Gist's Trace

Earliest Beginnings
The early road known as Gist's Trace was first blazed by a man named Thomas Cresap who was assisted in the work by a Native American known as Nemacolin. Mr. Cresap did the surveying and Nemacolin was in charge of the physical labor used to move the larger objects from the trail. They began breaking the trail in 1749. The road (or trace) takes its name from Christopher Gist (1706-1759), one of the first white explorers of that area. Christopher Gist was born in Maryland to Richard and Zipporah Gist. Richard Gist was a formally trained surveyor and his son, Christopher followed in those footsteps. Christopher Gist is said to have provided the English and the colonists with the first descriptions of what was then called the "Ohio Country". During the French and Indian War he accompanied George Washington as Mr. Washington traveled into the Ohio Country on a mission for the colonies. That failed mission was to negotiate a settlement of sorts with the French military. Mr. Gist eventually owned land near the present day city of Uniontown, Pennsylvania which he named "Gist's Plantation". He was instrumental in the beginning of a small town there.

History
Gist's Trace was only sixty miles in length but was an important migration route because it created the passage between the Potomac and Ohio rivers. It provided pioneers means to travel into western Pennsylvia and as far west as Ohio thus promoting settlements in those areas. Rivers also afforded a means of transport from one area into another without the necessity of breaking a trail through forested land. The Gist Trace started at the mouth of Wills Creek, traversed the Laurel Mountains to the Monongahela River to its junction with Redstone Creek. The trace traversed the country between what is now known as Cumberland, Maryland to the present day city of Brownsville, Pennsylvania.

Present Day
The entire roadway is of great historic interest and finally, as it became an important part of the National Road (Pike) it took its place among the most famous highways of the migratory experience of America. Although the name of the road has changed over the years from Nemocolin's Path, Washington's Road, Braddock's Road, and the National Pike, it has earned its place in the economic and political history of the United States. It travels through Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania and is an important route for genealogists researching those earliest years of the nations settlements from the colonies westward.