Uncharted, by Robert Griffing. Courtesy the artist and Paramount Press. M AKING Christopher Gist may not be a name recognized by most Western Pennsylvanians today, but in the mid-18th century, particularly in the colonies of Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, he was widely known. George Washington, Edward Braddock, Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Boone, and prominent Eastern Woodland Chiefs, such as Shingas, Guyusuta, and Tanaghrisson, the Seneca governor of Logstown, all knew Gist. He played an intriguing role in early American history, and his most dramatic adventures took place in Western Pennsylvania. AKING HISTORY IN THE WILDERNESS CHRISTOPHER GIST’S EXPLORATIONS M INTO WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA By Robert and Kathleen Millward WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | SUMMER 2008 23 L ittle is known about Gist’s early life. He was born about 1706 near Baltimore, Maryland, the town his father, Figures of Christopher Richard Gist, helped lay out, and he most likely Gist and Chief Guyasuta once guarded the learned from him the art of surveying. But as entrance to the Manchester one historian observes: “His easy grasp of the Bridge. These sculptures elements of geography and mineralogy show are now housed in a that his education consisted of considerably Canonsburg warehouse. Bruce Cridlebaugh. more than mere study of the basic fundamentals of surveying.”1 In addition to his informal education, which probably included working on his father’s plantation, clerking in his mercantile business, and learning how to in 1732 when he was just 26. His fur warehouse and trading posts. Gist was hired to scout out trap furs, Christopher and his siblings may caught fire, and he lost almost everything. In the best land for the company and to keep a have studied with a private tutor. His father today’s currency, his 10,000 pounds sterling daily record of his progress. In return for his could have afforded it, and it is clear that “his loss would amount to about $2 million. Over service, the Company paid him 150 pounds English and spelling are much above the the next decade, Gist’s debts continued, and he sterling ($30,000). This was no small sum of average Virginian” when reading his journals.2 was eventually forced to sell nearly all of his money in 1750, considering that an itinerant Schools were rare on the frontier, so those who possessions to pay off moneylenders. In 1745, teacher made 8-10 pounds sterling per year, wanted their children to have a good education possibly to avoid creditors, he moved his family and a financially successful blacksmith seldom paid for it. Prospective marriage partners were to a farm along the Yadkin River in North made more than 20-25. almost as scarce as schools, and the three Carolina, “a location out on the extreme Gist started his exploration of the Howard sisters who lived on the farm frontier.”4 At that time, North Carolina served Pennsylvania frontier (much of which was also adjoining the Gist homestead later became the as a safe haven for those who wanted to escape claimed by Virginia) and the Ohio frontier in wives of Christopher and his two brothers. debtor’s prison. “It was here,” according to late October 1750 accompanied by a 17-year- There were over 400 traders roaming the Bailey, “that he became noted far and wide for old servant, most likely a slave. At this time Pennsylvania and Ohio frontiers in the mid- his abilities as a surveyor.”5 Gist also met Daniel there were no roads into Western 18th century, but few were like Gist—on their Boone after relocating to North Carolina where Pennsylvania, so Gist and his servant traveled way to becoming a millionaire by their early he most likely traded furs with the Cherokees. through the wilderness on horseback, starting 20s. Gist joined in the lucrative fur trade in the Before establishing himself as an from the Ohio Company’s trading post at Wills late 1720s and soon saw an opportunity to important figure on the Western Pennsylvania Creek (present-day Cumberland, Maryland). significantly increase his income. The majority landscape, Gist made a name for himself as a From there, they followed an old Indian trail of the traders in the Ohio Valley might make frontiersman. Although Daniel Boone is (present-day Raystown Road) to Shannopin’s enough profit on beaver and deer pelts to buy usually remembered as the pioneer who Town (near present-day 40th and Butler a new supply of trade goods for their return opened up Kentucky, Gist actually explored streets). Gist noted in his diary that he dared trip to the frontier,3 but it was the fur buyers in northern Kentucky 18 years before Boone’s not let the village warriors see that he was Carlisle, Philadelphia, and Baltimore who adventures began. By 1750, Gist’s reputation carrying a surveying compass because the made enormous profits by buying beaver and had caught the attention of the directors of the Delaware knew that an Englishman with a deer pelts from the traders and then selling the Ohio Company, who had just been allocated compass was not a good thing.6 furs to manufacturing firms in England. This 200,000 acres (approximately 350 square Winter soon descended upon the pair, is what Gist did. miles) of land by the King of England. This and after buying corn for their horses, they By the early 1730s, Gist owned extensive huge land area was awarded with the provision crossed the Allegheny and arrived at Logstown farmlands, property in Baltimore, servants, that the Ohio Company attract 100 families to (near present-day Ambridge, Beaver County). livestock, and a farm house, but tragedy struck establish farms on the land, along with forts With over 40 log cabins, a council meeting 24 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | SUMMER 2008 T he Pennsylvania forest contained trees 200 feet tall with a canopy so thick that 80 percent of the sunlight was blocked from reaching the forest floor. Walking Among The Giants, by Robert Griffing. WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | SUMMER 2008 25 Courtesy of the artist and Paramount Press. house, and numerous bark wigwams, it was During the winter, Gist could get a better one of the largest and most important Indian villages in Pennsylvania at this time and a major British trading center.7 But when Gist feel for the geographical features of the arrived, the village chiefs were away on a hunting trip, so finding “scarce any Body but a land. High ridges would have permitted Parcel of reprobate Indian Traders,”8 Gist continued westward. views of vast stretches of He would return to Logstown two years later to convene a treaty conference with the potential farmland as well Seneca Chief Tanaghrisson, the village’s leader. Tanaghrisson was known as “the Half King,” a as the best locations for Ohio Company native term roughly equivalent to “governor.” This conference would turn out to be a “critical trading posts and forts. gathering” of native leaders, according to historian Fred Anderson, “because it secured an important concession” for the Ohio Company: “Half King, persuaded no less by Pennsylvania interpreter was important since On Monday, November 4, 1751, the thousand pounds ($200,000) of gifts that he could speak French, English, Delaware, Christopher and his 18-year-old son Nathaniel Gist had heaped on the ground before him Shawnee, and several Iroquois languages. The began this five-month expedition. Traveling than by the assurances of goodwill that he and town of Montour is named after him. In all, through the Western Pennsylvania wilderness [trader George] Croghan were piling up even Gist traveled over 1,200 miles and met many on horseback during the coldest days of the higher,” agreed to the construction of a important native leaders during this first year was no easy task, slogging through sleet, fortified trading post where the three rivers expedition. He returned home in May 1751, snow, freezing rain, and bitterly cold mountain met and “remained silent” about the but not for long. The Ohio Company, streams. Their journey was constantly encroachment of white settlers onto Indian apparently impressed with his report, impeded by the vagaries of Pennsylvania land that his consent made inevitable.9 commissioned him to make another weather, often forcing them to stop. Journal But in 1750, as Gist and his servant were expedition, this time to explore the lands in entries describing inclement weather were heading west, they were joined by nine fur Western Pennsylvania and Virginia that lay common: “Rained hard and We could not traders. The group arrived at a huge Wyandot along the south bank of the Ohio River. Travel … From Saturday 21 to Tuesday Jan 7 Village on the Muskingum River, and it was in On his second trip, Gist was directed to we stayed at this Place, We had good deal of this village of nearly 200 native families that explore the land from the Monongahela to the Snow and bad Weather.”13 Gist met two important men on the Great Kanawa River in western Virginia to find Another problem Gist and his son had to Pennsylvania frontier: George Croghan and suitable land for farming and a good location deal with upon venturing into Pennsylvania’s Andrew Montour. Croghan, a “flamboyant, for a fortified trading post. In addition, he was backwoods was its incredibly dense forest, hard-drinking” Irishman10 was well-liked by the to locate the best and shortest route for which offered almost no browse for horses. On Indians and soon gained prominence as “King building a road from Will’s Creek to the this trip, Gist probably had a small pack train of the Traders,”11 but the French eventually Monongahela and keep a detailed journal consisting of at least six horses: two for riding, confiscated all of Croghan’s trading posts in the identifying good farmland, the kinds of timber one for carrying supplies and trade goods, and Ohio Valley, wiping him out of several million growing in the region, and the location of three for carrying corn and fodder for the dollars of merchandise.