r^ 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 f- .' '* WITH 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. 3 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. 1 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.