Colonel Thomas Cresap was an English-born pioneer settler in the state of Maryland

Maryland

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

, and an agent of Lord Baltimore in the Maryland-Pennsylvania boundary dispute. During the dispute, Cresap became a notorious figure in the Conejohela Flats

Conejohela Flats

The Conejohela Flats are a group of islands in the flooded Conejohela Valley, a large floodplain along the southernmost 30 miles of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania and Maryland in the United States...

 areathe Susquehanna Valley in the area south of Wright's Ferry

Wright's Ferry

Wright's Ferry was an animal powered ferry established by John Wright in 1730, and the very first means of crossing the wide unfriendly Susquehanna in the counties of the lower half of the state of Pennsylvaniaand directly triggered Cresap's War between the Province of Maryland and Pennsylvania...

where he was considered a wanted criminal in Pennsylvania. Subsequent to the settlement of Cresap's War

Cresap's War

Cresap's War was a border conflict between Pennsylvania and Maryland, fought in the 1730s...

 by an edict forced by King George II, Cresap founded Oldtown, Maryland

Oldtown, Maryland

Oldtown is an unincorporated community in Allegany County, Maryland along the North Branch Potomac River founded in 18th century colonial times. The settlement was initially called "Shawanese Old Town" because it was the site of a Shawnee Amerindian village abandoned about a decade earlier...

 by building a trading post

Trading post

A trading post was a place or establishment in historic Northern America where the trading of goods took place. The preferred travel route to a trading post or between trading posts, was known as a trade route....

 along the Amerindian trail through the Columbia Narrows pass, in the era when colonials were petitioning the crown to obtain lands across the Allegheny Mountains

Allegheny Mountains

The Allegheny Mountain Range , also spelled Alleghany, Allegany and, informally, the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the eastern United States and Canada...

 from the Indians, and then give them out under charter.

The crown complied, the Amerindians sold ca.