Thomas Cresap was an English-born merchant, explorer, militia leader during the Seven Years’ War, and land speculator who lived in the vicinity of what is now Old Town, Maryland. His land ventures brought him into contact with George Washington on several occasions. The two men eventually became involved in a lenghty land dispute over a section of land in the Ohio River Valley, which was eventually settled by Cresap's descendants.
Early Life and Cresap’s War
Cresap was born in Skipton, Yorkshire, England in 1702. At the age of fifteen, he left for North America, arriving in Maryland later in 1717. He was listed in a 1723 census with the occupation of carpenter. After receiving a 500-acre patent from the colony of Maryland, he began selling parcels of land, in some instances inhabited, which improperly extended into colonial Pennsylvania. When Cresap was attacked by disgruntled Pennsylvanians, tensions mounted into a border war between the two colonies known as “Cresap’s War” in which colonists attacked one another over land disputes. In 1733, Pennsylvania tried to arrest Cresap for his role in selling lands without clean titles. However, violence subsided by the end of the 1730s. The borders of Maryland and Pennsylvania were not settled until 1760.
Meetings with George Washington
In 1736, after facing conflict in Pennsylvania, Cresap moved to the area of Shawnee Old Town on the Maryland side of the Potomac River. There he established a small inn and trading post about fifteen miles from the future site of Fort Cumberland. Since his trading post stood near the confluence of a number of important trails, it became one of the most important posts in the Maryland hinterlands. The first meeting between Cresap and George Washington recorded by Washington took place in 1748. At the time Washington ventured to Shawnee Old Town on his way westwards to survey with the Fairfaxes.1
Like Washington and his family, Cresap was interested in the Ohio River Valley. The following year, Cresap became a founding member of the Ohio Company of Virginia. Other founders included Thomas Lee, and Washington’s half-brothers Lawrence and Augustine Washington Jr. Later investors such as George Washington, Governor Robert Dinwiddie, and George Mason joined the company. As part of his contribution, Cresap assisted in laying a road for the Ohio Company from Wills Creek to Monongahela. This route became important as it was later followed by Major General Edward Braddock during his 1755 military campaign.
In the aftermath of Washington's failed 1754 mission to Fort Duquesne, Cresap, by then a colonel in the Maryland Militia, was entrusted with guarding the French prisoners taken by the expedition. Washington and Cresap came into contact in 1755 as well, during Braddock's expedition which ended with the defeat at the Monongahela River. In the subsequent retreat, Cresap was forced to evacuate, along with many other local residents, down the Potomac River to the Conococheague settlement.2
As a result of increased Native American pressure on the frontier, Cresap's post was abandoned in 1756. Cresap's last meeting with George Washington came in 1770 when Washington stopped at Cresap's trading post on his way to inspect his western land holdings. Cresap had returned from a trip to London on the business of the Ohio Company.3 During this visit, Cresap shared details of his trip with Washington.
Land Disputes with the Washington Family
Although previously aligned in their pursuit of land in the Ohio Country, the two men became involved in a lawsuit involving land belonging to his deceased half-brother Augustine Washington Jr. George Washington was acting as his brother’s executor and pursued rents Cresap had collected from unauthorized tenants living on the land on behalf of his young nephew William Augustine Washington.4 Cresap argued that he had purchased the land from Garret Pendergrass first before Augustine, and then it was fraudulently sold to him afterwards.5 Washington described Cresap as “extremely artful” and feared that his claim to the land would “obtain strength by the length of possession.”6
After the American Revolution, Washington continued to assert his nephew’s ownership of the western land as well as for his ownership over his own personal tracts. Some of this land had been illegally passed to descendants of Thomas’s deceased son Michael, a captain in the Continental Army who died in the conflict in 1775.7 Before he war, Michael Cresap built structures and had tenants on land deeded to Washington. Washington obtained proper title for these lands in 1784 with the assistance of the Virginia Land Office, but the descendants of Michael Cresap continued to argue with these claims.8
In 1786, Washington continued to correspond with Thomas Cresap about the validity of Washington family land claims in Ohio Country. He wrote Cresap, “I am not a member of, nor am I in any manner interested in the affairs of the Ohio Company—nor indeed do I know at this time, of whom it consists, further than of those claiming under, & mentioned by you—of Colo. Mason & of the heir of my brother Augustine.”9 Thomas Cresap died the following year.
Fearing the descendants of Thomas and Michael Cresap would continue to protest his land claims, Washington sold the disputed land in 1798 to Archibald McClean.10 At that time, additional surveys demonstrated Washington’s land holdings as larger than initially surveyed.11 McClean continued to have legal issues with Cresaps’ descendants, and his title from Washington was upheld after litigation through 1834.
Originally researched by James McIntyre Moraine Valley Community College, updated by the Center for Digital History, 19 August 2025
Notes:
1. “A Journal of my Journey over the Mountains began Fryday the 11th. of March 1747/8,” Founders Online, National Archives.
2. “To George Washington from Adam Stephen, 4 October 1755,” Founders Online, National Archives.
3. “Remarks & Occurrs. in October [1770],” Founders Online, National Archives.
4. “George Washington to Thomas Cresap, 7 February 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives.
5.“Thomas Cresap to George Washington, 21 March 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives.
6. “George Washington to John Augustine Washington, 26 October 1778,” Founders Online, National Archives.
7. “George Washington to Thomas Lewis, 1 February 1784,” Founders Online, National Archives; “George Washington to John Marshall, 17 March 1789,” Founders Online, National Archives; “George Washington to John Harvie, 18 March 1784,” Founders Online, National Archives.
8. “John Harvie to George Washington, 14 April 1784,” Founders Online, National Archives; “George Washington to John Harvie, 31 May 1785,” Founders Online, National Archives.
9. “George Washington to Thomas Cresap, 8 May 1786,” Founders Online, National Archives.
10. “George Washington to John Marshall, 17 March 1789,” Founders Online, National Archives.
11. “George Washington to Archibald McClean, 6 August 1798,” Founders Online, National Archives; “Enclosure: Schedule of Property, 9 July 1799,” Founders Online, National Archives.
Bibliography:
Achenbach, Joel. The Grand Idea: George Washington’s Potomac and the Race to the West. Simon & Schuster, 2024.
Bailey, Kenneth P. Thomas Cresap, Maryland Frontiersman. Boston: The Christopher Publishing House, 1944.
Doutrich, Paul. “Cresap’s War: Expansion and Conflict in the Susquehanna Valley.” Pennsylvania History, Volume. 53, no. 2 April 1986.
Stevenson, Mary Louis Cresap. Colonel Thomas Cresap. Columbus, OH:[n.p], 1901.
For more information about Michael Cresap’s military service, see Jacob, John J. and George Rogers Clark. A Biographical Sketch of the Life of the Late Captain Michael Cresap. Cincinnati: Ohio, 1826. Additionally, research has been conducted concerning his role in the Yellow Creek Massacre: see Miller, Julie. “Of Note: Thomas Jefferson Thinks Again: A New Letter about Logan, Cresap, and the Yellow Creek Massacre,” 8 September 2022, Library of Congress Blogs: Unfolding History: Manuscripts at the Library of Congress. Library of Congress, https://blogs.loc.gov/manuscripts/2022/09/of-note-thomas-jefferson-thinks-again-a-new-letter-about-logan-cresap-and-the-yellow-creek-massacre/.
