"You are to draw as good a plan as you can of the Country You pass thro: You are to take an exact and particular Journal of all Your Proceedings, and make a true Report thereof to the Ohio Company." Gist was the man for the business in hand. He came from an enterprising family and was well educated. His father was one of the Commissioners for laying off the city of Baltimore. "Little is known of his early life, but the evidences he has left in his journals, his maps, plats of surveys, and correspondence indicate that he enjoyed the advantages of an education superior to that of many of his calling in those early days. His signature and manuscript are characterized by the neatness and uniformity of a copy plate, while his plats and surveys are models in their mathematical exactness and precision of drawing. To this evidence of scholarly order and professional skill he added the hardy qualities of the pioneer and backwoodsman, capable of enduring the exposure of long journeys in the most rigorous weather. In him were combined the varied talents which made him at once an accomplished surveyor, an energetic farmer who felled the forest and tilled the soil, a skilful diplomat who understood the Indian character and was influential in making treaties, a brave soldier, an upright man, trusted by the highest civil and military authorities with implicit faith."[3] The earlier portion of Gist's journey, which he began in October, 1750, is not of importance in the present monograph. He reached the Ohio River by way of the Juniata and Kiskiminitas Rivers. Crossing the Ohio he worked his way westward on the Great Trail to the "Crossing Place of the Muskingum" (Bolivar, Ohio), and from thence he traversed the Indian trail to the country of the Shawanese and Miamis. It was not until Tuesday, the twelfth of March, that Gist again crossed the Ohio, and entered what is now the state of Kentucky. His first day's experience was typical--in a land so well known for great things and strong; for on the day after crossing at the Shawanese Shannoah Town, he found two men who had "Two of the Teeth of a large Beast.... The Rib Bones of the largest of these Beasts were eleven Feet long, and the Skull Bone six Feet wide, across the Forehead, & the other Bones in Proportion; and that there were several Teeth there, some of which he called Horns, and said they were upwards of five Feet long, and as much as a Man could well carry." Gist was now in Kentucky--the land of which thousands were waiting to hear, the home of the race that was to come and conquer and settle and hold the West. Of it Gist came to know only a little, but this little was the beginning of a revelation.