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The first Colonial residents of Beaver County lived near the present city of Aliquippa.
Alexander McKee operated a trading post in 1769 or earlier.
Colonel John Gibson farmed land near his trading post in 1771, and then went on to a great military career.
Alexander McKee became a Tory fugitive.
A marker was placed at the entrance to J & L Steel Company at the old railroad station. It was dedicated July 4, 1976. The marker was presented by the Beaver County Historical Research and Landmarks Foundation. It was the first historical marker to be placed in Aliquippa.
John Gibson was also one of the "first settlers" of Beaver County. He bought land on the Southside opposite to Logstown, but he was mainly a trader. John Gibson was a noteworthy man and connected with much of the early history of Beaver County.
Gibson was born at Lancaster, PA on May 23, 1740 receiving his education there pursuing a classical course, entering the service at the age of eighteen.
At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, he was made a Colonel of the 13th Virginia Regiment. He was temporarily in command several times during the war at Fort Pitt (his command including Fort McIntosh). He was temporarily in command at Fort Laurens and held other important military trusts.
In the Indian War of 1763, while descending the Ohio River in a canoe, he was taken prisoner at the mouth of Big Beaver Creek. Gibson escaped being burned only because an older squaw took a fancy to him and adopted him as her son.
John Gibson was a member of the convention which framed the Constitution of Pennsylvania in 1790; later he was a Judge of Allegheny County, Major General of Militia and Secretary of the Indiana Territory until it became a state, being at one time its active governor.
Gibson died at Braddock's Field, PA on April 10, 1823.
Alexander McKee was a native of Pennsylvania and a trader among the Indians. In 1772, he became a deputy Indian agent. He acted openly with those persons who sided with Lord Dunmore who was attempting to take over Pittsburgh for the British colony of Virginia.
Alexander McKee had been a justice of Bedford County and Westmoreland County. He later became an official of the Virginia courts when organized in the Monongahela Valley, and in the spring of 1778, with Simon Girty, Matthew Eliot and other renegades went over to the Indians who were then allied to the British.
He had land at the mouth of Chartiers Creek. In the Record Book of Survey made in Yohogania County by William Crawford, Surveyor, is found an entry that on June 15, 1780 Benjamin Johnston "produced a warrant for 500 A of land dated 20 May 1780, No. 4925, which he located and enters on lands whereon Alexander McKee lived at the Mouth of Shirtee and Chartiers Creek the said McKee having left the same and gone to the Common Enemy of America, which was located by Dorcey Pentecost, but no warrant left in the office the entry became void." Virginia had ceased to be a royal colony.
Alexander became a Tory Fugitive.
Colonel John Proctor in a letter to President Wharton from:
"Westmoreland County, Apr. ye 26th 1778. Sir, I am able to inform you that Capt. Alexander McKee with sevin other VILONS is gon to the Indians, and since there is a Serjt. and twenty od men gon from Pittsburgh of the Soldiers, what may be the fate of this Country? God alone knowes, but at Prisent it wears a most Dismal aspect."
On the 28th of March 1778, Alexander McKee, Matthew Eliot and Simon Girty fled from the vicinity of Fort Pitt to the enemy. These three renegades proved themselves active servants of the British government. ... by the prompt action of General Hand and of Morgan who was the Indian agent at Ft. Pitt.... the open hostility of the Indians was changed to that of neutrality.