Christopher Gist

The American frontiersman Christopher Gist (ca. 1706-1759) was one of the first explorers of the Ohio and Kentucky wilderness. He also accompanied George Washington on missions to the French in the Ohio Valley.

Christopher Gist was born in Maryland. He probably did some surveying as a young man because he wrote and drew maps well in later life. But nothing is known of his youth in general. In 1750 he was living with his family on the Yadkin River of North Carolina not far from Daniel Boone. He married Sarah Howard (the date is not known) and raised five children.

The Ohio Company chose Gist to explore the country of the Ohio River as far as the Louisville area, and he carried out a careful examination of the territory in 1750. When he returned to North Carolina, he found that his family had fled to Roanoke, Va., because of Indian attacks. He rejoined them but went west again in the summer of 1751 to explore the Pennsylvania and western Virginia country south of the Ohio River and between the Monongahela and Great Kanawha rivers. About 1753 he settled briefly in the Pennsylvania wilderness near modern Brownsville.

Gist accompanied George Washington on his journey to French forts in the Ohio Valley in the winter of 1753; he is said to have saved Washington's life twice. He was with Washington when he defeated a small band of French soldiers in May 1754. Gist also accompanied Washington when he unsuccessfully attempted to repel a French force from Ft. Necessity the following July. Later Gist acted as guide to British general Edward Braddock in the march on the French Ft. Duquesne. Before reaching the French outpost, their force was ambushed and defeated by French and allied Indians. On July 9, 1755, Braddock was mortally wounded, and Gist and the remnants of the British troops were led to safety by Washington, who had command of a company of militia.

Later Gist served as captain of a company of scouts and as an Indian agent. His plan to recruit Indian auxiliaries from among the Cherokee of eastern Tennessee in 1756 proved to be premature and failed. Much later, of course, Indian scouts were essential to Army operations on the western frontier.

Gist died of smallpox in either Georgia or South Carolina in 1759. He was highly regarded by his contemporaries as a woodsman, explorer, and map maker, and although his fame was eclipsed by Daniel Boone's, it must be remembered that he examined the Ohio and Kentucky wilderness a full 18 years before Boone ever saw it.

Further Reading

An interesting account of Gist's life and the period is Richard Elwell Banta, The Ohio (1949). Gist's explorations in Ohio are covered extensively in Kenneth P. Bailey, The Ohio Company of Virginia and the Westward Movement, 1748-1792 (1939). See also Charles H. Ambler, George Washington and the West (1936), and Hugh Cleland, George Washington in the Ohio Valley (1955).

Additional Sources

Powell, Allan, Christopher Gist, frontier scout, Shippensburg, PA: Burd Street Press, 1992.

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Christopher Gist (1706 – 1759) was one of the first white explorers of the Ohio Country in what would become the United States. He was credited with providing the first detailed description of the Ohio Country to Great Britain and her colonists. At the outset of the French and Indian War, Gist accompanied George Washington on missions in the Ohio Country.

Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Marriage and family 3 Career 4 References

Early life and education

Born in 1706 in Baltimore, Maryland, Gist is thought to have had little formal education. Historians believe that he received training as a surveyor, more than likely from his father Richard Gist, who helped plat the city of Baltimore.

Marriage and family

Gist married Sarah Howard, a daughter of Joshua Howard of Manchester, England. Howard served with King James II of England's forces as an officer during the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685, before settling in Baltimore, Maryland. Christopher's brother Nathaniel Gist married Sarah's sister Mary Howard.

Career

By 1750 Gist had settled in northern North Carolina, near the Yadkin River. One of his neighbors was the noted frontiersman Daniel Boone. During that same year, the Ohio Company chose Gist to explore the country of the Ohio River as far as the present-day Louisville, Kentucky area. That winter Gist mapped the Ohio countryside between the Lenape (Delaware) village of Shannopin's Town, site of present day Pittsburgh, to the Great Miami River in present-day western Ohio. There he crossed into Kentucky and returned to his home along the Yadkin.

When Gist returned to North Carolina, he found that his family had fled to Roanoke, Virginia, because of Indian attacks. He rejoined them. In the summer of 1751 he again went west to explore the Pennsylvania and western Virginia (present day West Virginia), country south of the Ohio River.

In 1753 Gist again returned to the Ohio Country, this time accompanying George Washington. Robert Dinwiddie, the governor of Virginia, sent Washington to Fort Le Boeuf to deliver a message to the French demanding they leave the Ohio Country. (The French were constructing forts in the Ohio Country to prevent the British colonies from expanding there; they ignored Dinwiddie's letter.) Washington took Gist along as his guide. They traveled on the Venango Path through the Ohio Country to get to the fort. During the trip, Gist earned his place in history by twice saving the young Washington's life.

In 1754, Washington, Gist, and a detachment of Virginia militia attempted to drive the French from the region. At the Battle of Fort Necessity on July 3, 1754, the French soundly defeated the Virginian colonists. This was the beginning of the French and Indian War, a part of the Seven Years' War between France and England.

Gist owned land near the present city of Uniontown, Pennsylvania. He called it Gist's Plantation and began to build a town there. At the outset of the war, the French burned all the buildings.

Gist was a member of the Braddock Expedition in 1755 when it was defeated by the French and their Native American allies. Following the defeat, Gist traveled into Tennessee, where he met with various native groups to seek their support during the war.

His whereabouts during the final years of the war were uncertain. It is said that in the summer of 1759 he contracted smallpox and died in Virginia, South Carolina, or Georgia.

References

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