ttee sent the trader Christopher Gist to
explore the country and select land. It must be "good level land," wrote
the Committee; "we had rather go quite down to the Mississippi than take
mean, broken land."[13] In November Gist reached Logstown, the Chiningue
of Celeron, where he found what he calls a "parcel of reprobate Indian
traders." Those whom he so stigmatizes were Pennsylvanians, chiefly
Scotch-Irish, between whom and the traders from Virginia there was great
jealousy. Gist was told that he "should never go home safe." He declared
himself the bearer of a message from the King. This imposed respect, and
he was allowed to proceed. At the Wyandot village of Muskingum he found
the trader George Croghan, sent to the Indians by the Governor of
Pennsylvania, to renew the chain of friendship.[14] "Croghan," he says,
"is a mere idol among his countrymen, the Irish traders;" yet they met
amicably, and the Pennsylvanian had with him a companion, Andrew
Montour, the interpreter, who proved of great service to Gist. As
Montour was a conspicuous person in his time, and a type of his class,
he merits a passing notice. He was the reputed grandson of a French
governor and an Indian squaw. His half-breed mother, Catharine Montour,
was a native of Canada, whence she was carried off by the Iroquois, and
adopted by them. She lived in a village at the head of Seneca Lake, and
still held the belief, inculcated by the guides of her youth, that
Christ was a Frenchman crucified by the English.[15] Her son Andrew is
thus described by the Moravian Zinzendorf, who knew him: "His face is
like that of a European, but marked with a broad Indian ring of
bear's-grease and paint drawn completely round it. He wears a coat of
fine cloth of cinnamon color, a black necktie with silver spangles, a
red satin waistcoat, trousers over which hangs his shirt, shoes and
stockings, a hat, and brass ornaments, something like the handle of a
basket, suspended from his ears."[16] He was an excellent interpreter,
and held in high account by his Indian kinsmen.

[Footnote 13: Instructions to Gist, in appendix to Pownall,
_Topographical Description of North America_.]

[Footnote 14: _Mr. Croghan's Transactions with the Indians_, in _N.Y.
Col. Docs.,_ VII. 267; _Croghan to Hamilton, 16 Dec_. 1750.]

[Footnote 15: This is stated by Count Zinzendorf, who visited her among
the Senecas. In a plan of the "Route of the Western Army," made in 1779,
and of which a tracin