Christopher Gist contracts Small Pox, Dies
During the summer of 1759, Gist contracted smallpox and died in South Carolina or Georgia. Gist's pay for military service with the First Virginia Regiment was paid to his heir, Nathaniel Gist, by 1766. Other reports have him surviving until 1794 and dying in Cumberland, North Carolina, although this narrative may confuse him with a nephew also named Christopher Gist, one of Richard Gist's grandsons through Nathaniel Gist and Mary Howard. -- according to wikipedia.
Smallpox is a horrible way to go.
The Cherokee were so ashamed of its disfigurement they threw themselves in the river to commit suicide. Their other shame was being blamed for spreading this scourge to others.
This thing killed and killed through the ages. And killed horribly.
And another thing, no one realizes until it happens to them, there is a great embarrassment and shame attending ill health.
Read this excerpt:
"Small pox took a deep psychological toll on the individual Cherokees. Scars showed easily. "
[My note: We have a reenactor who sports a mirror hanging because they didn't use it for signalling but to paint their faces and because they had pride in their appearance]
Back to the excerpt:
"Adair recalled that, as a result, ' a great many killed themselves; for being naturally proud, they are always peeping into their looking glasses.' He witnessed suicides, one at the hands of a hoe-helve. As soon as they left ill, many took their lives by 'throwing themselves into the River." Adair continued, 'A death, in defence of their beloved land, and beloved things was far preferable" to spreading the disease to others. Such Cherokees might have viewed suicide as a courageous sacrifice. Otherwise ' they were only spending a dying life, to the shame and danger of the society.,' Adair wrote.
Lieutenant White Outerbridge, the commander of Fort Augusta (SC), had a different take. Observing the Savannah River Chickasaws in 1759, he wrote that Indians attempted to treat the smallpox by ' getting drunk and Plunging into the River' "
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End of excerpt.
Source:
Pages 84 Carolina in Crisis: Cherokees, Colonists, and Slaves in the American .Southeast 1756-1763 By Daniel J. Tortora, published by the University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2015.
The Date of Christopher Gist's death
I have to emphasize -
I was unable to find this claim of a specific date of Christopher Gist's death anywhere else except in Founders Online.
You can find this claim in Founders Online footnote 6 to a letter George Mercer writes to George Washington in September 1759. Mercer was made head Quarter Master of Winchester and Maryland. He was in Winchester when he wrote that letter. George Mercer and his family have a life long history with George Washington.
The actual date of death is alleged to have been 25 July 1759.
Founders Online makes that claim in footnote 6, but sites no contemporary source for that claim.
The claim is made by inference: "As all three men were aware, Christopher Gist had died of smallpox in July (on 25 July 1759)
while returning to Winchester from Williamsburg
A Short Bio of Christopher Gist
Christopher Gist is kind of on the second tier of being famous. He appears in a video game, Assassins Creed.
That story is loosely based on Christopher Gist accompanying George Washington to deliver a message in 1753 to the French to leave the area. They had established several forts from Lake Erie to the south.
On the way back home, Gist and Washington's fellow traveller Indian turns on them to fire his musket at them and misses. Gist wants to kill him. But the younger Washington counsels against it.
Also on the way home, when crossing the river, both fell into the icy water. Gist lost toes due to frost bite.
Christpher Gist was chosen as guide since he had explored a wide area in 1750 and 1751 and wrote a journal of that trip.
Christopher Gist was also at Fort Necessity. His place was ransacked by the French and Indians near the Braddock Defeat. And he was there in that battle too. Christopher Gist was then a Captain in the Virginia Regiment, but that company was considered to be a company of Scout and not as Rangers as erroneously claimed in some sources. Gist was also in the Forbes Expedition. And stayed at Fort Pitt after the reduction of Fort Duquesne.
Final Observations in this Passing
We note what Small Pox did to the Indian.
We also take this moment to note the passing of Christopher Gist from that horrible scourge.
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We re-remember his value.
He accompanied a young George Washington to deliver a message to the French to leave in 1753. Gist was picked because Gist had travelled widely in all these lands prior. That same experience led GW to pick Gist to lead a company of Scouts, not Rangers, not Militia -- but as scouts in the Virginia Regiment.
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His son, Nathaniel, also in that scout company of the Virginia Regiment, is alleged to have sired Sequoyah, the Cherokee who later came up with a construct to create a written language for the Cherokee.
Compiled by Jim Moyer, researched first in 2010, updated 7/31/2023, 8/6/2023
About that Gist and Washington trip of 1753
500 Miles One Way:
October 31, 1753 Washington, age 21, left Williamsburg VA and completes a round trip of more than 1,000 miles by horse, foot, canoe, and raft in about ten weeks.
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The Proclaimers 500 miles
14 November 1753 GW meets Christopher Gist at Wills Creek, the future Fort Cumberland MD.
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11 December 1753 Washington and Gist arrived at Fort Le Boeuf to deliver a message to the French to leave this area which the French rebuff.
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By January 6, 1754 Washington with Christopher Gist arrives back home at Wills Creek which is the Ohio Company depot, later to become the future site of Fort Cumberland Maryland.
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Then GW arrives in Williamsburg January 16, 1754.
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And then Lt Gov Dinwiddie publishes George Washington’s Journal of this trip and it’s a hit in London.
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Sources
See Founders Online footnote 6
6. Apparently GW, Mercer, and Robert Stewart had entered an agreement with Capt. Christopher Gist to have Gist lay claim for them to land along the Ohio to which they were entitled under Dinwiddie’s proclamation of 1754. On 28 Sept. 1759 Robert Stewart wrote GW from Pittsburgh: “. . . the more I see of this Charming Country, the more I’m enamour’d with it, which leads me to enquire after what Steps have been taken, in secureing to us, those Lands which poor Capn Gist was to have enter’d for us, I hope the needful is done, they surely will soon be very valueable.” As all three men were aware, Christopher Gist had died of smallpox in July (on 25 July 1759) while returning to Winchester from Williamsburg. It would appear, therefore, that when Mercer speaks of Gist as a likely partner he is speaking of the son, Lt. Nathaniel Gist, who acted as a guide for GW’s brigade when it marched toward Fort Duquesne in November 1758. On the other hand, it would appear that he is referring to the elder Gist when he speaks of the claims or “Entries” that Gist made for them.
Assassins Creed
David Preston's book, Braddock's Defeat
references to Gist
Virginia colonial militia, 1651-1776
Who was left at Fort Pitt after reducing Fort Duquesne
Side note about Gist's daughter
Nancy Gist did not marry Capt. Thomas Cocke of GW’s regiment or anyone else, but in 1759 after the death of her father, [25 July 1759] Christopher Gist, she left Belvoir where she had been living with the Fairfaxes and went to live with one of her brothers. -- from Founders Online footnote 6 in this link https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-06-02-0033
Facebook page post 8/6/2023 Sunday
Sunday Word 2
In Sunday Word 1 we find out it took Alexander Finnie to refurbish the Braddock Road in 16 days with 30 men in August 1759. But we have to look at last month of July 1759 still. We cannot ignore the passing of Christopher Gist. You will not find his date of passing anywhere except here. Founders Online appears to have used inductive reasoning when his death occurred. July 25, 1759.
Christopher Gist has achieved some minor modern immortality in being a character on the video game Assassins Creed.
He died a horrible way. Small pox.
This thing killed and killed through the ages. And killed horribly.
And another thing, no one realizes until it happens to them, there is a great embarrassment and shame attending ill health.
Read this excerpt:
"Small pox took a deep psychological toll on the individual Cherokees. Scars showed easily.
[My note: We have a reenactor who sports a mirror hanging because they didn't use it for signalling but to paint their faces and because they had pride in their appearance]
Back to the excerpt:
"Adair recalled that, as a result, ' a great many killed themselves; for being naturally proud, they are always peeping into their looking glasses.' He witnessed suicides, one at the hands of a hoe-helve. As soon as they left ill, many took their lives by 'throwing themselves into the River." Adair continued, 'A death, in defence of their beloved land, and beloved things was far preferable" to spreading the disease to others. Such Cherokees might have viewed suicide as a courageous sacrifice. Otherwise ' they were only spending a dying life, to the shame and danger of the society.,' Adair wrote. Lieutenant White Outerbridge, the commander of Fort Augusta (SC), had a different take. Observing the Savannah River Chickasaws in 1759, he wrote that Indians attempted to treat the smallpox by ' getting drunk and Plunging into the River' "
.
End of excerpt.
.
We note what it did to the Indian.
We also take this moment to note the passing of Christopher Gist.
.
He accompanished a young George Washington to deliver a message to the French to leave in 1753. Gist was picked because Gist had travelled widely in all these lands prior.
.
His son, Nathaniel, is alleged to have sired Sequoyah, the Cherokee who later came up with a construct to create a written language for the Cherokee.
.
