Note 19 — II A Selection of George Croghan’s Letters and Journals Relating to Tours into the Western Country—November 16, 1750-November, 1765.

Captain William Trent was a noted Indian trader, brother-in-law and at this time partner of Croghan. Although born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania (1715), he served the colony of Virginia as Indian agent; and in 1752 its governor dispatched him to the Miamis with a present. See Journal of Captain Trent (Cincinnati, 1871). The following year he was sent out by the Ohio Company to begin a fortification at the Forks of the Ohio, from which in Trent’s absence (April, 1754), the garrison was expelled by a French force under Contrecœur. Trent was with Forbes in 1758, and the following year was made deputy Indian agent, assistant to Croghan, and aided at the conferences at Fort Pitt in 1760. His trade was ruined by the uprising of Pontiac’s forces, but he received reparation at the treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768) by a large grant of land between the Kanawha and Monongahela rivers, where he made a settlement. At the outbreak of the Revolution he joined the patriot cause, and was major of troops raised in Western Pennsylvania.—Ed.