George Croghan Cragun?
George Croghan, Indian agent, was born in
Ireland early in the 18th century. He was educated
at Dublin, immigrated to America, and settled near
Harrisburg, in Pennsylvania, where he engaged as
a trader among the Indians as early as 1746. At
this period a number of traders, mostly from Penn-
sylvania, crossed the Alleghany Mountains once a
year, and descending the Ohio Valley with pack-
horses or in canoes, traded from one Indian village
to another.
Croghan gained great confidence among the In-
dians and acquired a good knowledge of their lan-
guages, which led to his employment as government
agent. He served in that capacity, with the rank of
captain of provincials, in General Braddock's expe-
dition of 1755, and in defense of the Northwest
frontier in 1756. In November of the latter yeai
he was made deputy-agent for the Pennsylvania and
Ohio Indians by Sir William Johnson, who in 1763
sent him to Kngland to confer with the government
relative to an Indian boundary line. During the
voyage he was shipwrecked on the coast of France.
In 1765, when on his way to pacify the Illinois
Indians, he was attacked, wounded, and taken pris-
oner to Vincennes, an old French fort on the Wa-
bash River. He was, however, speedily released
and succeeded in accomplishing his mission. In
May, 1766, he formed a settlement about four miles
from Fort Pitt (formerly Fort Duquesne) and con-
tinued to render valuable service in conciliating the
Indians until the breaking out of the revolutionary
war, when he retired to his farm at Passayunk, Pa.,
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