In 1750 and 1751 Gist explored the region now within the borders of Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia, and also western Maryland and southwestern Pennsylvania. George Gist (1706-1759) was a neighbor of Daniel Boone in North Carolina in 1750 when he was contracted by the Ohio Company to explore the country to the west and north of the Ohio River and befriend Indian tribes there. The Ohio Company had been established to carry out very large-scale settlement in the region, but first needed to explore, establish relations with the Indians, and somehow pre-empt the French, who were determined to maintain control of the region.

The first journal describes Gist’s journey into Ohio that winter as far as present-day Louisville. The company sent him on a second trip in 1751, to explore south of the river (present day Kentucky). In November 1753 Major George Washington delivered a letter to his house from the Virginia council, requesting that he take Washington to the commandant of the “French fort on the Ohio River” (Fort Duquesne). They set out the next day, reaching the fort within four weeks, carried out Washington’s business with the commander and returned. This trip was described in the third, and last journal.

The book also contains the historian’s notes about the three journals and profiles of a number of Gist’s contemporaries.