Gist, Christopher (c. 1706–c. 1759)

US frontier explorer, guide, and Indian agent. In 1753 he established a settlement near present-day Brownsville, Pennsylvania. During the French and Indian War, he became a guide to Major George Washington and twice saved his life on the expedition to Fort LeBoeuf (1753–54). He was also with Washington at the surrender of Fort Necessity (1754). In 1756 he appeared in Tennessee as an Indian agent, but he died within a few years.

Gist was born in Maryland. Nothing much is known about the first decades of his life, but by 1750 he had enough reputation to be hired by the Ohio Company to explore and map the Ohio River valley and northeastern Kentucky – the first Englishman to do so.