Nathaniel Gist

Nathaniel Gist
Born	15 October 1733 Baltimore, Maryland
Died	1812 Canewood plantation Clark Co Kentucky
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	Infantry
Years of service	1755–1760 1777–1783
Rank	Colonel
Battles/wars	Braddock's Expedition (1755) Forbes Expedition (1758) Cherokee War (1760) Battle of Paulus Hook (1779) Siege of Charleston (1780)

Nathaniel Gist (15 October 1733 – 1812) was born in Maryland and fought during the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War. He was reputed to be the father of Sequoyah the famous Cherokee by Wurteh Watts. Like his father Christopher Gist (1706–1759), he served in Braddock's Expedition in 1755 and the Forbes Expedition in 1758. The outbreak of the American Revolution found him on the frontier. At first suspected of sympathizing with the British, he convinced the Americans of his loyalty.

George Washington, a close friend of his father, authorized him to form Gist's Additional Continental Regiment in January 1777. Gist probably participated in Light Horse Harry Lee's Paulus Hook Raid in 1779. He and his regiment were captured at the Siege of Charleston in May 1780. After the war, he took an American wife Judith Cary Bell (1750–1833) and the couple had four daughters, one of whom married Francis P. Blair. He is variously said to have died in 1796, 1812, or at the end of the War of 1812. He is confused with his uncle Nathaniel Gist (1707–1780). He was a first cousin of Mordecai Gist.

Born on 15 October 1733 in Baltimore, Maryland, Gist's parents were Christopher Gist (1706–1759) and Sarah Howard (b. 1711). The surname was sometimes rendered Guest. In 1753 his father made a remarkable trek through the wilderness with George Washington. By this time the 20-year-old Nathaniel Gist was a trader living with the Overhill Cherokee near Echota. He and a partner Richard Pearis sold his father's goods to the Native Americans. Both men coveted the land at Long Island in the Holston River (now Kingsport, Tennessee) and soon fell out. Governor Robert Dinwiddie blamed the quarrel for the failure of the Cherokees to aid the British against the French. In 1755 Gist accompanied Braddock's Expedition in 1755, serving as a lieutenant in his father's ranger company in Washington's colonial regiment. He continued his military service in 1756, protecting the frontier against raids by pro-French Indians.

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