Beschreibung:

WASHINGTON, GEORGE]. GIST, CHRISTOPHER. Autograph journal of an expedition to the French in the Ohio Valley AS A GUIDE FOR GEORGE WASHINGTON, comprising 47 daily entries dated from 14 November 1753 to 4 January 1754. 4½ pages, closely written, blank cover sheet present, wear at folds (not affecting text), scattered stains, patch to margin of page 4, old label affixed to margin of last page, that page blank but for a 3-line note on the total distance covered and contemporary docket "Washington Journal," and (in a different hand) "Braddock." TREACHERY IN THE WILDERNESS: WASHINGTON'S MISSION TO THE FRENCH FORTS IN THE OHIO VALLEY AS RECORDED BY HIS FRONTIER GUIDE A remarkable record of an important wilderness expedition undertaken by Major George Washington at the request of Virginia Governor Robert Dinwiddie, accompanied by the legendary soldier and wilderness guide Christopher Gist (1706-1759). "More than any other man, Gist was to be Washington's teacher in the art of the frontiersman...[He] could scarcely have had a better instructor..." (Freeman, George Washington , vol. 1, pp. 283-284). Dinwiddie had received royal instructions to warn the French not to explore or erect forts in the Ohio River Valley which the English claimed as part of the Commonwealth of Virginia. In October, Washington had met with the Governor and volunteered to deliver his message to the French commander on the Ohio. Orders were drawn up for him to proceed across the Alleghenies to "Logstown," and to contact the Native Americans, who were friendly to Gist and would lead him safely to the French outpost, where he was to present Dinwiddie's letter and return with the French reply. Secretly, he was charged "to procure all the information he could obtain of the numerical strength, armament, defenses, communications and plans of the intruders" ( ibid. , p. 276). In Fredericksburg, Washington recruited a young Hollander, Jacob Van Braam, as translator, and the two proceeded to Wills Creek (later Fort Cumberland) on the Potomac in Western Maryland, where Gist lived. Gist agreed to accompany Washington, and several local men joined them. The party consisted of seven men and four attendants with horses and baggage. Gist's account opens with Washington's arrival: "Then Majr. George Washington came to my House at Wills 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." The next day he recorded, "we set out and at Night Encamp'd at George's Creek..." By the 19th, the party had reached the crossing of the Big Youghiogheny, 34 miles from Wills Creek and part of the Ohio River watershed. Snow was encountered on the 18th, and on 21 November, Gist recorded that "It continu'd to rain all day." By the 22nd they had reached the Monongahela, and the wilderness trading post of John Frazier, who lent them a canoe. Frazier informed Washington that several Native American tribes had turned against the English, and that the French had withdrawn to winter quarters further North, near Lake Erie. On the 23rd, they reached the conjunction of the Allegheny and Monongahela, where Washington made notes and planned for the erection of a fort (later to be known as Fort Duquesne and Fort Pitt). They made contact with two Delaware sachems, Shingiss and Lowmoloch on the 24th, and were escorted to Logstown, a trading post, to meet with the powerful Half King and other sachems. Half King agreed to take them north to the French fort, and reported that the French planned to occupy the area in the Spring. On 30 November, after receiving provisions from the Native Americans, "we set out and the Half King and two old men and one young Warrior with us," proceeding northwards along the Allegheny. At Venango (Wynango), on 3 December, Gist states "we was kindley & complaisantly received by Mons. Jonquere (Joincare) the French Interpreter for the Six Nations" (for more on Joincare, see Freeman, p. 30