Thomas Cresap

Thomas Cresap
Born	c.1702 Skipton, Yorkshire
Died	c.1790 Allegany County, Maryland
Partner(s)	Hannah Johnson (1), Margaret Milburn (2)
Children	Michael and others

Colonel Thomas Cresap (c.1702—c.1790) was an English-born settler and trader in the states of Maryland and Pennsylvania. Cresap served Lord Baltimore as an agent in the 'Maryland-Pennsylvania boundary dispute' that became known as Cresap's War south of what became Wrightsville, Pennsylvania. Later, together with the Native American chief Nemacolin, Cresap improved a Native American path to the Ohio Valley, and ultimately settled and became a large landowner near Cumberland, Maryland where he became involved in further disputes near Brownsville, Pennsylvania including in the French and Indian War and Lord Dunmore's War.

Cresap was born in Skipton, Yorkshire, England, and emigrated across the Atlantic Ocean to the Maryland colony when 15 years old. In 1723 he gave his occupation as that of a carpenter. He initially settled at the mouth of the Susquehanna River on the Chesapeake, on the lower end of a floodplain called the Conejohela Valley, and built boats. In 1725 Cresap married Hannah Johnson, whose father, Thomas Johnson, on 24 March 1725 had surveyed to himself Mount Johnson Island, at Peach Bottom Ferry.

Cresap also traveled at least once to Virginia, for Virginia-based trader Claiborne also traded for furs in the lower Susquehanna area of Chesapeake Bay. Cresap fled from Virginia either because of the Native American raids against white settlers in 1622, or because a dozen or more fellow settlers drove him as he cleared timber to make a dwelling and secure his land claim. As Cresap defended himself, he cleft one of his assailants with a broad-ax.

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