Its Indian name signified “Muddy Water.”––R. G. T.
We have already seen (p. 74, note), that Gist settled at Mount Braddock, Fayette county, in 1753, and that eleven families joined him in January, 1754. There is a tradition that settlers were in the district even before Gist. It has been shown that the Gist settlements, and others in the lower Monongahela, were burned by the French in July, 1754. The English borderers fled upon the outbreak of disturbances, and did not return until about 1760-61, when confidence had been restored.––R. G. T.
Both Van Meter and Swan afterwards served under Col. G. R. Clark––at least, on the Kaskaskia campaign; Swan commanded a company on Clark’s Shawnee campaign of 1780, and Van Meter on that of 1782. The latter moved to Kentucky in 1780; settled in Hardin county, Ky., Nov. 16th, 1798, in his seventy-sixth year.––L. C. D.
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Comment by R. G. T.––This note, written by Dr. Draper a few days before his death (Aug. 26, 1891), was probably his last stroke of literary work.
These gentlemen were descendants of a Mr. Zane who accompanied William Penn, to his province of Pennsylvania, and from whom, one of the principal streets in Philadelphia, derived its name. Their father was possessed of a bold and daring spirit of adventure, which was displayed on many occasions, in the earlier part of his life. Having rendered himself obnoxious to the Society of Friends (of which he was a member,) by marrying without the pale of that society, he moved to Virginia and settled on the South Branch, where the town of Moorfield has been since erected. One of his sons (Isaac) was taken by the Indians, when he was only nine years old, and carried in captivity, to Mad river, in Ohio. Here he continued ’till habit reconciled him to his situation, when he married a squaw, became a chief and spent the remainder of his life with them. He was never known to wage war against the whites; but was, on several occasions, of infinite service, by apprising them of meditated attacks of the Indians. His descendants still reside in Ohio.