Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (Vol 1 1904).djvu/54

48 allies of the French. His abilities and his influence over the Indians soon attracted the attention of the hard-headed German, Conrad Weiser, who in 1747 recommended him to the Council of Pennsylvania. In this manner he entered the public service, and continued therein throughout the active years of his life.

Croghan was first employed by the province in assisting Weiser to convey a present to the Ohio, whither he preceded him in the spring of 1748. The following year he was sent out to report on the French expedition whose passage down the Ohio had alarmed the Allegheny Indians, and arrived at Logstown just after Céloron had passed, thus neutralizing the latter's influence in that region.

The jealousy of the Indians over the encroachments of the settlers upon their lands west of the mountains on the Juniata, and in the central valleys of Pennsylvania, determined the government to expel the settlers rather than risk a breach with the Indians. In this task, which must have been uncongenial to him, Croghan, as justice of the peace for Cumberland County, was employed during the spring of 1750. The autumn of the same year, found him beginning one of his most extensive journeys throughout the Ohio Valley, as far as the Miamis and Pickawillany, where he made an advantageous treaty with new envoys of the Western tribes who sought his alliance. To Croghan's annoyance, the Pennsylvania government in an access of caution repudiated this treaty as having been unauthorized. ———