Source:Fleming-intrepid/content
AMONG the commemorative names of Pittsburgh's streets there is one that should be close to that one esteemed the most pre-eminent and it is hard to discriminate—Washington, Forbes or Penn. Washington recalls Gist—and Christopher Gist, frontiersman, surveyor, guide, planter and patriot, should come in for a large share of our reverence. He was true grit and every inch a man.
In 1750 and 1751, as the surveyor and agent of the Ohio Company, Gist 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 Southeastern Pennsylvania. These were the earliest explorations made so far West for the single object of examining the country and the first also of which a regular journal was kept.
Gist was a native of Maryland, of English descent. His mother's name was Zipporah Murray, whom his father, Richard Gist, married in 1705. Christopher was one of three sons of this union.
Gist as Surveyor.
Richard Gist was the surveyor for the western shore of Maryland and one of the commissioners for laying off the town of Baltimore. So Christopher became a surveyor also. Early in life he removed to North Carolina. He married Sarah Howard and they had five children, three sons, Nathaniel, Richard and Thomas, and two daughters, Anne and Violette.
Gist, with his sons Nathaniel and Thomas, were present in the battle of the Monongahela, or Braddock's defeat, as we know it. In this expedition Gist was the chief guide of Braddock. Two Indians were persuaded to go out on a scouting expedition towards Fort Duquesne and Gist soon followed them.
On July 6 all three returned safely, having been within a half mile of the fort. Their favorable reports induced Braddock to advance. The fatal ambuscade arranged by Beujeau [sic] at the cost of his life and Braddock's stubbornness that cost him his life tell, the sad story of defeat and disaster.
After Braddock's defeat the frontier was left open to Indian raids and Gist raised a company of scouts in Virginia and Maryland and was called "captain" henceforth.
In 1756 Gist was in North Carolina enlisting Cherokees for the English service and for awhile served as Indian agent. He died in 1759 of smallpox, but the exact place is not known. It was in South Carolina or Georgia.
History of Family.
Richard Gist, his second son, was killed at the battle of Kings Mountain during the Revolution. Thomas remained on the North Carolina plantation. His sister Anne remained with him until his death, when she joined her brother Nathaniel, who had moved to Ketucky [sic]. Nathaniel served in the Revolution as a colonial in the Virginia line and after the war became a Kentuckian. He died early in the nineteenth century.
Nathaiel [sic] Gist was the only one of Christopher's children who married. Biographers are silent as to Violette. She probably died young. Nathaniel had two sons, Henry Clay and Thomas Cecil Gist. His eldest daughter, Sarah, married Jesse Bledsoe, who became a United States senator from Kentucky.
In 1872 Bledsoe's grandson B. Gratz Brown, was the candidate of the Democratic party for vice president on the ticket with Horace Greely [sic]. Hence there are yet many persons in this vicinity who voted for the great-great-grandson of Christopher Gist for a once exalted office.
Col. Nathaniel Gist's second daughter became the wife of Col. Nathaniel Hart, a brother of Mrs. Henry Clay. The third daughter married Dr. Boswell of Lexington, Ky.; the fourth, Francis P. Blair, and they were the parents of Montgomery Blair, postmaster general in Lincoln's first cabinet, and Gen. Francis P. Blair, Jr., who commanded the Seventeenth Corps on Sherman's mach [sic] to the sea and through the Carolinas. The fifth daughter married Benjamin Gratz of Lexington. A very interesting family life and connection.
Early Historian.
Christopher Gist was not the first white man about the Forks of the Ohio, but, with Washington, he was first to give an account of it. Conrad Weiser was at Logstown in 1748, the year of the formation of the Ohio company; George Croghan was there in 1750 and 1751, and both kept accurate journals, as was the custom in those days.
Most of our early history we get from these journals, Weiser's, Christian Frederick Post's, Washington's, Gist's, Hackwelder's and others.
Gist wrote three journals which were published in Pittsburgh with notes and other pertinent matter in 1893 by the late William M. Darlington. They embody the results of Gist's journeys and, being in the interest of a great land company, were not made known at once.
It was until 1776 that Gist's journal of 1750 was published in London by Gov. Pownall, and he placed it, as an appendix, in his work entitled "Topographical Description of North America," now one of the rarest of the publications known as "Americana."
Published during the Revolution, but few copies came to the colonies. Before the close of the war the book had been comparatively scarce and is now little known.
The second journal was printed first, and only by Mr. Darlington in his book. The third journal of 1753 was printed by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania for James Mease.
Story in First Journal.
The first journal records the happenings on Gist's journey beginning October 31, 1750 at Thomas Cresap's, at what is now Oldtown, Md., on the Potomac, and ending at Gist's home on the Yakkin River in North Carolina, May 19, 1751. He had journeyed to the Indians on the Miami and with Croghan held conferences with them, exploring going and coming
This second journal begins November 4, 1751, setting out from the Ohio Company's storehouse at the mouth of Wills Creek, now Cumberland, Md., and ending March 29, 1752. He explored the headwaters of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny and went down the Ohio and Kanawha, which he spells Conhaway.
Gists [sic] third journal begins November 14, 1753, and records the terrible winter journey with Maj. George Washington to the French forts at Venango—now Franklin, Pa., and LeBoeb [sic], now Waterford, Pa. They arrived at Wills Creek on their return January 4, 1754. While about this region Gist had a plantation at what is now Mt. Braddock, near Uniontown.
The picture is an idealization of the passage of the Allegheny. At Wainwrights Island December 28, 1753, and depicts Washington's spill into the icy river.
The picture of Washington is from Dr. Cyrus Townsend Brady's book, "Colonial Fights and Fighters," and represents Washington, he says, at the age of 25. Those who are familiar with Charles W. Peale's portrait on a miniature of date 1789, representing G. W. at the age of 45, can see no difference between the portraits. The picture used by Dr. Brady is not among the pictures of the [sic] Washington as given in McClurge's Magazine February, 1897.
The same map will convey some idea of localities and the route of Washington and Gist on this journey.
Character of Gist.
The character of Gist may be summed up:
"A man of excellent character, energetic, fearless and a thorough woodsman."
Gist street in Pittsburgh runs from Fifth avenue to the Bluff in the old Fourteenth Ward, just beyond the Fifth Avenue High School. It was taken into the city in the annexed territory of 1868.
Contemporaneous with Gist and about the same age was William Trent, a native of Chester county, Pennsylvania, born in 1705. In 1746, when the colonists intended an expedition to Canada, Gov. Thomas appointed Trent captain of one of the four companies raised in Pennsylvania.
In 1749 Trent was a resident of Cumberland county, where he served as a justice of the Courts of Common Pleas and General Sessions of the Peace for that county. In 1750 he entered into a partnership with George Croghan to engage in the Indian trade. This brought him to the borderland as then known and here he was conspicuous for many years and one of the best known traders in the far Indian country.
Trent to Build Fort.
In 1752 he was a commissioner to Logstown on the Ohio, a place afterwards wiped out, famous alike for its treaties and its wild orgies, and the depot for large stores of Indian commodities and furs.
It was Trent that was directed by Gov. Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia to build a fort at the forks of the Ohio, familiar to Pittsburghers always as "The Point."
This was in 1753, but the work was not begun until February 17, 1754. The unfinished fort was surrendered to French under M. de Contrecoer [sic], April 16, 1754.
In 1755, the year of Braddock's defeat, Trent entered again the service of Pennsylvania and was a member of the proprietary and governor's council.
Two years later Trent is back in the service of Virginia. He accompanied Gen. Forbes in his successful expedition in 1758 that gave Pittsburgh its birth. His knowledge of the country was invaluable to Forbes.
Trent remained about Fort Pitt engaged in the Indian trade until Pontiac's siege in 1763 during the French and Indian War.
Indians Destroy Store.
His large trading house outside the fort was destroyed by the Indians with great loss to him. He with all the dwellers outside of the fort took refuge within its walls. Trent was employed in military duties by Capt. Simon Ecuyer the commandant of the fort.
At the treaty of Fort Stawix [sic] in 1768 Trent was one of the beneficiaries of a large tract of land granted by the Iroquois.
When the Revolutionary War began, Trent entered the service and was commissioned a major by the Continental Congress.
Trent made an expedition from Logstown to Pickawillany, a Miami village on the west side of the Big Miami River at the mouth of Loromies Creek. This tribe in the transactions with the Indians at and about Fort Pitt is usually referred to as Twightwees.
Trent kept a journal of this expedition, which was published some 30 years ago by the Western Reserve Historical Society of Ohio.
The grant made to Trent at Fort Stanwix, now the seat of Rome, N. Y., was at the mouth of the Little Kanawha River and ran northeast to the Laurel Hill, or Ridge, as we call it, in Western Virginia, followed the ridge to the Monongohela [sic] and thence "down the stream of the said river by the several courses thereof to the boundary line of the province of Pennsylvania, thence westerly along the course of said province boundary line as far as the same shall extend, and from thence by the same course to the River Ohio, according to the several courses thereof to the place of beginning."
Large Grant of Land.
It is evident that this deed was drawn by a practical conveyancer and it is interesting to note how much of the present state of West Virginia is conveyed. It is what is legally termed a Deed Poll, and is dated November 3, 1768. The names of the other grantees are Robert Callender, John Gibson, Joseph Simon, George Croghan, Thomas Smallman, Joseph Speer, John Ormsby and George Morgan, all traders and pioneers and all sufferers in Pontiac's war to the total of £85,916, 10 shillings and eightpence, "lawful money of New York."
It is very evident the traders were close figurers, and their business acumen and methods were not to be despised.
This council in 1768 was a full one, and the sachems and chiefs of the Six Nations (The Iroquois)) were convened, we are told, "by his majesty's orders, and held the council under the presidency of his superintendent of Indian affairs in North America, Sir William Johnson."
The grant of land was in consideration of the great losses and damages as totaled above, which were sustained by sundry traders in the spring of 1763 when the Shawanese, Delawares and Huron tribes of Indians, "Tributaries of the Six Nations," (mark the language) did seize upon and unjustly appropriate to themselves the Gods Merchandize, and effects of the Traders. Therefore, in strictly legal phraseology, "The said Sachems and Chiefs did give, grant, Bargain and sell unto us our Heirs and assigns forever, all that Tract or Parcel of Land," etc.
It is also evident the conveyancer was a trifle careless in the use of capital letters.
The grantees held numerous meetings in Pittsburgh prior to the Revolution, bothered themselves about the squatters on their land, made arrangements for the sale of the lands "so that the purchase would be easy," organized a company and imagined themselves well remunerated. Trent even went to England in 1769 and was informed by Dr. Franklin, Lord Cambdin (Camden?) and others that it was unnecessary to make application to the crown, or king in council for a confirmation of the Indian grant, but that all he had to do was to return and take possession of it.
Lord Hillsborough was opposed to confirmation and the crown made a grant to "a company of gentlemen" which included the Indian grant to the traders.
Trent tells that these purchasers "stiled" themselves the "Grand Ohio Company." This was in 1775. The war came on and in 1779 Virginia declared by express legislative enactment that all sales and deeds by Indians for land within the limits of the colony were void and of no effect.
These lands were within Gist's surveys and they were again surveyed and all not in possession of settlers following the precedent of Congress were granted to officers and soldiers of the Continental army.
Virginia adopted the idea and her unappropriated lands, vast in area were granted as bounties to officers and soldiers in both the state and contiental [sic] establishments.
A major general got 15,000 acres and a brigadier, 10,000. Washington, we know was well taken care of. To the same bounties in lands run our titles in Northwestern Pennsylvania known as the Donation lands.
But Trent got "left" in spite of all he and his partners could do. Just as Croghan was "left" in his grant of about all of Pittsburgh and the southern portion of Allegheny county.
However, we remember Trent in a street name—a short thoroughfare running from Wylie avenue to Webster avenue in the old Eleventh Ward.
It may be noticed that among the names of the losing traders are several other street names, Morgan and Smallman, and once we had Gibson and Ormsby. We have also Ward, from Ensign Edward Ward, whom Trent left in command at the "Forks" while he returned to Wills Creek.
M. Contracoer [sic] with 1,000 men and 18 cannon easily took Ward and his 41 prisoners but released them. Then arose the fort Duquesne, and the border chain of French forts flying the fleur de lis was complete. New France had spread into the province of William Penn, but Dinwiddie, claiming that land about the Forks, heating his hereditary enemies was keenly awake. Hence trouble and Braddock's defeat and—history.
