George Washington Papers

[Diary entry: 24 October 1770]

24. We reachd the Mouth of a Creek calld Fox Grape vine Creek (10 Miles up which is a Town of Delawares calld Franks Town) abt. 3 Oclock in the afternoon—distant from our last Camp abt. 26 Miles.

Fox Grape Vine Creek, also called Captina Creek, flows into the Ohio from the west. Frank’s Town was a well-known Delaware village about six miles from the Juniata River. Originally called Assunepachla, it was referred to as Frank’s Town, for the Pennsylvania trader Frank Stevens, as early as 1734. Apparently it was deserted by the Delawares before Braddock’s Defeat in 1755. A Delaware village called Frank’s Town on Captina Creek does not appear on early maps but it is possible that the Delawares had established such a settlement in the area. It may have been another name for the Grape Vine Town. “As late as 1772 the Rev. David Jones, a Baptist missionary, on his way to preach to the Ohio Indians, met a Frank Stephens at the mouth of Captina Creek (on the west side of the Ohio River, twenty miles below Wheeling). This man was an Indian, who had received his English name from that of Frank Stevens, the Trader. Possibly he may have been a half-blood son of the trader” (hanna description begins Charles A. Hanna. The Wilderness Trail: Or The Ventures and Adventures of the Pennsylvania Traders on the Allegheny Path: With Some New Annals of the Old West, and the Records of Some Strong Men and Some Bad Ones. 2 vols. New York and London, 1911. description ends , 1:259–60).

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