Christopher Gist

Christopher Gist
Drawing of Gist from Emerson's magazine and Putnam's monthly
Born	1706 Baltimore, Maryland
Died	1759
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Christopher Gist (1706–1759) was an accomplished colonial British explorer, surveyor and frontiersman. He was one of the first white explorers of the Ohio Country (the present-day states of Ohio, eastern Indiana, western Pennsylvania, and northwestern West Virginia, USA). He is credited with providing the first detailed description of the Ohio Country to Great Britain and her colonists. At the outset of the French and Indian War (1754), Gist accompanied Colonel George Washington on missions into this wilderness and saved Washington's life on two separate occasions.

Born in 1706 in Baltimore, Maryland, Gist is thought to have had little formal education. Historians believe that he received training as a surveyor, more than likely from his father Richard Gist, who helped plot the city of Baltimore. Gist's nephew Mordecai Gist served as a general under Washington in the Revolution

Gist married Sarah Howard, a daughter of Joshua Howard of Manchester, England. Howard served with King James II of England's forces as an officer during the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685, before settling in Baltimore, Maryland. The couple had three sons, Richard (1727–1780) who was killed at the Battle of King's Mountain, Nathaniel who led Gist's Additional Continental Regiment in the Continental Army, and Thomas. Christopher's brother Nathaniel Gist married Sarah's sister Mary Howard, and also partnered with Washington and two other veteran soldiers on a prospective land deal in the mid-1750s. The couple also had two daughters, Anne and Violet.