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Christopher GistChristopher Gist (1706 - 1759) was one of the first explorers of the Ohio and Kentucky wilderness in the United States. He also accompanied George Washington on missions to the French in the Ohio Valley. Born in 1706 in Baltimore, Maryland, little is known about his younger years. Gist is thought to have had little formal education, though it is believed that he received training as a surveyor, more then likely from his father Richard Gist who helped plot the City of Baltimore. By 1750 Gist had settled in northern North Carolina, near the Yadkin River, where one of his neighbors would be 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 Louisville area. That winter Gist mapped the Ohio countryside between Shannopin's Town, site of present day Pittsburgh, to the Scioto River. There he crossed into Kentucky and eventually returned to his home along the Yadkin. When he returned to North Carolina, he found that his family had fled to Roanoke, Virginia, because of Indian attacks. He rejoined them but went west again in the summer of 1751 to explore the Pennsylvania and western Virginia, now presnt day West Virginia, country south of the Ohio River. In 1753 Gist would once again return to the Ohio County, this time he would be accompanied by George Washington. The Ohio Company sent the to men to negotiate with the French at Fort LeBoeuf, who had under construction Fort Duquesne near Shannopin's Town with the intention prevent further English settlement of the Ohio Country. In the end the negotiations would fail, but during the trip Gist earned his place in history by saving the young Washington's life on two separate occasions during the trip. In 1754, Washington, Gist, and a detachment of Virginia militia attempted to drive the French from the region. The French soundly defeated the Virginians at the battle of Fort Necessity on July 3, 1754. Also at this time Gist owned land near the present city of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, which he called Gists Plantation and began to build a model town there. Unfortunately, the French burned all the buildings in 1754 after the battle of Fort Necessity. Gist also was present the next year when the French and their native allies defeated General Braddock's combined force of British Regulars and Virginia militiamen. After this Gist traveled into Tennessee, meeting with various native groups in order to seek their support during the French and Indian War. His whereabouts after the war are uncertain. It is said that the summer of 1759 he contracted smallpox and died in Virginia, South Carolina, or Georgia. Gist is credited for providing England and its colonists with the first detailed description of southern Ohio and northeastern Kentucky. Gist, Christopher Gist, Christopher Gist, Christopher Gist, Christopher
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