Michael Cresap

Michael Cresap's gravestone at Trinity Church Cemetery.

Michael Cresap (April 17, 1742 – October 18, 1775) was a frontiersman born in Maryland. He was the son of the pioneer Thomas Cresap. He spent part of his adult years in the Ohio Country as a trader and land developer. He led several raids against Indians whom he believed were hostile to white settlement. Logan of the Mingo Indians accused Cresap of murdering his family. In fact, the killings were almost certainly perpetrated by Daniel Greathouse, yet Cresap was immortalized in Logan's speech (quoted in Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia) as the murderer of Logan's family.

As a result of the murders, Logan waged war on the settlements along the Ohio and in western Pennsylvania, killing, perhaps, nearly thirty men, women and children. Lord John Murray Dunmore, the British Royal Governor of Virginia, raised an army and appointed Cresap to the rank of captain. The decisive battle of Dunmore's War was the Battle of Point Pleasant. Here Dunmore's forces defeated a band of Shawnee Indians led by Cornstalk.

After Lord Dunmore's War, Cresap returned to Maryland and subsequently raised a company of riflemen for the Continental Army during the American Revolution. He died from illness in New York City while in the service of the army; he is interred there in Trinity Church Cemetery.

The Michael Cresap House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.^[1]

References

1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2008-04-15. http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov/natreg/docs/All_Data.html. 

Persondata
Name	Cresap, Michael
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	April 17, 1742
Place of birth
Date of death	October 18, 1775
Place of death