Christopher Gist – 1706-1759

Gist was a trader, frontiersman, and explorer based in western Maryland and highly regarded by colonial authorities as a wilderness guide and an interpreter/negotiator influential with the Indians. In 1753, he joined George Washington, at the time a colonel of the Virginia militia, in an expedition against French “invaders” of the Ohio Valley, which was claimed by the English. Gist was an invaluable mentor to Washington in the ways of the frontier and in Indian diplomacy.