In the preparation of notes for the present volume, the Editor has been assisted by Louise Phelps Kellogg, Ph.D., of the Division of Maps and Manuscripts in the Wisconsin State Historical Library. He has also been favored with valuable information on various points, from Colonel Reuben T. Durrett of Louisville, Mr. Frank H. Severance of Buffalo, the Western Reserve Historical Society at Cleveland, and Dr. Ernest C. Richardson and Dr. John Rogers Williams of Princeton University. R. G. T. MADISON, WIS., January, 1904. I CONRAD WEISER’S JOURNAL OF A TOUR TO THE OHIO AUGUST 11-OCTOBER 2, 1748 SOURCE: _Pennsylvania Colonial Records_, v, pp. 348-358; with variations from _Pennsylvania Historical Collections_, i, pp. 23-33. INTRODUCTORY NOTE Conrad Weiser, one of the most prominent agents in the management of Indian affairs during the later French wars, was a native of Würtemberg, being born November 2, 1696. When Conrad was but fourteen years old, his father, John Conrad Weiser, led a party of Palatines to America where they lived four years on the Livingston manor in New York, and in 1714 removed to Schoharie. There young Weiser came in close contact with the Mohawk Indians, was adopted into their tribe, and living among them for some years became master of their language. In 1729, he and his family, consisting of a wife and five young children, removed to Berks (then Lancaster) County, Pennsylvania, where a number of Weiser’s countrymen had preceded them. The new homestead was a mile east of the present town of Womelsdorf, and became the centre of an extended hospitality both for Pennsylvania Germans and visiting Indians. When Reading was laid out (1748), Weiser was one of the commissioners for that purpose, building therein a house and store that are still standing. His first employment as an interpreter was in 1731, when forty shillings were allotted him for his services. From this time forward he was official interpreter for Pennsylvania, and for thirty years was employed in every important Indian transaction. The Pennsylvania Council testified in 1736 “that they had found Conrad faithfull and honest, that he is a true good Man & had Spoke their words [the Indians’] & our Words, and not his own.”[1] Again in 1743, the governor of Virginia requested the province of Pennsylvania to send their “honest interpreter,” Conrad Weiser, to adjust a difficulty with the Iroquois Indians; whereupon he proceeded to Onondaga with a present of £100 on the part of Virginia, and made peace for the English colonists.[2] The following year, Weiser was chief interpreter at the important treaty of Lancaster; and throughout King George’s War was occupied with negotiations with the Six Nations, detaching them from the French influence, and keeping the Pennsylvania Delawares quiet “upon their mats.”