George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

[76] and crossed every gap in the mountain ranges,

chap. III.} 1750.

discovered the path by Will's Creek to the Ohio. Their stores of goods, in 1750, were carried no further than that creek. There they were sold to traders, who, with rivals from Pennsylvania, penetrated the West as far as the Miamis.

To search out and discover the lands westward of ‘the Great Mountains,’ the Ohio Company¹ summoned the adventurous Christopher Gist from his frontier home on the Yadkin. He was instructed to examine the Western country as far as the Falls of the Ohio, to look for a large tract of good level land, to mark the passes in the mountains, to trace the courses of the rivers, to count the falls, to observe the strength and numbers of the Indian nations.

On the last day of October,² the bold messenger of civilization parted from the Potomac. He passed through snows over ‘the stony and broken land’ of the Alleghanies; he halted among the twenty Delaware families that composed Shanoppin's town on the southeast side of the Ohio; swimming his horses across the river, he descended through the rich but narrow valley to Logstown. ‘You are come,’ said the jealous people, ‘to settle the Indians' lands: you never shall go home safe.’ Yet they respected him as a messenger from the English king. From the Great Beaver Creek he crossed to the Muskingum, killing deer and wild turkeys. On Elk's Eye Creek he found a village of the Ottawas, friends to the French. The hundred families of Wyandots