Michael Cresap

Cresap, Michael (1742–75) frontiersman and Revolutionary War soldier, born in Old Town, Maryland. As captain of a rifle company from Frederick County, Maryland, Cresap marched with “Cresap's Rifles” 550 miles in twenty-five days, joining the Continental army at Boston (1775). Cresap was blamed by Virginians for beginning Lord Dunmore's War (1774). Near Wheeling, he attacked and scalped two warriors, one Delaware and the other Shawnee. At the treaty conference, he was charged with the murder of the family of the Mingo war chief James Logan (Tah-gah-jute).

Thomas Jefferson in his Notes on the State of Virginia also blamed the Yellow Creek massacre on Cresap.

Michael Cresap , 1742-75, American frontiersman and soldier, b. Allegany co., Md. A Native American fighter, he was accused by Thomas Jefferson and others of massacring the family of the friendly Native American chief Logan and thus starting (1774) Lord Dunmore's War. But this is denied by most modern historians who accept a letter from George Rogers Clark stating that Cresap was with him at the time of the massacre. Cresap fought in the war, and after the American Revolution began he became (1775) captain of a company of riflemen. Cresap drove his men at such a hard pace to support the patriots at Boston—traveling 550 mi (885 km) in 22 days—that he died of exhaustion as a result.

Bibliography: See biography by J. J. Jacob (1826, repr. 1971).