smith's (a Trader) where We had left our Horses — Before the French Indians had come into Town, We had drawn Articles of Peace and Alliance between the English and the Wa- waughtanneys and Pyankeshees ; the Indentures were signed sealed and delivered on both Sides, and as I drew them I took a Copy — The Land upon the great Miamee River is very rich level and well timbered, some of the finest Meadows that can be : The Indians and Traders assure Me that the Land holds as good and if possible better, to the Westward as far as the Obache which is accounted lOO Miles, and quite up to the Head of the Miamee River, which is 60 Miles above the Twigtwee Town, and down the said River quite to the Ohio which is reckoned 150 Miles — The Grass here grows to a great Height in the clear Fields, of which there are a great Number, & the Bottoms are full of white Clover, wild Rye, and blue Grass.

Saturday March 2. — George Croghan and the rest of our Company came over the River, We got our Horses, & set out about 35 M. to Mad Creek (this is a Place where some English Traders had been taken Prisoners by the French.)

Sunday 3. — This Morning We parted. They for Hock- hockin, and I for the Shannoah Town, and as I was quite alone and knew that the French Indians had threatened Us, and woud probably pursue or lye in Wait for Us, I left the Path, and went to the South Westward down the little Miamee River or Creek, where I had fine traveling thro rich Land and beautiful Meadows, in which I coud sometimes see forty or fifty Buffaloes feeding at once— The little Miamee River or Creek continued to run thro the Middle of a fine Meadow, about a Mile wide very clear like an old Field, and not a Bush

56 CHRISTOPHER GISX's JOURNALS.

in it, I coud see the Buffaloes in it above two Miles off : I travelled this Day about 30 M.

Monday 4. — This Day I heard several Guns, but was afraid to examine who fired Them, lest they might be some of the French Indians, so I travelled thro the Woods about 30 M ; just at Night I killed a fine barren Cow-Buffaloe and took out her Tongue, and a little of the best of her Meat : The Land still level rich and well timbered with Oak, Walnut, Ash, Locust, and Sugar Trees.

Tuesday 5. — I travelled about 30 M.

Wednesday 6. — I travelled about 30 M, and killed a fa", B r.

Thursday 7. — Set out with my Horse Load of Bear and travelled about 30 M this Afternoon I met a young ]\Ian (1 Trader) and We encamped together that Night ; He happened to have some Bread with Him, and I had plenty of Meat, so We fared very well.

Friday 8. — Travelled about 30 M, and arrived at Night at the Shannoah Town — All the Indians, as well as the white Men came out to welcome my Return to their Town, being very glad that all Things were rightly settled in the Miamee Country, they fired upwards of 150 Guns in the Town, and made an Entertainment in Honour of the late Peace with the western Indians — In my Return from the Twigtwee to the Shannoah Town, I did not keep an exact Account of Course or Distance ; for as the Land thereabouts was every where much the same, and the Situation of the Country was suf- ficiently described in my Journey to the Twigtwee Town, I thought it unnecessary, but have notwithstanding laid down my Tract pretty nearly in my Plat.

Saturday March 9. — In the Shannoah Town, I met with one of the Mingoe Chiefs, who had been down at the Falls of Ohio, so that We did not see Him as We went up ; I in- formed Him of the King's Present, and the Invitation down

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. $7

to Virginia — He told that there was a Party of French In- dians hunting at the Falls, and if I went there they would certainly kill Me or carry Me away Prisoner to the French ; For it is certain they would not let Me pass : However as I had a great Inclination to see the Falls, and the Land on the E Side the Ohio, I resolved to venture as far as possible.

Sunday 10 & Monday ii. — Stayed in the Town, and pre- pared for my Departure.

Tuesday 12. — I got my Horses over the River and after Breakfast my Boy and I got ferryed over — The Ohio is near % of a Mile wide at Shannoah Town, & is very deep and smooth.

Wednesday 13. — We set out S 45 W, down the said River on the SE Side 8 M, then S 10 M, here I met two Men be- longing to Robert Smith at whose House I lodged on this Side the Miamee River, and one Hugh Crawford, the said Robert Smith had given Me an Order upon these Men, for two of the Teeth of a large Beast, which they were bringing from towards the Falls of Ohio, one of which I brought in and delivered to the Ohio Company — Robert Smith informed Me that about seven Years ago these Teeth and Bones of three large Beasts (one of which was somewhat smaller than the other two) were found in a salt Lick or Spring upon a small Creek which runs into the S Side of the Ohio, about 15 M, below the Mouth of the great Miamee River, and 20 above the Falls of Ohio — He assured Me that the Rib Bones of the largest of these Beasts were eleven Feet long, and the Skull Bone six feet wide, across the Forehead, & the other Bones in Proportion; and that there were several Teeth there, some of which he called Horns, and said they were up- wards of five Feet long, and as much as a Man coud well carry : that he had hid one in a Branch at some Distance from the Place, lest the French Indians shoud carry it away 5

58 CHRISTOPHER GIST'S JOURNALS.

— The Tooth which I brought in for the Ohio Company, was a Jaw Tooth of better than four Pounds Weight ; it appeared to be the furthest Tooth in the Jaw, and looked like fine Ivory when the outside was scraped off — I also met with four Shan- noah Indians coming up the River in their Canoes, who in- formed me that there were about sixty French Indians en- camped at the Falls.

Thursday 14. — I went down the River S 15 M, the Land upon this Side the Ohio chiefly broken, and the Bottoms but narrow.

Friday 15.— S 5 M, SW 10 M, to a Creek that was so high, that We coud not get over that Night.

Saturday 16.— S 45 W about 35 M.

Sunday 17. — The same Course 15 M, then N 45 W 5 M.

Monday 18.— N 45 W 5 M then SW 20 M, to the lower Salt Lick Creek, which Robert Smith and the Indians told Us was about 15 M above the Falls of Ohio ; the Land still hilly, the Salt Lick here much the same with those before described — this Day W6 heard several Guns which made me imagine the French Indians were not moved, but were still hunting, and firing thereabouts : We also saw some Traps newly set, and the Footsteps of some Indians plain on the Ground as if they had been there the Day before — I was now much troubled that I could not comply with my Instructions, & was once re- solved to leaye the Boy and Horses, and to go privately on Foot to view the Falls ; but the Boy being a poor Hunter, was afraid he woud starve if I was long from him, and there was also great Danger lest the French Indians shoud come upon our Horses Tracts, or hear their Bells, and as I had seen good Land enough, I thought perhaps I might be blamed for ven- turing so far, in such dangerous Times, so I concluded not to go to the Falls ; but travell'd away to the Southward till We were over the little Cuttaway River — The Falls of Ohio by the best

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 59

Information I coud get are not very steep, on the SE Side there is a Bar of Land at some Distance from the Shore, the Water between the Bar and the Shore is not above 3 feet deep, and the Stream moderately strong, the Indians fre- quently pass safely in their Canoes thro this Passage, but are obliged to take great Care as they go down lest the Current which is much the strongest on the NW Side shoud draw them that Way ; which woud be very dangerous as the Water on that Side runs with great Rapidity over several Ledges of Rocks ; the Water below the Falls they say is about six Fath- oms deep, and the River continues without any Obstructions till it empties itself into the Missisippi which is accounted upwards of 400 M — The Ohio near the Mouth is said to be very wide, and the Land upon both Sides very rich, and in general very level, all the Way from the Falls— After I had determined not to go to the Falls, We turned from Salt Lick Creek, to a Ridge of Mountains that made towards the Cutta- way River, & from the Top of the Mountain We saw a fine level Country SW as Far as our Eyes coud behold, and it was a very clear Day ; We then went down the Mountain and set out S 20 W about 5 M, thro rich level Land covered with small Walnut Sugar Trees, Red-Buds, &c.

Tuesday March 19. — We set out S and crossed several Creeks all running to the SW, at about 12 M, came to the little Cuttaway River : We were obliged to go up it about i M to an Island, which was the shoalest Place We coud find to cross at, We then continued our Course in all about 30 M thro level rich Land except about 2 M which was broken and indifferent — This Level is about 35 M broad, and as We came up the Side of it along the Branches of the little Cuttaway We found it about 150 M long; and how far toward the SW We coud not tell, but imagined it held as far as the great Cuttaway River, which woud be upwards of 100 M more, and

60 CHRISTOPHER GIST'S JOURNALS.

appeared much broader that Way than here, as I coud dis- cern from the Tops of the Mountains

Wednesday 20. — We did not travel, I went up to the Top of a Mountain to view the Country, to the SE it looked very broken, and mountainous but to the Eastward and SW it appeared very level.

Thursday 21.— Set out S 45 E 15 M, S 5 M, here I found a Place where the Stones shined like high-coloured Brass, the Heat of the Sun drew out of them a Kind of Borax or Salt Petre only something sweeter ; some of which I brought in to the Ohio Company, tho I believe it was Nothing but a Sort of Sulphur.

Friday 22. — SE 12 M, I killed a fat Bear, and was taken sick that Night.

Saturday 23. — I stayed here, and sweated after the Indian Fashion, which helped Me.

Sunday 24.— Set out E 2 M, NE 3 M, N i M, E 2 M,SE 5 M, E 2 M, N 2 M, SE 7 M to a small Creek, where We encamped in a Place where We had but poor Food for our Horses, & both We and They were very much wearied : the Reason of our making so many short Courses was. We were driven by a Branch of the little Cuttaway River (whose Banks were so exceeding steep that it was impossible to ford it) into a Ledge of rocky Laurel Mountains which were almost impass- able.

Monday 25.— Set out SE 12 M, N 2 M, E I M, S 4 M,SE 2 M, We killed a Buck Elk here and took out his Tongue to carry with Us.

Tuesday 26.— Set out SE 10 M, SW i M, SE i M, SW i M SE I M, SW I M, SE I M SW I M SE 5 M killed 2 Buffaloes & took out their Tongues and encamped — These two Days We travelled thro Rocks and Mountains full of Laurel Thickets which We coud hardly creep thro without cutting our Way.

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 6l

Wednesday 27. — Our Horses and Selves were so tired that We were obliged to stay this Day to rest, for We were unable to travel— On all the Branches of the little Cuttaway River was great Plenty of fine Coal some of which I brought in to the Ohio Company.

Thursday 28. — Set out SE 15 M crossing several Creeks of the little Cuttaway River, the Land still full of Coal and black Slate.

Friday 29.— The same Course SE about 12 M the Land still mountainous.

Saturday 30. — Stayed to rest our Horses, I went on Foot, and found a Passage thro the Mountains to another Creek, or a Fork of the same Creek that We were upon.

Sunday 31. — The same Course SE 15 M, killed a Buffaloe & encamped.

Monday April i. — Set out the same Course about 20 M. Part of the Way We went along a Path up the Side of a little Creek, at the Head of which was a Gap in the Mountains, then our Path went down another Creek to a Lick where Blocks of Coal about 8 to 10 In : square lay upon the Surface of the Ground, here We killed a Bear and encamped.

Tuesday 2.— Set out S 2 M, SE i M, NE 3 M, killed a Buf- faloe.

Wednesday 3.— S i M, SW 3 M, E 3 M, SE 2 M, to a small Creek on which was a large Warriors Camp, that woud contain 70 or 80 Warriors, their Captain's Name or Title was the Crane, as I knew by his Picture or Arms painted on a Tree.

Thursday 4. — We stayed here all Day to rest our Horses, and I platted down our Courses and I found I had still near 200 M Home upon a streight Line.

Friday April 5. — Rained, and We stayed at the Warrior's Camp.

Saturday 6. — We went along the Warrior's Road S i M, SE 3 M, S 2 M, SE 3 M, E 3 M, killed a Bear.

62 CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNALS.

Sunday 7.— Set out E 2 M, NE i M, SE i M, S i M, W i M, SW I M, S I M, SE 2 M, S i M.

Monday 8.— S i M, SE i M, E 3 M, SE i M, E 3 M, NE 2 M, N I M, E I M, N I M, E 2 M and encamped upon a small Laurel Creek.

Tuesday 9 & Wednesday 10. — The Weather being some- what bad We did not travel these two Days, the Country be- ing still rocky mountainous, & full of Laurel Thickets, the worst traveling I ever saw.

Thursday 11. — We travelled several Courses near 20 M, but in the Afternoon as I coud see from the Top of the Moun- tain the Place We came from, I found We had not come upon a streight Line more than N 65 E 10 M.

Friday 12. — Set out thro very difficult Ways E 5 M, to a small Creek.

Saturday 13. — The same Course E upon a streight Line, tho the Way We were obliged to travel was near 20 M, here We killed two Bears, the Way still rocky and mountainous.

Sunday 14. — As Food was very scarce in these barren Mountains, We were obliged to move for fresh Feeding for our Horses, so We went on E 5 M, then N 20 W 6 M, to a Creek where We got something better Feeding for our Horses, in climbing up the Clifts and Rocks this Day two of our Horses fell down, and were pretty much hurt, and a Paroquete, which I had got from the Indians, on the other Side the Ohio (where there are a great many) died of a Bruise he got by a Fall ; tho it was but a Trifle I was much concerned at losing Him, as he was perfectly tame, and had been very brisk all the Way, and I had still Corn enough left to feed Him — In the Afternoon I left the Horses, and went a little Way down the Creek, and found such a Precipice and such Laurel Thickets as We coud not pass, and the Horses were not able to go up the Mountain till they had rested a Day or two.

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY, 63

Monday 1 5. — We cut a Passage through the Laurels better than 2 M, as I was climbing up the Rocks, I got a Fall which hurted Me pretty much — This Afternoon as We wanted Provi- sion I killed a Bear.

Tuesday 16. — Thunder and Rain in the Morning — We set out N 25 E 3 M.

Wednesday 17. — This Day I went to the Top of a Moun- tain to view the Way, and found it so bad that I did not care to engage it, but rather chose to go out of the Way and keep down along the Side of a Creek till I coud find a Branch or Run on the other Side to go up.

Thursday 18. — Set out down the said Creek Side N 3 M, then the Creek turning NW I was obliged to leave it, and go up a Ridge NE i M, E 2 M, SE 2 M, NE i M, to the Fork of a River.

Friday 19.— Set out down the said Run NE 2 M, E 2 M, SE 2 M, N 20 E 2 M, E 2 M, up a large Run.

Saturday 20. — Set out SE 10 M, E 4 M, over a small Creek — We had such bad traveling down this Creek, that We had like to have lost one of our Horses.

Sunday 21. — Stayed to rest our Horses.

Monday 22. — Rained all Day — We coud not travel.

Tuesday 23.— Set out E 8 M along a Ridge of Mountains then SE 5 M, E 3 M, SE 4 M, and encamped among very steep Mountains.

Wednesday 24.— SE 4 M thro steep Mountains and Thickets E 6 M.

Thursday 25.— E 5 M, SE I M, NE 2 M, SE 2 M, E i M, then S 2 M, E I M killed a Bear.

Friday 26.— Set out SE 2 M, here it rained so hard We were obliged to stop.

Saturday 27 Sunday 28 & Monday 29.— These three Days it continued raining & bad Weather, so that We coud not tra-

64 CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNALS.

vel — All the Way from Salt Lick Creek to this Place, the Branches of the little Cuttaway River were so high that We coud not pass Them, which obliged Us to go over the Heads of them, thro a continued Ledge of almost inaccessible Mountains, Rocks and Laurel Thickets.

Tuesday 30.— Fair Weather set out E 3 M, SE 8 M, E 2 M, to a little River or Creek which falls into the big Conha- way, called blue Stone, where we encamped and had good Feeding for our Horses.

Wednesday May i. — Set out N 75 E 10 M and killed a Buf- faloe, then went up a very high Mountain, upon the Top of which was a Rock 60 or 70 Feet high, & a Cavity in the Middle, into which I went, and found there was a Passage thro it which gradually ascended to the Top, with several Holes in the Rock, which let in the Light, when I got to the Top of this Rock, I could see a prodigious Distance, and coud plainly discover where the big Conhaway River broke the next high Mountain, I then came down and continued my Course N 75 E 5 M farther and encamped.

Thursday 2 & Friday 3. — These two Days it rained and We stayed at our Camp to take Care of some Provision We had killed.

Saturday 4. — This Day our Horses run away, and it was late before We got Them, so We coud not travel far. We went N 75 E 4 M.

Sunday May 5. — Rained all Day.

Monday 6. — Set out thro very bad Ways E 3 M, NE 6 M, over a bad Laurel Creek E 4 M.

Tuesday 7. — Set out E 10 M,to the big Conhaway or new River and got over half of it to a large Island where We lodged that Night.

Wednesday 8. — We made a Raft of Logs and crossed the other half of the River & went up it S about 2 M — The Con-

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 6$

haway or new River (by some called Wood's River) where I crossed it (which was about 8 M above the Mouth of blue Stone River) is better than 200 Yards wide, and pretty deep, but full of Rocks and Falls — The Bottoms upon it and blue Stone River are very rich but narrow, the high Land broken.

Thursday 9. — Set out E 13 M to a large Indian Warrior's Camp, where We killed a Bear and stayed all Night.

Friday 10.— Set out E 4 M, SE 3 M, S 3 M, thro Mountains cover'd with Ivy and Laurel Thickets.

Saturday 11. — Set out S 2 M, SE 5 M, to a Creek and a Meadow where We let our Horses feed, then SE 2 M, S i M, SE 2 M to a very high Mountain up on the Top of which was a Lake or Pond about % oi a. Mile long NE & SW, & ^ of a Mile wide the Water fresh and clear, and a clean gravelly Shore about 10 Yards wide with a fine Meadow and six fine Springs in it, then S about 4 M, to a Branch of the Conhaway called Sinking Creek.

Sunday 12. — Stayed to rest our Worses and dry some Meat We had killed.

Monday 13.— Set out SE 2 M, E i M, SE 3 M, S 12 M to one Rich'' Hall^ in Augusta County this Man is one of the farthest Settlers to the Westward upon the New River.

Tuesday 14. — Stayed at Rich" Hall's and wrote to the Presi- dent of Virginia & the Ohio Company to let them know I shoud be with Them by the 15'" of June.

Wednesday 15.— Set out from Rich" Hall's S 16 M.

Thursday 16. — The same Course S 22 M and encamped at Beaver Island Creek (a Branch of the Conhaway) opposite to the Head of Roanoke.

Friday 17.— Set out SW 3 M, then S 9 M, to the dividing Line between Carolina and Virginia, where I stayed all Night, the Land from Rich Hall's to this Place is broken.

Saturday 18. — Set out S 20 ,M to my own House on the

66 CHRTSTOPHER GIST's JOURNALS.

Yadkin River, when I came there I found all my Family gone, for the Indians had killed five People in the Winter near that Place, which frightened my Wife and Family away to Roanoke about 35 M nearer in among the Inhabitants, which I was informed of by an old Man I met near the Place. Sunday 19. — Set out for Roanoke, and as We had now a Path, We got there the same Night where I found all my Family well.

Christopher Gist.

i

INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN TO M' CHRISTOPHER GIST BY

THE COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY

JULY 16"" 1751.

After You have returned from Williamsburg and have exe- cuted the Commission of the President & Council, if they shall think proper to give You One, otherwise as soon as You can conveniently You are to apply to Col° Cresap for such of the Company's Horses, as You shall want for the Use of yourself and such other Person or Persons You shall think necessary to carry with You ; and You are to look out & observe the nearest & most convenient Road You can find from the Com- pany's Store at Wills's Creek to a Landing at Mohongeyela ; from thence You are to proceed down the Ohio on the South Side thereof, as low as the Big Conhaway, and up the same as far as You judge proper, and find good Land — You are all the Way to keep an exact Diary & Journal & therein note every Parcel of good Land, with the Quantity as near as You can by any Means compute the same, with the Breadth, Depth, Course and Length of the several Branches falling into the Ohio, & the different Branches any of Them are forked into, laying the same as exactly down in a Plan thereof as You can ; observing also the Produce, the several Kinds of Timber and Trees, observing where there is Plenty and where the Timber is scarce ; and You are not to omit proper Observations on the mountainous, barren, or broken Land, that We may on your Return judge what Quantity of good Land is contained within the Compass of your Journey, for We woud not have You omit taking Notice of any Quantity

(67)

68 CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNALS.

of good Land, tho not exceeding 4 or 500 Acres provided the same lies upon the River Ohio & may be convenient for our building Store Houses & other Houses for the better carrying on a Trade and Correspondence down that River.

175 1. — Pursuant to my Instructions hereunto annexed from the Committee of the Ohio Company bearing Date 16* July 1751

Monday Nov' 4. — Set out from the Company's Store House in Frederick County Virginia opposite the Mouth of Wills's Creek and crossing Potomack River went W 4 M to a Gap in the Allegany Mountains upon the S W Fork of the said Creek — This Gap is the nearest to Potomack River of any in the Allegany Mountains, and is accounted one of the best, tho the Mountain is very high, The Ascent is no where very steep but rises gradually near 6 M, it is now very full of old Trees & Stones, but with some Pains might be made a good Waggon Road ; this Gap is directly in the Way to Mohongaly, & several Miles nearer than that the Traders commonly pass thro, and a much better Way.

Tuesday 5. — Set out N 80 W 8 M, it rained and obliged Us to stop.

Wednesday 6. — The same Course 3 M hard Rain.

Thursday 7. — Rained hard and We coud not travel.

Friday 8. — Set out the same Courses N 80 W 3 M, here We encamped, and turned to see where the Branches lead to & found they descended into the middle Fork of Yaughaugh- gaine — We hunted all the Ground for 10 M, or more and killed several Deer, & Bears, and one large Elk — The Bottoms upon the Branches are but narrow with some Indian Fields about 2000 Acres of good high Land about a Mile from the largest Branch.

From Saturday 9 to Tuesday 19. — We were employed in searching the Lands and discovering the Branches Creeks &c.

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 69

Wednesday 20. — Set out N 45 W 5 M killed a Deer.

Thursday 21. — The same Course 5 M the greatest Part of this Day We were cutting our Way thro' a Laurel Thicket and lodged by the Side of one at Night.

Friday 22. — Set out the same Course N 45 W 2 M and cut our Way thro a great Laurel Thicket to the middle Fork of Yaughyaughgaine then S down the said Fork (crossing a Run) I M, then S 45 W 2 M over the said Fork where We encamped.

Saturday 23. — Rested our Horses and examined the Land on Foot, which We found to be tolerable rich & well timbered but stony and broken.

Sunday 24. — Set out W 2 M then S 45 W 6 M over the S Fork and encamp'd on the SW Side about i M from a small Hunting Town of the Delawares from whom I bought some Com — I invited these Indians to the Treaty at the Loggs Town, the full Moon in May, as Col° Patton had desired Me ; they treated Me very civilly, but after I went from that Place my Man informed Me that they threatened to take away our Guns and not let Us travel.

Monday 25. — Set out W 6 M, then S 45 W 2 M to a Laurel Creek, where We encamped & killed some Deer.

From Tuesday 26 to Thursday 28. — We were examining the Lands which We found to be rocky and mountainous.

Friday 29.— Set out W 3 M then N 65 W 3 M, N 45 W 2 M.

From Saturday 30 to Friday Dec' 6. — We searched the Land several Miles round and found it about 15 M from the Foot of the Mountains to the River Mohongaly the first 5 M of which E & W is good level farming Land, with fine Meadows, the Timber white Oak and Hiccory — the same Body of Land holds 10 M, S, to the upper Forks of Mohongaly, and about 10 M, N, towards the Mouth of Yaughyaughgaine— The Land

70 CHRISTOPHER GIST S JOURNALS.

nearer the River for about 8 or 9 M wide, and the same Length is much richer & better timbered, with Walnut, Locust, Poplars and Sugar-Trees, but is in some Places very hilly, the Bottoms upon the River i M, and in some Places near 2 M wide.

Saturday 7. — Set out W 6 M and went to an Indian Camp and invited them to the Treaty at the Loggs Town at the full Moon in May next ; at this Camp there was a Trader named Charles Poke who spoke the Indian Tongue well, the Indian to whom this Camp belonged after much Discourse with Me, complained & said " my Friend You was sent tp Us last Year " from the Great Men in Virginia to inform Us of a Present " from the Great King over the Water, and if You can bring " News from the King to Us, why cant You tell Him some- " thing from Me ? The Proprietor of Pensylvania granted " my Father a Tract of Land begining eight Miles below " the Forks of Brandy Wine Creek and binding on the said " Creek to the Fork and including the West Fork & all its " Waters on both Sides to the Head Fountain — The White " People now live on these Lands, and will neither let Me " have Them, nor pay Me any Thing for Them — My Father's " Name was Chickoconnecon, I am his eldest Son, and my " Name is Nemicotton— I desire that You will let the Gov- " ernor and Great Men in Virginia know this — It may be " they will tell the great King of it, and he will make M' Pen " or his People give Me the Land or pay Me for it — This " Trader here Charles Poke knows the Truth of what I say, " that the Land was granted to my Father, & that He or I " never sold it, to which Charles Poke answered that Chicko- " connecon had such a grant of Land, & that the People who " lived on it coud get no Titles to it, for that it was now " called Manner Lands — This I was obliged to insert in my " Journal to please the Indian.

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 71

Sunday Dec' 8. — Stayed at the Indian Camp.

Monday 9.— Set out S 45 W i M, W 6 M to the River Mohongaly — at this Place is a large Cavity in a Rock about 30 Feet long & 20 Feet wide & about 7 Feet high and an even Floor — The Entrance into it is so large and open that it lets in Plenty of Light, and close by it is a Stream of fine Water.

From Tuesday lo to Friday 13. — We were examining the Lands which for 9 or 10 M, E is rich but hilly as before described, on the E Side the River for several Miles there are fine Bottoms a Mile wide and the Hills above them are extraordinary rich and well timbered.

Saturday 14. — We had Snow.

Sunday 15. — Crossed the River Mohongaly which in this Place is 53 Poles wide, the Bottoms upon the W Side are not above 100 Yards broad, but the Hills are very rich both up and down the River, and full of Sugar Trees.

Monday 16. — Spent in searching the Land.

Tuesday 17. — Set out W 5 M the Land upon this Course hilly but very rich for about a Mile and a half, then it was level with good Meadows but not very rich for about a Mile & a half more, & the last 2 M next to Licking Creek was very good Land ; upon this Creek We lodged at a hunting Camp of an Indian Captain named Oppaymolleah, here I saw an Indian named Joshua who spoke very good English ; he had been acquainted with Me several Years, and seemed very glad to see Me, and wondered much where I was going so far in those Woods ; I said I was going to invite all the great Men of the Indians to a Treaty to be held at Loggs Town, the full Moon in May next, where a Parcel of Goods, a Present from the King of Great Britain, would be delivered Them by proper Commissioners, and that these were the Goods which I informed them of last Year, by Order of the President of

72 CHRISTOPHER GIST S JOURNALS.

Virginia, Col° Lee, who was since dead, Joshua informed Them what I said, and they told Me, I ought to let the Beaver know this, so I wrote a Line to him by Joshua, who promised to deliver it safe, and said there was a Trader's Man who coud read it for him — This Beaver is the Sachemore or Chief of the Delawares. It is customary among the Indian Chiefs to take upon Them the Name of any Beast or Bird they ancy, the Picture of which they always sign instead of their Name or Arms.

Wednesday i8. — Stayed at the Camp.

Thursday 19,— Set out W 3 M, S 45 W 2 M, W i M to a Branch of Licking Creek.

Friday 20. — Set out W i M, S 45 W 6 M and encamped.

From Saturday 21 to Tuesday, Jan'^ 7. — We stayed at this Place, We had a good Deal of Snow & bad Weather — My Son had the Misfortune to have his Feet frost-bitten, which kept Us much longer here than We intended however We kill'd Plenty of Deer Turkeys &c and fared very well — The Land hereabouts very good but to the W and SW it is hilly.

1752

Wednesday Jan'>' 8 — My Son's Feet being somewhat better, We set out S 30 W 5 M, S 45 W 3 M, the Land middling good but hilly — I found my Son's Feet too tender to travel, and we were obliged to stop again.

From Thursday 9 to Sunday 19. — We stayed at this Place — While We were here We killed Plenty of Bear Deer & Elk, so that We lived very well.

Monday 20. — We set out W j M — here we were stopped by Snow.

Tuesday 21. — Stayed all the Day in the Camp.

Wednesday 22. — Set out S 45 W 12 M, where we scared a Panther from under a Rock where there was Room enough for Us, in it We encamped & had good Shelter.

I

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 73

From Thursday 23 to Sunday 26.— We stayed at this Place & had Snow and bad Weather.

Monday 27.— Set out S 45 W 6 M, here We had Snow & encamped.

From Tuesday 28 to Friday 31.— Stayed at this Place, the Land upon these last Courses is rich but hilly and in some Places Stony.

Saturday Feb i.— Set out S 45 W 3 M, S 45 E i M, S 2 M, S 45 W I M, crossed a Creek on which the Land was very hilly and rocky yet here and there good Spots on the Hills. Sunday 2.— S 45 W 3 M, here We were stopped by Snow. From Monday 3 till Sunday 9.— We stayed at this Place and had a good Deal of Snow & bad Weather.

Monday 10.— Set out S 45 W 8 M— The Snow hard upon the Top & bad traveling

Tuesday 11.— The same Course S 45 W 2 M, then W i M, S 45 W 4 M.

Wednesday 12.— Killed two Buffaloes and searched the Land to the NW which I found to be rich & well timbered with lofty Walnuts, Ash, Sugar Trees &c but hilly in most Places.

Thursday 13.— Set out W i M, S 45 W 2 M, W 2 M, S 45 W 2 M, W 2 M— In this Day's Journey We found a Place where a Piece of Land about 100 Yards square & about 10 Feet deep from the Surface had slipped down a steep Hill, somewhat more than it's own Breadth, with most of the Trees standing on it upright as they were at first, and a good many Rocks which appeared to be in the same Position as they were before the Ground slipt : It had bent down and crushed the Trees as it came along, which might plainly be seen by the Ground on the upper Side of it, over which it had passed — It seemed to have been done but two or three Years ago — In the Place from whence it removed was a 6

74 CHRISTOPHER GIST S JOURNALS.

large Quarry of Rocks, in the Sides of which were Veins of several Colours, particularly one of a deep yellow, about 3 Feet from the Bottom, in which were other small Veins some white, some a greenish Kind of Copperas : A Sample of which I brought in to the Ohio Company in a small Leather Bag N° i — Not very far from this Place We found another large Piece of Earth, which had slipped down in the same Manner — Not far from here We encamped in the Fork of a Creek.

Friday 14. — We stayed at this Place — On the NW Side of the Creek on a rising ground by a small Spring We found a large Stone about 3 Feet Square on the Top, and about 6 or 7 Feet high; it was all covered with green Moss except on the SE Side which was smooth and white as if plaistered with Lime. On this Side I cut with a cold Chizzel in large Letters,

THE OHIO COMPANY

FEB^ 175 1

BY CHRISTOPHER GIST

Saturday 15.— Set out S 45 W 5 M, rich Land but hilly, very rich Bottoms up the Creek but not above 200 Yards wide.

Sunday 16.— S 45 W 5 M thro rich Land, the Bottoms about ^ of a Mile wide upon the Creek.

Monday 17. — The same Course S 45 W 3 M, W 3 M, S 45 W 3 M, S 20 W 3 M, S 8 M, S 45 W 2 M over a Creek upon which was fine Land, the Bottoms about a Mile wide.

Tuesday Feb'' 18. — S 10 M over the Fork of a Creek S 45 W 4 M to the Top of a high Ridge, from whence We coud see over the Conhaway River — Here We encamped, the Land mixed with Pine and not very good.

Wednesday 19.— Set out S 15 M, S 45 W 6 M to the Mouth

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. ' 7$

of a little Creek, upon which the Land is very rich, and the Bottoms a Mile wide — The Conhaway being very high over- flowed some Part of the Bottoms.

Thursday 20. — Set out N 45 W 2 M across a Creek over a Hill, then S 80 W 10 M to a large Run, all fine Land upon this Course — (We were now about 2 M from the River Con- haway)—Then continued our Course S 80 W 10 M, the first 5 M good high Land ; tolerably level the last 5 thro the River Bottoms, which were a Mile wide and very rich, to a Creek or large Run which We crossed, & continued our Course S 80 W 2 M farther & encamped.

Friday 21. — The same Course S 80 W still continued 8 M further ; then S 2 M to the Side of the River Conhaway, then down the said River N 45 W i M to a Creek where We en- camped— The Bottoms upon the River here are a Mile wide, the Land very rich — The River at this Place is 79 Poles broad.

Saturday 22.— Set out N 45 W 4 M, W 7 M, to a high Hill from whence We coud see the River Ohio, then N 45 W 12 M to the River Ohio at the Mouth of a small Run where We encamped. The Bottoms upon the River here are a Mile wide & very good, but the high Land broken.

Sunday 23. — Set out S 45 E 14 M over Letort's Creek — The Land upon this Creek is poor, broken, & full of Pines — Then the same Course S 45 E 10 M and encamped on the River Side upon fine rich Land the Bottoms about a Mile wide.

Monday 24.— Set out E 12 M up the River all fine Land the Bottoms about i}4 Miles wide, full of lofty Timber : then N 5 M crossing Smith's Creek. The Land here is level & good, but the Bottoms upon the River are not above }4 a Mile wide— then N 45 E 8 M to a Creek called Beyansoss where We encamped.

76 CHRISTOPHER GIST'S JOURNALS.

Tuesday 2$. — We searched the Land upon this Creek which We found very good for 12 or 13 M up it from the River — The Bottoms upon it are about }4 a Mile wide, & the Bottoms upon the River at the Mouth of it a Mile wide, and very well timbered.

Wednesday 26. — Set out N 45 E 13 M to the River Ohio at the Mouth of a Creek called Lawwellaconin ; then S 55 E 5 M up the said Creek — The Bottoms upon this Creek are a Mile wide & the high Land very good & not much broken, & very well timbered

Thursday 27 Friday 28 & Saturday 29.— Rained and we coud not travel — Killed four Buffaloes.

Sunday March i and Monday 2. — Set out N 30 E 10 M to a little Branch full of Coal then N 30 E 16 M to Nawmissipia or Fishing Creek — My Son hunted up this Creek (where I had cut the Letters upon the Stone) which he said was not above 6 M in a streight Line from this Place — The Bottoms upon this Creek are but narrow, the high Land hilly, but very rich and well timbered.

Tuesday 3. — Set out N 30 E 18 M to Molchuconickon or Buffaloe Creek.

Wednesday 4. — We hunted up and down this Creek to ex- amine the Land— The Bottoms are % oi a. Mile wide & very rich, a great many cleared Fields covered with white Clover, the high Land rich, but in general, hilly.

Thursday 5. — Set out N 30 E 9 M to a Creek called Nee- mokeesy where We killed a black Fox & two Bears — Upon this Creek We found a Cave under a Rock about 150 Feet long & 55 feet wide ; one Side of it open facing the Creek, the Floor dry — We found it had been much used by Buffaloes & Elks who came there to lick a kind of saltish Clay which I found in the Cave, and of which I took a sample in a Leather Bag N . 2.

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. JJ

Friday March 6.— We stayed at the Cave— Not very far from it We saw a Herd of Elks near 30 one of which my Son killed.

Saturday 7.— Set out N 30 E 7 M to the Ohio River— The Bottoms here were very rich and near 2 M wide ; but a little higher up, the Hill seemed very steep, so that We were obliged to leave the River & went E 6 M on very high Land ; then N 9 M thro' very good high Land tolerable level to a Creek called Wealin or Scalp Creek where We encamped.

Sunday 8. — We went out to search the Land which We found very good for near 15 M up this Creek from the Mouth of it, the Bottoms above a Mile wide & some Meadows — We found an old Indian Road up this Creek.

Monday 9. — Set out N 45 E 18 M to a Creek — The same Course 3 M to another Creek where We encamped — These Creeks the Traders distinguish by the Name of the two Creeks.

Tuesday 10. — We hunted up and down these Creeks to ex- amine the Land from the Mouths of Them, to the place where We had crossed near the Heads of Them ; in our Way to the Conhaway — They run near parallel at about 3 or 4 M Distance, for upwards of 30 M— The Land between Them all the Way is rich & level, chiefly Low Grounds & finely tim- bered with Walnuts, Locusts, Cherry Trees, & Sugar Trees

Wednesday 11. — Set out E 18 M crossing three Creeks all good Land but hilly then S 16 M to our old Camp, where my Son had been frost-bitten. After We had got to this Place in our old Tract, I did not keep any exact Account of Course and Distance, as I thought the Rivers & Creeks sufficiently described by my Courses as I came down.

Thursday 12. — I set out for Mohongaly crossed it u|)on a Raft of Logs from whence I made the best of my Way to Po- tomack — I did not keep exactly my old Tract but went more

78 CHRISTOPHER GIST'S JOURNALS.

to the Eastward & found a much nearer Way Home : and am of Opinion the Company may have a tolerable good Road from Wills Creek to the upper Fork of Monhongaly, from whence the River is navigable all the Way to the Ohio for large flat bottomed Boats — The Road will be a little to the Southward of West, and the Distance to the Fork of Mohongaly about 70 M — While I was at Mohongaly in my Return Home an Indian, who spoke good English, rame to Me & said — That their great Men the Beaver and Captain Oppamylucah (these are two Chiefs of the Delawares) desired to know where the Indian's Land lay, for that the French claimed all the Land on one side the River Ohio & the English on the other Side; and that Oppamylucah asked Me the same Question when I was at his Camp in my Way down, to which I had made him no Answer — I very well remembered that Oppamylucah had asked me such a Question, and that I was at a Loss to answer Him as I now also was : But after some Consideration " my Friend " said I, " We are all one King's People and the different " Colour of our Skins makes no Difference in the King's " Subjects ; You are his People as well as We, if you will " take Land & pay the King's Rights You will have the same " Privileges as the White People have, and to hunt You have " Liberty every where so that You dont kill the White Peoples " Cattle & Hogs — To this the Indian said, that I must stay at that Place two Days and then he woud come & see Me again. He then went away, and at the two Days End returned as he promised, and looking very pleasant said He woud stay with Me all Night, after He had been with Me some Time He said that the great Men bid Him tell Me I was very safe that I might come and live upon that River where I pleased— that I had answered Them very true for We were all one King's People sure enough & for his Part he woud come to see Me at Wills's Creek in a Month.

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 70

March — From Thursday 12 to Saturday 28. — We were traveling from Mohongaly to Potomack for as We had a good many Skins to carry & the Weather was bad We traveled but slow

Sunday 29. — We arrived at the Company's Factory at Wills's Creek.

Christopher Gist.

This Day came before Me Christopher Gist & made Oath on the holy Evangelists that the two Journals hereunto annexed, both which are signed by the said Christopher Gist ; the first containing an Account of his Travels and Discoveries down the River Ohio & the Branches thereof, for the Ohio Company in the Years 1750 & 1751 together with his Transactions with the Indians and his Return Home. And the other con- taining an Account of his Travels and Discoveries down the said River Ohio on the SE Side as low as the Big Conhaway made for the s' Ohio Company in the Years 175 1 & 1752 & his return to Wills's Creek on Potomack River (as in a Piatt made thereof by the said Christopher Gist and given in to the said Ohio Company may more fully appear) are just & true except as to the Number of Miles, which the said Christopher Gist did not actually measure and therefore cannot be certain of Them, but computed Them in the most exact Manner he coud & according to the best of his Knowledge. Given under my Hand this Day of 175

80 CHRISTOPHER GIST'S JOURNALS.

1753-

Wednesday 14 November, 1753. — Then Major George Washington came to my house at Will's Creek, and delivered me a letter from the council in Virginia, requesting me to attend him up to the commandant of the French fort on the Ohio River.

Thursday 15. — We set out, and at night encamped at George's Creek, about eight miles, where a messenger came with letters from my son, who was just returned from his peo- ple at the Cherokees, and lay sick at the mouth of Conego- cheague. But as I found myself entered again on public busi- ness, and Major Washington and all the company unwilling I should return I wrote and sent medicines to my son, and so continued my journey, and encamped at a big hill in the forks of Youghiogany, about eighteen miles.

Friday 16. — The next day set out and got to the big fork of said river, about ten miles there.

Saturday 17. — We encamped and rested our horses, and then we set out early in the morning.

Sunday 18. — And at night got to my house in the new set- tlement, about twenty-one miles ; snow about ancle deep.

Monday 19. — Set out, cross Big Youghiogany, to Jacob's cabins, about twenty miles. Here some of our horses strag- gled away, and we did not get away until eleven o'clock.

Tuesday 20. — Set out, had rain in the afternoon ; I killed a deer ; travelled about seven miles.

Wednesday 21. — It continued to rain. Stayed all day.

Thursday 22. — We set out and came to the mouth of Tur- tle Creek, about twelve miles, to John Frazier's ; and he was very kind to us, and lent us a canoe to carry our baggage to the forks, about ten miles.

Friday 23. — Set out, rid to Shannopin's town, and down

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COMMITTEE OP THE OHIO COMPANY. 8l

Allegheny to the mouth of Monongahela, where we met our baggage, and swimmed our horses over Allegheny, and there encamped that night.

Saturday 24. — Set out ; we went to king Shingiss, and he and Lawmolach went with us to the Logstown, and we spoke to the chiefs this evening, and repaired to our camp.

Sunday 25. — They sent out for their people to come in. The Half-King came in this afternoon.

Monday 26. — We delivered our message to the Half-King and they promised by him that we should set out three nights after.

Tuesday 27. — Stayed in our camp. Monacatoocha and Pollatha Wappia gave us some provisions. We stayed until the 29th when the Indians said, they were not ready. They desired us to stay until the next day and as the warriors were not come, the Half-King said he would go with us himself, and take care of us.

Friday 30. — We set out, and the Half-King and two old men and one young warrior, with us. At night we encamped at the Murthering town, about fifteen miles, on a branch of Great Beaver Creek. Got some corn and dried meat.

Saturday i December. — Set out, and at night encamped at the crossing of Beaver creek from the Kaskuskies to Venango about thirty miles. The next day rain ; our Indians went out a hunting ; they killed two bucks. Had rain all day.

Monday 3. — We set out and travelled all day. Encamped at night on one of the head branches of Great Beaver creek about twenty-two miles.

Tuesday 5. — Set out about fifteen miles, to the town of Venango, where we were kindly and complaisantly received by Monsieur Joncaire, the French interpreter for the Six Nations.

82 CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNALS.

Wednesday 5. — Rain all day. Our Indians were in council with the Delawares, who lived under the French colors, and ordered them to deliver up to the French the belt, with the marks of the four towns, according to desire of King Shingiss. But the chief of these Delawares said, " It was true King Shingiss was a great man, but he had sent no speech, and," said he, " I cannot pretend to make a speech for a King." So our Indians could not prevail with them to deliver their belt ; but the Half-King did deliver his belt, as he had deter- mined. Joncaire did every thing he could to prevail on our Indians to stay behind us, and I took all care to have them along with us.

Thursday 6. — We set out late in the day accompanied by the French General and four servants or soldiers, and

Friday 7. — All encamped at Sugar creek, five miles from Venango. The creek being very high we were obliged to carry all our baggage over on trees, and swim our horses The Major and I went first over, with our boots on.

Saturday 9. — We set out and travelled twenty-five miles to Cussewago, an old Indian town.

Sunday 9. — We set out, left one of our horses here that could travel no further. This day we travelled to the big crossing, about fifteen miles, and encamped, our Indians went out to look out logs to make a raft ; but as the water was high, and there were other creeks to cross, we concluded to keep up this side the creek.

Monday 10. — Set out, travelled about eight miles, and encamped. Our Indians killed a bear. Here we had a creek to cross, very deep ; we got over on a tree, and got our goods over.

Tuesday 1 1. — We set out, travelled about fifteen miles to the French fort, the sun being set. Our interpreter gave the commandant notice of our being over the creek ; upon which

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 83

he sent several officers to conduct us to the fort, and they received us with a great deal of complaisance.

Wednesday 12. — The Major gave the passport, showed his commission, and offered the Governor's letter to the com- mandant ; but he desired not to receive them, until the other commander from Lake Erie came, whom he had sent for, and expected next day by twelve o'clock.

Thursday 13. — The other General came. The Major deliv- ered the letter, and desired a speedy answer ; the time of year and business required it. They took our Indians into private council, and gave them several presents.

Friday 14. — When we had done our business, they delayed and kept our Indians, until Sunday ; and then we set out with two canoes, one for our Indians, and the other for our- selves. Our horses we had sent away some days before, to wait at Venango, if ice appeared on the rivers and creeks.

Sunday 16. — We set out by water about sixteen miles, and encamped. Our Indians went before us, passed the little lake, and we did not come up with them that night.

Monday 17. — We set out, came to our Indians' camp. They were out hunting ; they killed three bears. We stayed this day, and

Tuesday 18. — One of our Indians did not come to camp. So we finding the waters lower very fast, were obliged to go and leave our Indians.

Wednesday 19. — We set out about seven or eight miles, and encamped, and the next day

Thursday 20. — About twenty miles, where we were stop- ped by ice, and worked until night.

Friday 21. — The ice was so hard we could not break our way through, but were obliged to haul our vessels across a point of land and put them in the creek again. The Indians and three French canoes overtook us here, and the people of

84 CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNALS.

one French canoe that was lost, with her cargo of powder and lead. This night we encamped about twenty miles above Venango.

Saturday 22. — Set out. The creek began to be very low and we were forced to get out, to keep our canoe from over- setting, several times ; the water freezing to our clothes ^ and we had the pleasure of seeing the French overset, and the brandy and wine floating in the creek, and run by them, and left them to shift for themselves. Came to Venango, and met with our people and horses.

Sunday 23. — We set out from Venango, travelled about five miles to Lacomick creek.

Monday 24. — Here Major Washington set out on foot in Indian dress. Our horses grew weak, that we were mostly obliged to travel on foot, and had snow all day. Encamped near the barrens.

Tuesday 25. — Set out and travelled on foot to branches of Great Beaver creek.

Wednesday 26.— The Major desired me to set out on foot, and leave our company, as the creeks were frozen, and our horses could make but little way. Indeed, I was unwilling he should undertake such a travel, who had never been used to walking before this time. But as he insisted on it, I set out with our packs, like Indians, and travelled eighteen miles. That night we lodged at an Indian cabin, and the Major was much fatigued. It was very cold ; all the small runs were frozen, that we could hardly get water to drink.

Thursday 27. — We rose early in the morning, and set out about two o'clock. Got to the Murthering town, on the southeast fork of Beaver creek. Here we met with an Indian, whom I thought I had seen at Joncaire's, at Venango, when on our journey up to the French fort. This fellow called me by my Indian name, and pretended to be glad to see me. He

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANY. 8$

asked us several questions, as how we came to travel on foot, when we left Venango, where we parted with our horses, and when they would be there, etc. Major Washington insisted on travelling on the nearest way to forks of Alleghany. We asked the Indian if he could go with us, and show us the nearest way. The Indian seemed very glad and ready to go with us. Upon which we set out, and the Indian took the Major's pack. We travelled very brisk for eight or ten miles, when the Major's feet grew very sore, and he very weary, and the Indian steered too much north-eastwardly. The Major desired to encamp, to which the Indian asked to carry his gun. But he refused that, and then the Indian grew churlish, and pressed us to keep on, telling us that there were Ottawa Indians in these woods, and they would scalp us if we lay out ; but to go to his cabin, and we should be safe. I thought very ill of the fellow, but did not care to let the Major know I mistrusted him. But he soon mistrusted him as much as I. He said he could hear a gun to his cabin, and steered us more northwardly. We grew uneasy, and then he said two whoops might be heard to his cabin. We went two miles further ; then the Major said he would stay at the next water, and we desired the Indian to stop at the next water. But before we came to water, we came to a clear meadow ; it was very light, and snow on the ground. The Indian made a stop, turned about ; the Major saw him point his gun toward us and fire. Said the Major, " Are you shot? " " No," said I. Upon which the Indian ran forward to a big standing white oak, and to loading his gun ; but we were soon with him. I would have killed him ; but the Major would not suffer me to kill him. We let him charge his gun ; we found he put in a ball ; then we took care of him. The Major or I always stood by the guns; we made him make a fire for us by a little run, as if we intended to sleep there. I said to the Major, " As you

OO CHRISTOPHER GIST S JOURNALS.

will not have him killed, we must get him away, and then we must travel all night." Upon which I said to the Indian, " I suppose you were lost, and fired your gun." He said, he knew the way to his cabin, and 'twas but a little way. "Well," said I, " do you go home ; and as we are much tired, we will follow your track in the morning ; and here is a cake of bread for you, and you must give us meat in the morning." He was glad to get away. I followed him, and listened until he was fairly out of the way, and then we set out about half a mile, when we made a fire, set our compass, and fixed our course, and travelled all night, and in the morning we were on the head of Piney creek.

Friday 28. — We travelled all the next day down the said creek, and just at night found some tracks where Indians had been hunting. We parted, and appointed a place a distance off, where to meet, it being then dark. We encamped, and thought ourselves safe enough to sleep.

Saturday 29. — We set out early, got to Alleghany, made a raft, and with much difficulty got over to an island, alittle above Shannopin's town. The Major having fallen in from off the raft, and my fingers frost-bitten, and the sun down, and very cold, we contented ourselves to encamp upon that island. It was deep water between us and the shore ; but the cold did us some service, for in the morning it was frozen hard enough for us to pass over on the ice.

Sunday 30. — We set out about ten miles to John Frazier's, at Turtle creek, and rested that evening.

Monday 31. — Next day we waited on queen Aliquippa, who lives now at the mouth of Youghiogany. She said she would never go down to the river Alleghany to live, except the Eng- lish built a fort, and then she would go and live there.

Tuesday January i, 1754. — We set out from John Frazier's and at night encamped at Jacob's cabins.

COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO COMPANV. 87

Wednesday 2. — Set out and crossed Youghiogany on the ice. Got to my house in the new settlement.

Thursday 3. — Rain.

Friday 4. — Set out for Will's creek, where we arrived on Sunday January 6.

^v.

CHRISTOPHER GIST.

Christopher Gist was of English descent. His grand- father was Christopher Gist, who died in Baltimore County in 1691. His grandmother was Edith Cromwell. They had one child, Richard, who was Surveyor of the Western Shore and was one of the Commissioners for laying off the town of Baltimore. In 1705 he married Zipporah Murray, and Chris- topher was one of three sons. He was a resident of North Carolina when first employed by the Ohio Company. He married Sarah Howard. He had three sons, Nathaniel, Richard and Thomas, and two daughters, Anne and Violette. Nathaniel was the only son that married. With his sons, Nathaniel and Thomas, he was with Braddock on his fatal field of battle. Urged by bribes and the promise of rewards, two Indians were persuaded to go out on a scouting expedi- tion. As soon as they were gone, Christopher Gist, the General's guide, was dispatched on the same errand. On the 6th both Indians and Gist rejoined the army, having been within half a mile of the fort. Their reports were favorable and the army advanced. After Braddock's defeat he raised a company of scouts in Virginia and Maryland and did service on the frontier, being then called Captain Gist.

In 1756 he went to the Carolinas to enlist Cherokee Indians for the English service. For a time he served as Indian Agent. He died in the summer of 1759, of smallpox, in South Carolina or Georgia. Richard Gist was killed in the battle of King's Mountain. Thomas lived on the plantation.

(88)

CHRISTOPHER GIST. 89

Anne lived with him until his death, when she joined her brother Nathaniel in Kentucky. Nathaniel was a Colonel in the Virginia Line, during the Revolutionary War, and afterwards removed to Kentucky, where he died early in the present century. He left two sons, Henry Clay and Thomas Cecil. His eldest daughter, Sarah, married the Hon. Jesse Bledsoe, United States Senator from Kentucky. His grand- son, B. Gratz Brown, was the Democratic candidate for Vice- President in 1872. The second daughter of Colonel Gist mar- ried Colonel Nathaniel Hart, a brother of Mrs. Henry Clay. The third daughter married Dr. Boswell, of Lexington, Ken- tucky. The fourth married Francis P. Blair, and they were the parents of Montgomery Blair and Francis P. Blair. The fifth married Benjamin Gratz, of Lexington, Kentucky.

FIRST JOURNEY.

NOTES TO CHRISTOPHER GIST'S JOURNAL OF 1750-1.

October 31, 1750. — Colonel Cresap was an Agent and member of the Ohio Company, see Biographical Sketch in the Appendix. "Old Town." So called for a town or village of the Shawanese Indians, who abandoned the upper Potomac region in the years 1727-9, and removed to the Ohio and Allegheny rivers. It is in Old Town, District of Allegheny County, Maryland, fifteen miles southeast of Cumberland, on the north side of the Potomac, and opposite to Green Spring Station, on the Baltimore and Ohio Railway.

November 3. — Gist's route from Old Town lay by the Warrior's Path, along the base of the Great Warrior Moun- tain, on the eastern side, passing through the present district of Flintstone, Allegheny County, Maryland, and the town- ships of Southhampton, Monroe and Providence, in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, reaching the Juniata at the Warrior's Gap, near the village of Bloody Run, eight miles east of the present town of Bedford ; there he entered the old Indian path leading westward. From the Juniata, where Bedford now stands, two paths led to the Ohio (Allegheny) ; the upper directly north to Frankstown, thence northwest to Venango (now Franklin) ; the lower path led west to Shannopin's Town (now Pittsburgh) ; the latter was the route taken by Gist.'

' Hutchins' Map, 1778; Scull's ditto, 1770. " Traders' Table of Distances to the Ohio ;" " Colonial Records of Pennsylvania," Vol. V, p. 750. "Ac- count of the Road to Logstown," by John Harries, in 1754, " Pennsylva- nia Archives," Vol. II, p. 135.

(90)

LEWIS

MAP, 1775

NOTES TO CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNAL OF I75O-SI. 9I

November 5-9. — In Shade Township, Somerset County, Stony Creek,' a branch of the Conemaugh River ; the path crossed it near the present Stoyestown, in Somerset County.

November 11. — The North and East Forks of the Quema- honing, a branch of Stony Creek ; these streams here flowing northeastward, misled Gist into supposing they emptied into the Susquehannah ; they are so erroneously laid down from his notes on Fry and Jefferson's map of 175 1. Que-Mahoning from Curoa (pine trees,) and Mahonink (a stream,) on which there is a Salt lick.^

November 12. — The ridge of the Alleghenies known as Laurel Hill.

November 14. — This old Indian town stood on the wide and fertile bottom land on the north side of the Loyalhanna Creek, a large branch of the Kiskiminitas River. The present town of Ligonier, in Westmoreland County, occupies the same spot, fifty-one miles east of Pittsburgh, marked " Loyal Hannin Old Town — fifty miles to Shannopin's Town," on a map presented to the Governor and Council of Pennsylvania, by John Pattin (Indian Trader), and Andrew Montour (a Six Nation Chief and Interpreter), March 2, 1754.' Laurel-hanne, signifying the middle stream in the Delaware tongue.* The stream here is half way between the Juniata at Bedford and the Ohio at the Forks.

November 16. — The path here left the Loyalhanna and by a northwest course passed through the Chestnut Ridge, at

1 In the Delaware tongue "Ach'sin-hanac " or " Stony Stream." ' Delaware.

* "Colonial Records," Vol. V, pp. 747, 750.

• Heckwelder in " Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society for 1872," p. 28. McCuIlough, "Narrative and Incidents of Border Life," Lancaster, 1841, p. 81. See also "Trumbull on Indian Geographical Names," Vol. II, p. 12. " Collection of the Connecticut Historical Society."

92 CHRISTOPHER GIST S JOURNALS.

the Miller's Run Gap, and reached the creek again, at the Big Bottom, below the present town of Latrobe, on the Penn- sylvania Central Railway ; there the trail forked, one branch led northwest down the creek to the Kiskiminitas River, at Blacklegs Indian town, by the mouth of the creek of the same name ; thence it continued down to the Kiskiminitas Old Town, at Old Town Run, about seven miles from the Al- legheny River. The other branch, or main trail (travelled by Gist), led directly westward to Shannopin's Town, by a course parallel with and a few miles north of the Pennsylva- nia Railroad. The courses stated by Gist for the i6th and 17th November are manifestly wrong; the distances are given much more correctly.'

November 17. — This camp was Cockey's Cabin, its owner a Delaware Indian, well known by the traders. It was on Bushy Run, a branch of Turtle Creek, near the place of the two days' battle between the army under Colonel Bouquet and the Indians, led by Guyasuta (Kiashuta), August sth and 6th, 1763, about three miles north of Penn Station, on the Pennsylvania Railroad, and twenty-three miles east of Pitts- burgh.' Shannopin's Town, on the bank of the Allegheny River, now in the city of Pittsburgh, between Penn Avenue, Thirtieth Street and the Two Mile Run, in the Twelfth Ward. It was small, containing about twenty wigwams, fifty or sixty natives and twenty warriors.' It was much frequented by the traders. By it ran the main Indian trail from the east to the west. In April, 1730, Governor Thomas,

' See " Colonial Records," Vol. V, p. 750-1. " Pennsylvania Archives," Vol. II, p. 135. Scull's Map, 1770. Hutchins', 1778. Evans and Mitchell's,

1755-

•■'"Pennsylvania Archives," Vol. II, p. 135. "Bouquet's Expedition,

Philadelphia, 1765." "Virginia State Papers, 1875." 3 " Colonial Records," Vol. V, p. 702 ; id., Vol. VII, p. 561.

NOTES TO CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNAL OF 175O-5I. 93

at Philadelphia, received a message from " the Chiefs of ye Delewares at Allegaeniny, on the main road," taken down (written) by Edmund Cartledge, and interpreted by James Le Tort, both noted traders. Among the names signed to the message is that of " Shannopin his X mark." The mes- sage of the chiefs was to explain the cause of the death of a white man, named Hart, and the wounding of another, Robin- son, down the Ohio, occasioned by rum. The bringing of such great quantities of liquor into the woods they desired the Governor to prevent, as well as to limit the number of traders. Shannopin's name appears signed to several docu- ments in the State Archives.' He made a speech to Conrad Weiser, at Logstown, September 15, 1748.'' He was present at the Conference held at Philadelphia, August i, 1740, be- tween the Proprietary, Thomas Penn, Governor Thomas, the Provincial Council, and the Delaware and Mingoe Indians, from Ohio, Allegheny, Shamokin, etc' Shannopin died about the year 1749.*

November 21. — The width of the river here is about the same as stated in the journal, although the banks have been partly washed away by freshets.

November 24. — "At Shannopin's there is a fording place in very dry times and the lowest down the river."* In the first half of the last century the Allegheny River was gener-

' " Pennsylvania Archives," Vol. I, p. 255 ; do., p. 341.

* " Journal of Weiser," Historical Society of Pennsylvania Collection, Vol. I, p. 29 ; " Colonial Records," Vol. V, p. 355.

•'' " Colonial Records," Vol. IV, p. 441.

• " Colonial Records," Vol. V, p. 5 19. See also " Journals of Assembly," 1754, pp. 295 and 299. "Colonial Records," Vol. V, pp. 746, 751, etc. Lon- don Magazine for June, 1754. Evans and Mitchell's Maps, 1755. Fry and Jefferson's Maps, 1751.

' " Analysis of Map of the Middle Colonies," by Lewis Evans, 1775, p. 25.

94 CHRISTOPHER GIST S JOURNALS.

ally called the Ohio, of which it is the head branch. "The Ohio" by the Senecas. Allegheny is the name of the same river in the Delaware language. Both words signify " the fine or fair river." Post was a Moravian missionary amongst the Ohio Indians for many years.* He was twice married among them and thoroughly understood various Indian dialects. He was often employed on Indian affairs by the colonial authorities. On the map prefixed to "Washington's Journal of 1753-4, London, 1754," reprinted by Joseph Sabin, New York, 1865, the Allegheny is marked " The Ohio or Allegheny River," and the main stream " The Ohio or the Fair River."'' In the language of the different tribes of the Iroquois, or Six Na- tions, there are some variations of the word Ohio, none of its meaning. In the Seneca, Cayuga and Mohawk dialects it is 0-heeyo; in the Onondago and Tuscarora 0-hee-yee; in the Oneida 0-hee, the same as Allegheny — "fair or beautiful" — which the French rendered " La Belle Riviere."' The early tra- ders in Kentucky and on the Ohio called it Allegheny, or Ohio, as they happened to trade most with the Iroquois or Delawares. On the map of Cornelli, " North America with the New Dis- coveries of the Year 1688," published at Venice in 1690, the main part of the Ohio is laid down and inscribed " R Ohio or la Belle Riviere, said by the savages to have its source near the Lake Frontenac " (Ontario). In the " Proces Verbal " (Declaration) of the taking possession of Louisiana, at the mouth of the Mississippi, by the Sieur de la Salle, April 9,

' Christian F. Post in liis Second Journal, 1758, London, 1759, p. 17, re- printed in Appendix to Proud's " History of Pennsylvania," 1798, Vol. II ; also in Craig's "Olden Time," Vol. I.

2 See also " Weiser's Journal, 1748." " Colonial Records," Vol. V, p. 349. " Collection Pennsylvania Historical Society," Vol. I, p. 23.

■' " Morgan's League of the Iroquois," p. 394. "Collection of the Con- necticut Historical Society, Vol. II, p. 13."

MISHIMAKINAC

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LEWIS EVANS' MAP, 1755-1775.

K.

NOTES TO CHRISTOPHER GISt's JOURNAL OF I75O-5I. 95

1682, the names " Ohio " and " Alighin " are both evidently given to the same stream." After crossing the river from Shannopins, Gist's route was by the old path which ran by the line occupied now by East and West Ohio Streets, in Allegheny City, to Beaver Avenue, thence along it and down the river bank to Sewickley, twelve miles below Pitts- burgh.

November 25. — Logstown. This once noted Indian and French town stood on the first and second bank on the north side of the Ohio River, immediately below the present town of Economy, eighteen miles from Pittsburgh, in Beaver County, Pennsylvania ; the well-known German settlement, of which George Rapp was the head, established there in 1824. Logstown Run, a small stream, and the bar in the river perpetuate the name and locality. The town was first described by Conrad Weiser in the Journal of his visit to it in August, 1748.' William Franklin (son of Benjamin), afterwards the Royal Governor of New Jersey, was one of Weiser's company." The Shawanese established themselves here, probably soon after their migration from the Upper Potomac country and Eastern Pennsylvania, in 1727-30. In the summer of 1749 Captain Bienville de Celeron, in com- mand of a detachment composed of eight subaltern oflScers, six cadets, an armorer, twenty soldiers, one hundred and

' This document, preserved in the French Archives at Paris, is printed in Sparks' " Life of La Salle," Appendix, p. 194. " American Biographies, New Series, 1864, Vol. I ; also in " Monette's Valley of the Mississippi," Vol. I, p 144. "Historical. Collection of Louisiana," by B. F. French, 1846, p. 49, Vol. L

'' " Collection of the Pennsylvania Historical Society," Vol. I, p. 23, etc. " Colonial Records of Pennsylvania," Vol. V, p. 348, etc.

'"Pennsylvania Archives," Vol. II, pp. 10-15. Evans' "Analysis of Map of the Middle Colonies, 1755," p. 10.

96 CHRISTOPHER GISx's JOURNALS.

eighty Canadians, thirty Iroquois and twenty-five Abanakis, descended the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, from Canada, for the purpose of taking military possession of the country.' Their route from Lake Erie to the Allegheny was by the old Portage to the head of Chautauqua Lake ; thence down the lake to the outlet, through to the Chenango Creek, and by it to the Allegheny. In evidence of the French king's claim, leaden plates, with suitable inscriptions, were deposited at various points along the rivers. A number of them were found in after years. ^ The French arrived at Logstown on the 9th or loth of August, encamped and remained about two days.

Contrecceur, to whom Ensign Ward surrendered the little fort at the Forks of the Ohio, April 17, 1754, where Pitts- burgh now stands, and who named it Du Ouesne, was one of Celeron's officers. Coulon de Valliers, to whom Washing- ton capitulated at Fort Necessity, in June of the same year, was another. He was a brother of Jumonville, killed in a previous contest with Washington's troops. George Crog- han arrived at Logstown just after the French departed.' He had a Trading House there, in which Weiser lodged during his visit the previous year.* Washington and Gist remained here five days while on their way to Venango and Le Boeuf, in 1753.^ Washington was again here in 1770 on his way to the Kanawha.^ In June, 1752, a treaty was

' See " Fort Pitt."

^ See fac-simile of one in Craig's " Olden Time," Vol. II; of another in "New York Colonial History," Vol. VI, p. 611, also in Hildreth's "Pioneer History " and De Hass' " Indian Wars of Western Virginia," 1851. " Magazine of American History," March, 1878.

3" New York Colonial History," Vol. VI, p. 531 ; do., Vol. VII, p. 267.

* "Weiser's Journal."

' Journals of Washington and Gist, 1754.

^ Journals in Sparks' " Life of Washington," Vol. 2, Appendix ; also in Craig's "Olden Time," Vol. I.

NOTES TO CHRISTOPHER GISTS JOURNAL OF I75O-5I. 97

made here between the Indians and the Commissioners of Virginia, Fry, Lomax and Patton. Gist was present, George Croghan also. Arthur Lee, in his " Journal of 1784," mentions Logstown as " formerly a settlement on both sides of the Ohio."' A settlement on the south side of the river is called Indian Logstown in " Western Navigation," edition of 1814, p. 76.^ George Croghan, in his Journal of 1765, describes Logstown as "an old Settlement of the Shawanese, situated on a high bank on the north side of the Ohio River, a fine fertile country around it." An error in printing " south " for " north " has occasioned some contro- versy. His description better applies to the north side, and is so written in the manuscript.' The tract on the south side appears to have been surveyed for Alexander M'Kee in 1769,* and was advertised for public sale by the agents of the State "at Pittsburgh, on the 12th day of October next." Three hundred acres of land, on the south side of the Ohio, located by Alexander McKee, including his house and improve- ments opposite Logstown and confiscated as the property of the said Alexander McKee.' Tanacharison, the Half King, with Monakatoocha and a number of that tribe (Six Nations) lived at Logstown in 1753-4."

On December 2, 1758, soon after the capture of Fort Du Quesne, the Moravian Missionary, Christian Frederick Post, arrived there and found it deserted by its late inhabitants. " In this town," he states, " there is forty houses, all built

'"Life of Lee," Vol. II, p. 384.

'' See also Cumming's "Western Tour," Pittsburgh, 1816, p. 80. ' Craig's " Olden Time," Vol. I, p. 403. Butler's " History of Ken- tucky," second edition. Appendix, p. 459. * " Pennsylvania Archives," Vol. IV, p. 346. ' Pennsylvania Gazette, Septembers, 1784. " " Washington's Journal, 1754."

98 CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNALS.

for them by the French and lived in by about one hundred and twenty warriors."' In Post's original Journal, London, 1759, p. 57, reprinted in Proud's "History of Pennsylvania," Vol. II, Appendix, and in Craig's " Olden Time," Vol. I, he relates, December 2, 1758 : " I with my Companion Kekus- cund's son came to Logstown situated on a high hill. On the East End is a great Piece of low land where the old Logs- town used to stand. In the new Logstown the French have built about thirty Houses for the Indians. They have a large Corn Field on the South Side where the Corn stands un- gathered." (Extract from the "Deposition" of Major Edward Ward, taken at Pittsburgh, March 10, 1777, before the Com- missioners of Virginia, Wood and Simms.) In the year 1752, and before his surrender to the French, " that about one-third of the Shawanese Inhabited Logstown on the West side of the Ohio and tended Corn on the East side of the river — and the other part of the nation lived on the Scioto river."^ The reader will observe on the Map that the Ohio River here makes a bend and runs in its course nearly due north. The traders' stores, here and elsewhere in the Ohio Valley, were sacked and plundered by the Indians on the outbreak of Pon- tiac's War, in 1763. Some of the traders were killed.'' In the original manuscript account and affidavit of losses suf- fered by George Croghan and Company, in 1753, appears the item : " One Store House at the Logstown Twelve miles from Fort Du Quesne on the north west side of Ohio ;£iSO." After the capture of Fort Du Ouesne and erection of Fort Pitt, in 1758, Logstown dwindled to insignificance, although some traffic was carried on there with the Indians. General

' Journal in " Pennsylvania Archives," Vol. Ill, p. 560. ^ " Virginia State Papers Calendar," p. 278.

" " Colonial History of New York," Vol. VII, p. 724. " Plain Facts," p. 59. Parkman's " Conspiracy of Pontiac," Vol. II, pp. 6, 10.

NOTES TO CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNAL OF 1 750-5 1. 99

John Gibson had a small trading establishment there in 1777.' From the beginning of the war of the Revolution it had neither trade nor inhabitants ; Fort Pitt absorbed both.

The site of the town and the surrounding scenery is very picturesque. In the account of Colonel Bouquet's Expedi- tion against the Ohio Indians, in 1764, occurs this passage : " Friday, October 5. — In this day's march, the Army passed through Loggstown, situated seventeen miles and an half, fifty seven perches by the path from Fort Pitt. This place was noted before the last war for the great trade carried on there by the English and French, but its inhabitants abandoned it in the year 1758. The lower town extended about sixty perches over a rich bottom to the foot of a low, steep ridge, on the summit of which, near the declivity, stood the upper town, commanding a most agreeable prospect over the lower and quite across the Ohio, which is quite five hundred yards wide here, and by its majestic, easy current adds much to the beauty of the place."''

Remains of many of the houses are noted in the draught of the survey executed for the State of Pennsylvania.' Por- tions of some of the most substantial buildings were visible in the early part of the present century. For the location of Logstown see Evans' Map of 1755. Fry and Jefferson's ditto, 175 1. Hutchins' Map in "Bouquet." Large Map of ditto, 1778. Map of the Ohio River, by General Victor Collot, 1796.

A town named Montmorin was laid out on a large scale on the site of Logstown in 1788. It only existed on paper. Adver-

'" McDonald's Sketches," p. 202. Arnold's "Campaign Against Quebec," Munsell's e'dition, 1877, p. 6.

'' " Historical Account of Bouquet's Expedition," Philadelphia, 1765, p. 10. Robert Clarke Co's. Reprint, Cincinnati, 1869, p. 45.

' Land Office Records. Tracts numbers 18 and 19 in Leet's " District of Depreciation Lands." Howell's Map of Pennsylvania, 1792.

ICXJ CHRISTOPHER GISTS JOURNALS.

tisement in the Pennsylvania Gazette, No. 3,005, March 12, 1788.

On the plain, a short distance below, the army under Gen- eral Wayne, known as the " Legion of the United States," encamped from November, 1792, to the 30th of April, 1793. The place was called Legionville.

. November 26. — Where the town of Rochester now stands, on the east side of the Beaver, at its junction with the Ohio. Barny Curran was an old Indian trader. He was employed by Washington on his mission to Venango, in 1753.^ Great Beaver Creek, named for King Beaver ; in the Delaware tongue Amahkhanne or Beaver Stream.

November 27. — Gist crossed the Beaver to the west side, where, on the bottom land, now occupied by the town of Bridgewater, stood the small, but long noted, Indian town, Sarikonk or Soh-kon, a Delaware word signifying "at the mouth of a stream " (outlet).

On the elevated table-land adjoining the bottom, and at the west end of the present county town of Beaver, another Indian village was built by the French, in 1756. Both are thus described in the " Historical Account of Bouquet's Expedition," original edition, 1765, p. 10 : "About a mile below its (Beaver Creek) confluence with the Ohio stood formerly a large town, on a steep bank, built by the French, of square logs, with stone chimneys, for some of the Shawa- nese, Delawares and Mingo Tribes, who abandoned it in the year 1758, when the French deserted Fort Du Quesne. Near the fording of Beaver Creek stood about seven houses, which were deserted and destroyed by the Indians after their defeat at Bushy Run," August 6, 1763, "when they forsook all their remaining settlements in this part of the country."

' Journal, 1754, p. 2, " Colonial Records," Vol. V, p. 440. " History of Western Pennsylvania," 1846, p. 40.

\

NOTES TO CHRISTOPHER GISTS JOURNAL OF 175O-51. lOI

King Beaver and Shingiss, his brother and successor, and noted warrior and war chief of the Delawares, resided here until the Spring of 1759, after the erection of Fort Pitt, when they removed to Kuskusky.' They afterwards removed to Muskingum. "Shingis Old Town " is mentioned in the deed from the Six Nations to the State of Pennsylvania, executed at Fort Stanwix, October 23, 1784, and now in the State Archives ; also printed in the Minutes of the General Assem- bly for 1784-5, p. 320.

The Act of Assembly of September 28, 1791, authorized the Governor to have surveyed, at the mouth of Beaver Creek, " two hundred acres of land in town lots, at or near the ground where the old French town stood," now the Borough of Beaver.

Fort Mcintosh was built here in 1778, by the troops under General Lachlan Mcintosh. These Indian towns, Soh-kon and Shingoes, were prominent places of rendezvous for war- riors, and the scene of much cruelty and bloodshed during the Indian and French wars. The Indian trail from Shan- nopins here divided, the lower (taken by Gist) led to Tusca- rawas, the upper, along the west bank of the Beaver to Kus- kuskis town, on the Mahoning, six miles above the forks of Beaver, where Edenburgh, Lawrence County, now stands. Old Kuskuskis stood on the Shenango, between the Forks and the mouth of the Neshannock (where New Castle now stands), on the wide bottom on the west side. Kuskuskis was divided into four towns, some distance apart. ^ Portions

' Letter of Colonel Hugh Mercer to R. Peters, " Colonial Records," Vol. VIII, p. 305 ; id., pp. 307, 309, 313. " Pennsylvania Archives," Vol. Ill, p. 634.

""Christian Fred. Post's Journal," September, 1758. Hugh Gibson's " Narrative," Massachusetts Historical Collection, Vol. VI, Third Series, p. 144. General Wm. Irvine's Letters in " Pennsylvania Archives," Vol. XI, p. 518, etc. " Western Annals," p. 358.

102 CHRISTOPHER GlSX's JOURNALS.

of the path along the west bank of the Beaver and Mahoning, worn deep into the soil, were plainly visible and often seen by the writer about thirty years since, and some he is credibly informed yet remain.

Christian Fred. Post, Moravian Missionary, sent by the Governor of Pennsylvania and General Forbes to prevail on the Indians of the Upper Ohio to withdraw from the French interest, was at Soh-kon, in August, 1758, and again in the following month of November. At first roughly received, he was finally successful. (See his first and second Journals, published in 1759; reprinted in Proud's "History of Penn- sylvania," 1798, Appendix to Vol. II. Also, in Craig's "Olden Time," Vol. I, and (but not so full) in "Pennsylvania Ar- chives," Vol. Ill, pp. 520, 560, 563.)

Post states : " At Beaver Creek there is thirty-eight houses, all built by the French for the Indians ; some with stone chimneys. When all their men are at home they can send out one hundred warriors." Hugh Gibson was a prisoner at Soh-kon in 1757. Narrative before referred to. (See also Hutchins' Map, 1778. Map in "Bouquet." Evans' Map, 1755. Howell's Map, 1792. Heckwelder in " Bulletin of Pennsyl- vania Historical Society," Vol. I, p. 129.)

November 27. — From Shingis town the trail left the river, taking a northwest course, passing near the present village of West Salem, Pennsylvania, to a point a little southeast from New Lisbon, Columbiana County, Ohio, on nearly the same line as the present road from Beaver to New Lisbon.'

Captain Hutchins was the chief-engineer in the army of Bouquet, and has laid down the line of each day's march and

1 See Howells' and Hutchins' Maps, especially the beautiful map of Hutchins in the original, a Philadelphia edition of " Bouquet's Expedition Against the Ohio Indians, in 1764."

NOTES TO CHRISTOPHER GIST'S JOURNAL OF I75O-5I. IO3

encampment minutely. The route of the army was by the old Indian trail travelled by Gist.

November 30. — To the northwest corner of the present Wayne township, Columbiana County, Ohio, after crossing the west or " last branch " of the Little Beaver Creek, having crossed the middle and east branches the preceding day. Little Beaver Creek, or Tank-amahk-hanne, in the Delaware tongue.

December i, 1750. — To a point near Hanover, on the Pitts- burgh and Cleveland Railway, in Columbiana County.

December 2. — A little south of Bayard, in the same county.

December 4, 5. — Near Oneida, in Carroll County, now known as Big Sandy Creek, a branch of the Tuscarawas. The Indians applied one name, " Elk's Eye," to the three streams; in modern times known as the Big Sandy, Tuscarawas, and Muskingum. On Evans' Map of 1755 and Hutchins' of 1778 the Big Sandy is named Lanianshicolas, now the Nimishicolas, and correctly applied to a branch. " The Delawares say the elks were so plenty on that river and so tame the Indians could come so near as to see into their eyes, so they called the river Mooskingung or Elk's Eye." Zeisberger, the Mora- vian Missionary, in the " Bulletin of the Pennsylvania His- torical Society," Vol. I, p. 34 : Elk's Eye, on account of the number of elks feeding on its banks. Loshiel's " History of Moravian Missions, 1794," p. 6 : " Mooshingung, that is Elk's Eye River. Elk in their language being called Moos." ' The words are mostly Narragansett, " Moos-soog " — the great ox, or rather a red deer. Muskingum is usually but incorrectly defined — water clear as an elk's eye.

December 7. — This town of the Ottoways stood near the

'Rev. David Jones' Journal, 1772; original edition, pp. 68, 84. Sabin's Reprint of ditto, New York, 1865, pp. 90-111, etc.

104 CHRISTOPHER GIST S JOURNALS.

junction of the Big Sandy and Tuscarawas, on the west side of the latter and just above the present town of Bolivar. At this period but a small number of the Ottawa tribe remained in Eastern Ohio. By Hutchins' Maps of 1764 and 1778, and Evans' Map of 1755, they appear to have had a village on the Cuyahoga River, and " Ottowas Old Fort " is marked on the head of a branch of the White-woman's Creek, in the north- ern part of Richland County, from which was a four-mile portage to the waters of the river Huron. About fifty years since the Ottawa tribe held large reservations of land on the waters of the Maumee. In 1760 this village was known as King Beaver's Town, its occupants being Delawares.

Major Robert Rogers, on his way from Detroit to Fort Pitt, arrived there on January 13, 1761. He mentions "the number of warriors in this town is about one hundred and eighty." '

Bouquet's army, in 1764, made their twelfth encampment here, after leaving Fort Pitt, from which Captain Hutchins computed the distarjce to be one hundred and sixteen miles. They found "Tuscarawas a place exceedingly beautiful in situation, lands rich, and on the northwest side an entire level plain, upwards of five miles in circumference," and "from the number of ruined houses, supposed the Indians who inhabited the place and are with the Delawares to have had about one hundred and fifty warriors."'' This is a noted spot in the early history of Ohio. Christian Fred Post, the Mora- vian Missionary, established a station on the north side of the Tuscarawas, in the present Stark County, in the year 1761, and erected, it is claimed, the first house in Ohio." Fort

' Journal, 1760-1, p. 234.

^ "Journal of Bouquet's Expedition, 1765," p. 13, original edition. ' " Heckwelder's Narrative," p. 61. " Life of Zeisberger," by De Schweinitz, p. 256. " Beatty's Journal," 1766, p. 40.

NOTES TO CHRISTOPHER GIST'S JOURNAL OF I75O-5I. IO5

Laurens, the most western military post erected by the Americans during the Revolution, stood just below the site of Tuscarawas town.

The Greenville Treaty Line, of 1795, extended from the mouth of Cuyahoga " to the crossing place above Fort Lau- rens, thence westerly to Laramie's store," on a branch of the Great Miami, in the present Shelby County. It marked the boundary between the lands of the Indian tribes and those they ceded to the United States.' The great Indian trails radiated from this point in various directions.

December 9. — Margaret's Creek. The trail crossed it in the present Franklin Township, Tuscarawas County, near Strasburgh. This stream was named for Margaret Montour, usually called " French Margaret," the daughter of Madame Montour. This stream was afterwards called Sugar Creek ; it empties into the Tuscarawas at Dover.

December 10. — A branch of Margaret's Creek.

December 11. — To a point in Buck's Township, Tuscarawas County.

December 12. — Near the mouth of White Eyes Creek, in Coshocton County.

December 14. — This was a large and important town of the Wyandots, on the Tuscarawas, the head branch of the Muskingum River, within a mile from the "Forks," where Coshocton now stands. Marked " Old Wyandot Town " on Hutchins' Map, in Bouquet, 1764 ; Owendot's Town on Dr. Mitchell's Map of 1755. This town was abandoned by the Wyandots prior to 1760, probably soon after the capture of Fort Du Quesne, in 1758. They were there in 1756.' Gist

• " Treaty of Greenville, August 3, 1795." American State Papers, Vol. V, p. 562. State Maps of Ohio, 1815, 1831 and 1869.

'•' Letter of Colonel John Armstrong to Governor Denny, December 22, 1756. Pennsylvania Archives, Vol. Ill, p. 83. 8

I06 CHKISTOPHER GIST'S JOURNALS.

mentions Muskingum as though it was the name of the town. He should have written "a town of the Wyandots at the Muskingum," the latter being an Algonquin or Delaware word. The Indians do not, like the whites, give every town or village a name, but they are known by the name of the place, the locality, head chief, etc. "They preferred to describe a man or a river or town, by some quality or remarkable feature rather than designate the object by a name.' Thus Chilli- cothe towns in Ohio — Upper, Lower and Old — simply meant towns of the Chillicothe tribe of the Shawnese.'' Soh-kon, out- let (a village) at the outlet. Shannopin, from the head chief, Kittanning. Kittan, great, ung-on, or at the great river.' The Wyandots, or Hurons, were ancient occupants of Cen- tral and Eastern Ohio and Northwestern Pennsylvania, to which region they retreated from Canada, to escape the fury of the conquering Iroquois, or Five Nations, in the middle of the seventeenth century.* The Wyandots are called Tionon- aties, Petuns or Petuneuae, Tobacco Indians, from their indus- trious habit of cultivating that plant. Petun (obsolete French for tobacco derived from the Brazilian) being a nickname given to them by the French traders.' In the Mohawk dialect of the Iroquois the name for tobacco is 0-ye-aug-wa. " In the Huron of La Hontan, Vol. II, p. 103, Oyngowa ; and in Cam- pinus " History of New Sweden," in the Mingo.

' " Transactions of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio," Vol. I, p. 23s.

^ John Johnson, in Butler's " Kentucky," last page, Appendix.

'' See Trumbull on " Indian Geographical Names," Connecticut Histori- cal Society, Vol. II, p. 43, etc.

*" American Antiquarian Society Transactions," Vol. I, p. 271-2; id. Vol. II, p. 72. Charlevoix's " History of New France."

' " Historical Magazine," Vol. V, O. S., 1861, p. 263.

" Gallatin's" Synopsis American Aboriginal Archives," Vol. II, p. 484.

NOTES TO CHRISTOPHER GISt'S JOURNAL OF 175O-5I. IO7

The flotilla of Celeron, before mentioned as on its way down the Ohio, arrived at the mouth of the Muskingum on the 15th of August, 1749, and on the i6th they buried a lead plate in the western bank of that stream, bearing the inscription " Riviere Yenangue," and on the map of Father Bonnecamp — a Jesuit mathematician who accompanied the expedition — the Muskingum is marked " R. Yanangue konan. " On Bel- lin's Map, in Charlevoix's original edition, 1744, it is named Chenangue. The meaning clearly is from the Iroquois ; from Ynango — tobacco — and Konan people, or river on which the tobacco people — Wyandots or Petuns — have a town, referring to the town at which Gist had now arrived.

Colonel John Johnston, for many years United States Agent for the Ohio Indians, in his valuable "Specimens of the Wyandot Language," gives the signification of Muskingum as " a place of residence ; " but again erroneously states it to mean a town on the river side in the Delaware. " The Shaw- nese," he adds, " call it Wakitama Sepe, which has the same signification." *

De Witt Clinton, in a letter to the American Antiquarian Society, in 1827, erroneously supposed the town, to which allu- sion is made, to be " the celebrated remains of an ancient town at Marietta." He is also in error, in the same letter, in the sup- position that the leaden plate deposited at the mouth of the Muskingum, found and dug up in 1798, to " have been origi- nally deposited at the mouth of the Venango (French Creek) above Pittsburgh." He was misled by the similarity of the name Yznangue with Venango, as it is now written. The date on the plate should have undeceived him. However, Venango was an old village of the Wyandots, or Tobacco In- dians. Washington, in his Journal of 1753, mentions it as the

' American Antiquarian Society, Vol. I, pp. 297, 298.

I08 CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNALS.

site of an old Indian town ;' and it is probable that wherever the name Chenango occurs in early times or on early maps, it indicates the site of a town of the tobacco tribe — Wyandots — or of a place where Indian tobacco was cultivated.'

The claim of the Wyandots to Central Ohio was admitted by the United States, who made them compensation therefor.'

The Wyandots released to Pennsylvania, at the latter mentioned treaty, their claim to the western portion of that State. There was a Wyandot town on the Big Beaver, on the east side, nineteen miles above its mouth. On its site the Moravians, in 1770, erected their town of Friedenstadt.''

The name of "Little Mingoes," applied by Gist to the Wyandots, I have not observed elsewhere. The Wyandots, or Hurons, were of the original Iroquois stock (or Mengine changed to Mingo).

Croghan's Trading House, here mentioned, was afterwards (1753) with the goods stored in it, seized by the French. In the original MS. account of losses suffered by George Crog- han & Co., occasioned by the French, during his trades in the Ohio country, appears this item : " One store House at Muskingum ;£'i50." Croghan's affidavit is attached to it, dated at Carlisle, April 24, 1756. Four traders were captured — Joseph Falkner of New York, Luke Erwin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Burk of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and John Pattin of

'Journal, original edition, p. 17.

2 See "Transactions American Antiquarian Society," Vol. II, p. 535. Hildreth's" Pioneer History of Ohio," 1848, p. 22. "American Magazine," March, 1878, in which is the map of Celeron's Route, by O. H. Marshal, of Buffalo.

^ Declaration annexed to the Treaty at Fort Harmar, in 1789. " American State Papers, Indian Affairs," Vol. I, p. 7. Treaty of September 29, 1817, Vol. II; do.. Treaty at Fort Mcintosh, etc.

* Lochiel's " History of Missions. " De Schweinitz's " Life of Zeis- berger."

NOTES TO CHRISTOPHER GIST'S JOURNAL OF 175O-5I. lOQ

Chester County, Pennsylvania. The first two were in the employ of George Croghan & Co. Pattin was seized at Fort Miami. Erwin, Burke, and Falkner, were captured at a place called " Argentout " (Wyandot), near the little Lake Otsan- derkat (Sandusky Bay), the former stronghold of the Huron Chief Nicholas, who in 1747 rebelled against the French and built himself a Fort there.'

The traders were captured by orders of Celeron, Comman- der at Detroit, '^ to which place they were taken and confined in the fort for five months, then taken to Niagara and Quebec. At the latter place Falkner was left, on account of sickness ; the other three were sent to Rochelle, France, and there imprisoned for three months, then liberated and returned to America. Pattin's goods, to the value of eight or nine hun- dred pounds, were seized when he was captured.'

December 17. — The " New Fort" which the French were building on one of the branches of Lake Erie, and to which Croghan supposed the French took the captives, is erroneously stated by Mr. Bancroft to be Fort Sandusky. There has been much uncertainty respecting the location of the

1 Letter of the Marquis de la Jonquiere to M. Rouille. Also from same to Governor Clinton of New York. New York : Colonial History, Vol. VI, p 733 ; ditto, Vol. X, p. 240. Pennsylvania Colonial Records, Vol. V, p. 556. See the examination and depositions of the prisoners, by the Governor of Canada, La Jonquiere, at Montreal, in June 1751, in " The Conduct of the Ministry, a Memorial, etc.," pp. 92-106. English edition, 1777. French original edition, 1756, pp. 89-100. See Pennsylvania Colonial Records, Vol. V, p. 522.

^ New York Colonial History, Vol. X, p. 251.

^ See his petition to the Assembly of Pennsylvania for relief. Journals of Assembly, October 17, 1752. Letter of Earl of Albemarle, from Paris, March i, 1752, to the Earl of Holderness. New York Colonial History. Vol. X, p. 241. John Pattin's " Narrative of his Captivity, 1750," Pennsyl- vania Historical Society.

no CHRISTOPHER GISTS JOURNALS.

French Fort Sandusky and also of the British Post subsequently erected. In the French official reports, from 1748 to 1763, there is no mention of any fort at Sandusky (excepting that of the Huron Chief Nicholas), while the Posts at Detroit, Miami and Niagara are frequently referred to, and detailed accounts of their condition given.'

There is no mention of a fort at Sandusky in Colonel James Smith's Narrative. He lived and hunted with the Indians along the south shore of Lake Erie, from the Cuyahoga to the Maumee, during the five years of his captivity — 1755 to 1760.^ Nor is there anything said of Fort Sandusky in the journals of Major Robert Rogers, who was sent with a detach- ment of troops, by General Amherst, in 1760, to Detroit, to receive the surrender of that and all other western posts held by the French, in accordance with the terms of the capitu- lation of Canada, by Governor Vaudreuil.'

The Fort of the Huron (Wyandot) war chief, Nicholas, was probably on what is now called Cherry Island, in the marshes, between Green Creek and the Sandusky River, about two miles above the mouth of the latter. It now con- tains but a few acres of good land, above overflow, and is the most inaccessible of the islands in the vast Sandusky marshes, and only to be reached by canoes or small boats. Neverthe- less, Nicholas, apprehensive of French attack, with the assistance of their Indian allies, early in the Spring of 1748,

' " Memorial of De Galissoniere on the Canadian Posts, December 10, 1752 ;" New York Colonial History, Paris, Vol. X, p. 230. " Dispatch of Longueil to Rouille, April, 1752; " id., pp. 245-251.

' " Smith's Narrative " Ohio Valley, Historical Series : R. Clarke & Co., 1870.

"Journals of Rogers, London, 1765 ; also, " Journals of George Croghan, Fort Pitt to Detroit,i76o-i," in Massachusetts Historical Collection ; Fourth Series, Vol. IX, pp. 362, 366.

NOTES TO CHRISTOPHER GISTS JOURNAL OF 175O-5I. Ill

burned his fort and village, and with 119 warriors of his na- tion, men, women and baggage, took the route to White River.' This probably is the fort "Junundat, built in 1754," marked as on the east side of the Sandusky River, near the Bay, on Evans' Map of 1755, and Pownall's of 1776. If this location is correct, the Wyandot fort and village must have been on Peach and Graveyard Islands, directly at the mouth of the river, on the east side. On these same maps Fort Sandusky is laid down on the west side, opposite Junundat. Both river and bay being very erroneously delineated on Dr. Mitchell's Map, published by authority of the British Govern- ment, in 1755 : " Sandusky usurped by the French in 1751 is marked at the river's mouth on the west side ; the river itself is named Blanc."

On the map of D'Anville, Paris, 1755, "Sandousche" is marked on the west side of the river Blanc, at its mouth, and on the English map of the same date, the location is the same, marked "Fr. Fort Sanduski." On the map of M. Bellin, the French Geographer Royal, Paris, 1755, the "Fr. Ft. Sanduski " is placed at the west side of the mouth of the river and noted as an old or " Ancient Fort abandoned ; " and in the " Remarques sur la Carte," published with the Atlas, the author, in describing the country around Lake Erie, observes that " where the river flows into the end of the Bay of Sandusky, we (the French) have a fort and habitation." " The French go in three days from Fort De Troit to Fort San- doskes, which is a small pallisaded Fort with about twenty men, situated on the south side of Lake Erie and was built in the latter end of the year 1750." From narrative of John Pattin, Indian trader, of his captivity in 1750.'' Among the "King's Maps and Drawings," .in the Library of the

' "French Journal of Occurrences in Canada," 1747-8; "New York Colonial History," Vol. .X, pp. 162, 178; id., Vol. VI, pp. 706, 733. ^ Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

112 CHRISTOPHER GISTS JOURNALS.

British Museum, the writer found and had copied a large and finely executed MS. map of Lake Erie and the Allegheny River, with the British Posts of Presque Isle, Le Bceuf, Ve- nango, and Fort Pitt, made about 1760.

A fort destroyed is laid down on the northwest shore of Lake Sandusky, about two miles east of the entrance to the Little Portage, or Indians' carrying place, and a half mile in length between Sandusky Bay and the mouth of the Portage River, where Port Clinton now stands. This was on the usual route taken by the Indians and French from and to Detroit and the North. " The French erected a post here (Sandusky) in the year 1754 and abandoned it in the year 1759. This post was established principally with a view of keeping up the communication with Detroit, Fort DuQuesneand Presque Isle and of assisting parties of warriors residing northward of Lake Erie, when on their way to, and returning from, the frontiers of the different States."^ The earlier date of the erection of the French Fort at Sandusky, 1^50, as stated by Pattin, seems to be the correct one, as well as its location near the " Little Portage," where a " Fort destroyed " is marked on a small sketch of the bay, the location of the Indian villages and the British block-house, made by an officer, m 1761, and now with the "Bouquet" MSS. in the Library of the British Museum.

In the latter part of 1761 the British erected a block-house on the south shore of Sandusky Bay, at the mouth of Mills Creek.^ " The block-house at Sandusky is finished ; Lieuten- ant Meyer and Ensign Paully remain yet there with thirty

' MS. account of the country and " Route from Fort Pitt to Sandusky and thence to Detroit," by Captain Thomas Hutchins, 1761. Library of Pennsylvania Historical Society, Philadelphia.

^ Letter of Colonel Bouquet to General Amherst, from Fort Pitt, De- cember 2, 1761.

NOTES TO CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNAL OF I75O-5I. II3

men."' Lieutenant Meyer commanded during tiie erection of the fort. Its location is correctly marked on the map of Cap- tain Thomas Hutchins, of 1778. Also on his map in the historical account of Bouquet's Expedition of 1764. Cap- tain Hutchins was then an engineer in the British service. He was at Fort Sandusky in 1762.'

The reader doubtless remembers that the British Fort San- dusky shared the fate of many of the western posts, being captured and destroyed by the Indians during the Pontiac War of 1763.

December 25, 1750. Christmas Day. — This, no doubt, was the first Protestant religious service ever held within the limits of the present State of Ohio. The first Protestant sermon was preached by the Rev. Charles Beatty, on the 21st of Sep- tember, 1766, at Newcomerstown, about sixteen miles farther up the Muskingum. The Rev. George Duffield preached in the afternoon of the same day, at the same place. These ministers were Presbyterian Missionaries, sent out by the Synods of New York and Philadelphia.' On the 14th of March, 1771, the Rev. David Zeisberger, Moravian Mission- ary, preached his first sermon in Ohio, in the same town.* The Rev. David Melluse, Missionary from Connecticut, preached here in September, 1772.'

' " Diary of Sir William Johnson," in Appendix to Stone's Life of Sir William, Vol. II, p. 466. Letter of Colonel Bouquet to General Monck- ton, from Fort Pitt, July 24, 1761. Massachusetts Historical Collection, Vol. IX, Fourth Series, p. 434, and same to the same, August 12, 1761, id., p. 438.

- Letter of Colonel Bouquet to Ensign PauUy, April 3, 1762, in Gazette, Philadelphia, April 27, 1791. Treaty of Greenville.

■' " Beatty's Journal of a Two Month's Tour West of the Allegheny Mountains in 1766," London, 1768, pp. 55-56.

• " Life of Zeisberger," by E. DeSchweinitz, 1870, p. 366.

» "Journal of Missions, Hartford, 1773," of Thomas Burney, see note to February 24.

114 CHRISTOPHER GISTS JOURNALS.

January 4, 1751. —Michael Taaf, or Teaff, was a partner in the Indian trade with William Trent and George Croghan. He resided on the Susquehanna, a little below Harris' Ferry.*

January 9, 1751. — This English trader captured was John Pattin, taken at Fort Miami.^

January 14. — The answer of the King and Council was, given to George Croghan and Andrew Montour for the Governor of Virginia, at Logstown, May 29, 1751. They say, they are now at war with the Southern Indians ; may be soon struck by the French, so that it is not in their power to go down to hear what their great Father, the King of Great Britain has to say. They expect that their Father's speeches will be sent here where their brothers of Penn- sylvania have kindled a Council Fire.**

January 15. — Reaching the Whitewoman's Creek, about four miles west of the present town of Coshocton. Mary Harris, the white woman, doubtless was the same person who was captured at the assault and burning of Deerfield, Massa- chusetts, by the French and Indians from Canada, February 29, 1704. A list of the killed and prisoners is given in the Appendix to the fourth edition of the "Captivity and Deliv- erance of the Rev. John Williams, of Deerfield, Massachu- setts, 1758." The name of Mary Harris is marked among those still absent. It appears she left the village, where Gist saw her, and returned to Canada, as in a " Memoir of the Rev. John Williams, by his grandson, Stephen W. Williams, Northampton, Massachusetts, 1853," it is stated, on page 121, that "as lately as the year 1756 Mary Harris, who was one of the female prisoners and a child at the time of the capture of the town, resided at Cahnawaga " (near Montreal).

' " Colonial Records," Vol. VI, p. 150. •^ See note to December 17th, antff. < " Colonial Records," Vol. V, p. 537.

NOTES TO CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNAL OF I7SC-51. II5

" She was at that time a married woman and had several children, one of whom was an officer in the service of France." The Cahnawagas, or French Mohawks, frequented the country, both north and south of the Ohio. Their chief town was at the rapids of St. Louis, near Montreal, where a num- ber of the tribe yet reside, 1879.' Whitewoman's Town is marked on Dr. Mitchell's Map of 1755 as well as Gist's route, from his notes referred to in the sketch of the Ohio Company. The town is also marked on the Map of Evans, 1755, and appears to have been situated about opposite the mouth of Killbuck Creek, in the present County of Coshoc- ton, which location agrees with Gist's. Whitewoman's Creek is also called the Walkending — a Delaware name.

January 16. — The trail led in a southwesterly direction, through the present Coshocton County, passing near Dres- den, in the County of Muskingum ; thence to the Licking Creek, crossing it at Clay Lick Station, Hanover Township, Licking County, on the Central Ohio Railroad, six miles east of Newark.

January 17. — In the southern part of Licking County. At the time of Gist's visit this swamp was of great extent, part of the locality is known as the Licking Reservoir of the Ohio Canal, the construction of which commenced here in 1825.^ This was the " Great Buffalo Swamp" of Smith's narrative, where he hunted with the Indians in 1755 or 6 and where they made salt.'

' See " Narrative of Colonel James Smith," pp. 16, 32, 52, 107 and Appendi.x, p. 172. " Bouquet's Expedition," R. Clarke & Co., pp. 63, 75, 153. Deposition in appendix to these notes.

' Ohio Canal Doc, 1828, p. 105. Niles' Register, Vol. XXVIII, p. 22.

'"Colonel James Smith's Captivity," page 21. See also "Historical Sketch of Licking Township," by Isaac Smucker. Pioneer Paper, No. 3, Licking County Pioneer Association, Newark, Ohio, 1869.

Il6 CHRISTOPHER GIST's JOURNALS.

January 19. — Hockhockin, now Lancaster, Fairfield County, the "Standing Stone" or Ach-sin-sink of the Delawares, is a rocky eminence near the town. Visited by the Missionary, the Rev. David Jones, in 1773. He mentions in his Journal : " February 9th, at the Standing Stone. This town consists chiefly of Delaware Indians. It is situated on a creek called Hock-hock-in.' Hack-hack is a Delaware word, and signifies a gourd with a neck; also applied to bottles.'' Hockhocking, from the shape of the creek,' resembling that of a bottle. John Brickell's account : he was for five years a prisoner among the Delawares in Ohio.'' Marked " Hockhocking or French Margaret's," town on Evans' Map of the Middle Colonies, 1755. Mitchell's ditto, Pownall's of 1776, ditto. French Margaret was a daughter of Madame Montour. It is probable she resided here at one time.

January 20. — Maguck. In the Pickaway plains, between Scippo Creek and the Scioto River, in Pickaway County and township, three and one-half miles south of Circleville ; "the small rising in the middle" was called "Black moun- tains " by the natives.^ William Trent got to the Maguck July 3, 1752." " The Delawares informed me the lower Shawa- nese had removed off the river (Ohio) up the Sciota to a great plain called Moguck."' At the time of Gist's visit only

'Journal, p. 64, original edition, Burlington, New Jersey, 1774. Sabin's reprint. New York, 1865, p. 86.

^ Heckwelder, "Historical Account of the Indian Nations," p. 56. Narrative of ditto, p. 144.

■' About six miles above Lancaster.

'American Pioneer, Vol. I, p. 38-43. Howe's "History of Ohio," pp. 161-600.

' Howe's " Ohio," p. 402.

"Journal, R. Clarke & Co., 1871.

' "Journal of Christopher F. Post, November 28, 1758," Pennsylvania Archives, Vol. Ill, p. 560.

NOTES TO CHRISTOPHER GIST'S JOURNAL OF I75O-5I. 117

a portion of the Delaware tribes had removed to the Ohio country from Pennsylvania.

The Shawanese occupied the land on the Scioto in the latter part of the preceding century and also the country along the lower Cumberland River, in Kentucky, first called the Shawnee River ; they were compelled to remove in their wars with the Iroquois or Five Nations. Some of the tribe went south, but the greater part emigrated to the upper Poto- mac and to Pennsylvania, along the Susquehanna and its branches.' " You Shawanese look back toward Ohio the place from whence you came and return thitherward for now we shall take pity on the English and let them have all this land." "The Delaware Indians sometime ago bid us Depart for they was Dry and wanted to drink ye land away, where- upon we told them Since some of you are gone to Ohioh we will go there also, we hope you will not Drink that away