Note 31 — History, Manners, and Customs OF THE INDIAN NATIONS. CHAPTER I. HISTORICAL TRADITIONS OF THE INDIANS.

[Col. John Gibson, to whom Mr. Heckewelder frequently alludes, was born at Lancaster, Pa., in 1740. At the age of eighteen, he made his first campaign under Gen. Forbes, in the expedition which resulted in the acquisition of Fort Du Quesne from the French. At the peace of 1763 he settled at that post (Fort Pitt) as a trader. Some time after this, on the resumption of hostilities with the savages, he was captured by some Indians, among whom he lived several years, and thus became familiar with their language, manners, customs, and traditions. In the expedition against the Shawanese under Lord Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia, in 1774, Gibson played a conspicuous part. On the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, he was appointed to the command of one of the Continental regiments raised in Virginia, and served with the army at New York and in the retreat through New Jersey. He was next employed in the Western department, serving under Gen. McIntosh in 1778, and under Gen. Irvine in 1782. At one time he was in command at Pittsburgh. In 1800 Col. Gibson was appointed Secretary and acting Governor of the territory of Indiana, a position which he filled for a second time between 1811 and 1813. Subsequently he was Associate Judge of Allegheny County, Pa. He died near Pittsburgh in 1822. He was an uncle of the late John B. Gibson, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania between 1827 and 1851.]