Local

Indian History.

BUCHANAN VALLEY, ADAMS CO., PA.

Abduction and Massacre of the Jemison Family by the Indians in 1755

The Story of Mary Jemison, or Dick-e-wa-mis, "The White Woman of the Genesee."

Written for the Gettysburg Compiler, BY KNOR.

CHAPTER II.

The French and Indian War.—The Abduction and  Massacre—The Route over the Mountains.

 

The first settlements in the southwestern portion of the territory now embraced in Adams county were made by the Scotch-Irish. About the year 1735 a number of families established themselves near the sources of Marsh Creek.  Others soon followed, among whom, in the year 1742 or 3, were Thomas Jemison and his wife, Jane Erwin, the parents of the "White Woman,", whose tragical story, as related by herself, is recorded in the little book mentioned in last week's compiler.

 

Thomas Jemison and wife were of honorable and wealthy Scotch-Irish parentage. They sought a home in the new world because of "the intestine divisions, civil wars eoclesinational rigidity and domination that prevailed in those days" in their mother country.  Leaving some port in the ship William and Mary, they reached in due time the city of Philadelphia. When they left the ever-green isle they had but three children, two sons and a daughter.  During the voyage another daughter was born to them, whom they named Mary, whose birth upon the stormy sea foreshadowed the rough and sorrowful experiences she was subsequently called to endure.

 

Fond of rural life, having been bred to agricultural pursuits, Thomas Jemison soon left Philadelphia for what were then the frontiers of Pennsylvania, and settled upon an excellent tract of land lying on Marsh Creek. Being of industrious habits he soon cleared a large farm, and reaped the fruit of his labors. For a period of ten or eleven years, during which time two more sons were added to his family, this hardy pioneer led a busy and contented life  in his home along the foot of the South Mountain. In referring to this period of her life Mary Jemison exclaimed: “Our home was a little paradise. The morning of my childhood's happy days will ever stand fresh in my remembrance, notwithstanding the many severe trials through which I have passed. Even at this remote period, after the lapse of nearly seventy years, the recollection of my pleasant home, of my parents, my brothers and my sister, and of the manner in which I was deprived of them all at once, affects me so powerfully that I am almost overwhelmed with grief." 

 

In the autumn of the year 1754, Thomas Jemison moved either to another part of his farm, or to another neighborhood, a short distance from his former abode, into what is now known as Buchanan Valley. A good house and a log barn were among the improvements he found on the new farm. Among his neighbors was James Bleakney, who survived until the spring of 1821, dying in the 98th year of his age.  James Bleakney was the grandfather of Mrs. Robert Bleakney visited by the Editor of the Compiler, and subsequently by the writer. It was from this venerable ancestor that Mrs. Bleakney heard of the misfortunes of the Jemison family, and learned where their farm was located.

 

For about 20 years from the first settlements made on and along Marsh Creek, and in the secluded valley enclosed in the heart of the South Mountains, the sturdy settlers were allowed to sow and reap in peace. But a storm was brewing, destined to burst upon them, and for a while to drive them from their happy homes. To a consideration of this impending trouble we need to give brief attention before proceeding further with the story of Mary Jemison.

 

Both the French and English governments, equally intent on territorial aggrandizement in the northern section of the Western Continent, sought to secure possession of that vast territory lying between the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi River. The former laid claim to it by right of discovery: the latter by right of purchase from the Indians. Both parties prepared to maintain, if necessary, their real or assumed rights by force of arms. To that issue the controversy cams at last. On the 3d of July, 1754, a battle was fought at Fort Necessity, or Great Meadows, about fifty miles west of the present town of Cumberland, Md., between the English and French forces, each assisted by the Indian allies. The English forces commanded by Col. George Washington, were defeated. This victory so elated and emboldened the French that they threatened and prepared to lay waste with fire and tomahawk the frontier settlements of Virginia and Pennsylvania, whence the white troops under Washington had been drawn.

 

Not longer after the capitulation of Fort Necessity the situation became alarming to the peaceful settlers within and east of the South Mountain.  Reports reached them of terrible atrocities committed by the French and Indians west of the mountain.  Fearing that they too would soon be visited by the cruel and blood-thirsty foe, they erected for their protection the block-house, mentioned by the Bleakneys, near the present village of Arendstville.  Their apprehensions were well founded.

 

On the evening of a pleasant day in the spring of 1755, Mary Jemison, then 12 or 13 years of age, was sent to a neighbor’s house, a distance of perhaps a mile, to procure a horse and return with it the next morning.  While on this errand she had a premonition—one of those mysterious experiences that baffle explanation, and which therefore are degraded to the realm of superstition.  Her relation of it is as follows:  “I was out of the neighbor’s house in the beginning of the evening, and saw a sheet wide spread approaching towards me, in which I was caught, as I have ever since believed, and deprived of my senses.  The family soon found me on the ground, almost lifeless as they said, took me in, and made use of every remedy in their power for recovery, but without effect till day-break, when my senses returned, and I soon fou9nd myself in good health, so that I went home with the horse very early in the morning.  The appearance of that sheet I have ever considered as a forerunner of the melancholy catastrophe that so soon afterward happened to our family, and by being caught in it, I believe, was ominous of my preservation from death at the time we were captured.”

 

Returning to her father’s house in the early morning she found there a neighbor, William Buck by name, (according to the Bleakney tradition; Robert Buck, according to Watson’s Annals,) and his sister-in-law with her three children.  The woman, whose husband was in Washington’s army fighting the French had become alarmed at the aspect of affairs, and sought companionship and safety in the house of Thomas Jemison.  William Buck, wishing to get a bag of grain he had left at his own house, took the horse that Mary Jemison had brought, armed himself with a gun, and hurried away.  What followed is thus related by Mary Jemison: “Our family, as usual, was busily employed about their common business.  Father was shaving an axe----at the side of the house, mother was

making preparations for breakfast, my two eldest brothers were at work near the barn, and the little ones, with myself, and the woman with her three children, were in the house.”  A pretty picture this.  Truly a calm and peaceful rural scene; but soon to be changed into the very opposite.  For Mary Jemison says further: “Breakfast was not yet ready, when we were alarmed by the discharge of a number of guns that seemed to be near.  Mother and the woman before mentioned almost fainted at the report, and every one trembled with fear.  On opening the door, the man and horse lay dead near the house, having just been shot by the Indians.  They first secured my father, then rushed into the house, and without the least resistance made prisoners of my mother, my two younger brothers, my sister, the woman and her three children, and myself, and then commended plundering the house.  The party that took us consisted of six Indians and four Frenchmen. (The Indians were of the Shawnee tribe.)  They took what they considered most valuable; consisting principally of bread, meal and meat.  Having taken as much provision as they could carry, they set out with their prisoners in great haste, for fear of detection, and

soon entered the woods.”

 

The two older brothers, Thomas and John, fortunately escaped.  They were at the barn when the assault took place, crept into a hollow log, as stated by James Bleakney, and so were not discovered by the keen sighted Indians.  They subsequently went to Virginia, and found a home with their maternal grand father.

 

William Buck, the murdered man, was buried by the neighbors not far from the spot where they found his body.  The burial was a hurried one, for, as we shall see, they had other pressing work in hand.

 

Last autumn, whilst on a visit to Buchanan Valley in company with the Editor of the Compiler, the grave of this victim of Indian atrocity was pointed out to us.  Two maple trees, standing at the edge of a shallow ravine, mark his resting place.  A large pile of stones, gathered in the adjoining field, and bordering the rave, may serve as a rude and unpolished monument.  The house and barn occupied and owned by the unfortunate Jemison family have both succumbed to the ravages of time and no vestige remains to tell where they once stood.  A few gnarled and decaying apple trees, so old that no one now living there can tell when they were planted, testify that once near by there stood a habitation.  But that solitary grave beside the maple trees, with its cairn-like monument, and its tragic history, is not forgotten.  With some hesitation I venture to relate what was told me, viz: that those who plow among the old apple trees are wont to uncover a spot where the soil has the color of blood, as if it indicated the exact place where the kindly earth received the crimson drops trickling from the wounds of _____ William Buck!

 

Anticipating pursuit, the ten savage captors, with their ten helpless captives, fled rapidly in a westward direction across the mountains.  The pitiful story of the first day’s journey is thus told by Mary Jemison: “On our march that day an Indian went behind us with a whip, with which he frequently lashed the children to make them keep up.  In this manner we traveled until dark without a mouthful of food or a drop of water; although we had not eaten since the night before.  Whenever the little children cried for water, the Indians would make them drink urine or go thirsty.  At night they encamped in the woods without fire and without shelter, where we were watched with the greatest vigilance.  Extremely fatigued, and very hungry, we were compelled to lie upon the ground supper-less and without a drop of water to satisfy the cravings or our appetites.  Fatigue along brought us a little sleep for the refreshment of our weary limbs.”  At the dawn of the following day the sorrowful march was resumed, and not until the sun had risen were the prisoners halted and fed.  “The Indians gave us a full breakfast of provision that they had brought from my father’s house.  Each of us being very hungry partook of this bounty of the Indians, except father, who was so much overcome with his situation, so much exhausted by anxiety and grief, that silent despair fastened upon his countenance, and he could not be prevailed upon to refresh his sinking nature by the use of a morsel of food.  Our repast being finished, we again resumed our march, and before noon passed a small fort which my father said was called Fort Canagojigge.”  (The location of Fort Conococheage is not definitely known.)

 

Towards evening of the second day’s flight they arrived at the border of a “dark and dismal swamp,” covered with small hemlocks, or some other evergreen, and other bushes, into which they were conducted; and having gone a short distance they encamped for the night.  As soon as the supper of bread and meat was finished, an Indian approached Mary, took off her shoes and stocking, and put a pair of moccasins on her feet.  The same service was done to the little son of Mrs. Buck.  The watchful mother, rightfully divining that the Indians intended to spare the life of her daughter, counseled her not to forget her English tongue, her own name, and the name of her father, nor the prayers she had been taught; an admonition that was remembered and obeyed.

 

In some way the savages ascertained that avengers were on their track.  A determined band of neighbors, headed by a Mr. Fields, had started in pursuit and were gaining on the fugitives.  Fearing to be overtaken if they continued to encumber themselves with so many prisoners, the savages (Indians and French,) massacred and scalped eight of them, viz: Thomas Jemison, his wife, their daughter Betsy, their two sons Robert and Matthew, Mrs. Buck, and two of her children.  Mary Jemison, and the little son of Mrs. Buck, were spared for further sufferings.  The naked and mangled bodies of the slaughtered victims were found in that dismal swamp by the part y that had gone in pursuit.

 

Mary Jemison and the boy did not witness the massacre, an Indian having led them further into the swamp out of sight of the dark deed.  Not until the following evening did she learn positively what had become of the other members of the family.  After a hard day’s march they encamped for the night in a dense thicket.  Having built a fire the Indians took from their baggage a nu9mber of scalps which they cleaned and prepared as is their wont.  The work was witnessed by the orphaned children.  Mary says: “Those scalps I knew by the color of the hair.  My mother’s hair was red; and I could easily distinguish my father’s and the children’s from each other.  The sight was most appalling; yet, I was obliged to endure with

without complaining.

 

After the massacre the Indians continued their flight much more cautiously than they did at first.  How they managed to baffle their pursuers is thus related: “One of them went behind and with a long staff picked up all the grass and weeds that we trailed down by going over them.  Each weed was so nicely placed in its natural position that no one would have suspected we had passed that way.  It is the custom of the Indians when scouting, or on private expeditions, to step carefully, and where no impression of their feet can be left, shunning wet or muddy ground.  They seldom take hold of a brush or limb, and never break one.  By such precautious they completely elude the sagacity of their pursuers.”

 

It is a wonder that Mary Jemison was able to endure the hardships, the exposure and the mental agony of that dreadful march.  Several times she became so weary, and so benumbed by wet and cold, that she was night unto death.  For two days of the journey there was so heavy a storm of snow and rain, that they were obliged to stop and build a shelter of boughs.  On the sixth day they were joined by another party of six Indians who also had been to the frontier settlements, and brought with them as prisoner a young white man who was very tired and dejected.  After a journey of seven and a half days they reached Fort Du Quesne or Fort Pitt, now Pittsburg.  This Fort was a rallying point for the French and Indians.  As they neared this historic spot the Indians performed some customs on their prisoners which they deemed necessary.  They combed their hair, and painted their faces and hair red in the finest style of savage art.  Then they led them into the Fort and shut them up for the night.

 

ADDENDA: 

 

1.  In “Watson’s Annals” there is a brief mention of the abduction of the Jemison family.  Among “sundry facts gleaned from the New York Mercury &c., from 1755 to 1763,” The following items occurs:

     “1758, York County, April 5.  Three Indians were seen this day near Thomas Jemison’s at the head of Marsh Creek.  After the alarm was given six men proceeded to Jemison’s house, and found Robert Buck killed and scalped—all the rest of the family are missing.  The same day a person going to Shippenstown saw a number of Indians.  These facts have caused much alarm.”

 

There is a discrepancy as to the date between the Bleakney tradition, corroborated by Mary Jemison’s narrative, and Watson’s Annals.  The former give 1755 as the year in which the abduction took place; the latter has 1758.  As the fact of the abduction is beyond question, and it is with that we are concerned, we will leave to others, who may be so disposed, to settle the question of date. 

 

2.  With thanks to the Editor, Mr. Joyn M. Cooper, we clip the following from the Chambersburg Valley Spirit, of a recent date:

   “Fort Conococheage.—A friend in an adjoining county writes to us as follows:  Where was Fort Conococheague in old Indian times?  You had Fort Chambers at Chambersburg.  May it not also have been know as Fort Conococheage?  The subject being one that may interest our readers, we have concluded to answer our friend through the local column of our paper.”   “Mr. McCauly, in his excellent history of Franklin County, gives the following list of early frontier Forts in this county: “Fort Steele, at the White Church, near Mercersburg; For Loudon, near Loudon; Fort McDowell, near Bridgeport; Fort McCord, near Parnell’s Knob; Fort Chambers, at Chambersburg; Fort Davis, at Davis’ Knob: Fort Armstrong, north east of Loudon; Fort McCallister, near Roxbury; Fort McConnel, south of Strasburg.  He adds that there were a number of other private fortifications at various other points, of which very little is now known.”

 

 

 

Local

Indian History.

BUCHANAN VALLEY, ADAMS CO., PA.

 

Abduction and Massacre of the Jemison Family by the Indians in 1755.

 

The Story of Mary Jemison, or Dick-e-wa-mis, “The White Woman of the Genesee.”

Written for the Gettysburg Compiler by KNOR

CHAPTER III.

Adoption—Marriage—Removal.

In the story of her life Mary Jemison makes mention of many peculiar customs prevailing among the Indians with whom her lost was cast.  One account is as follows: "It is a custom of the Indians, when one of their number is slain or taken prisoner in battle, to give to the nearest relative of the dead, or absent, a captive from" the enemy, it they chance to have one. On the return of the Indians from conquest those who have lost a relative come forward and make their claims. Receiving a captive, it is at their option either to satiate their vengeance by taking his life in the most cruel manner they can conceive of; or to receive and adopt him into the family in the place of the one whom they have lost."

 

On the day that Mary Jemison was brought a weary and dejected captive to For Du Quesne, "two pleasant looking Indian squaws," of the Seneca tribe, had arrived there also. They had lost a brother in a battle with the English, and bad come to the Fort to supply their loss. On the following day they inspected the prisoners lately brought in. and selected Mary Jemison as the one whom they desired to take the place of their lost brother.

 

The time had come when Mary Jemison should be separated from all with whom she had been formerly acquainted. The little boy of Mrs. Buck, her fellow captive and companion in the long and trying march from Buchanan Valley to Fort Du Quesne, was taken from her and carried away by the French. "Whither he was taken, and what became of him, she could not tell, Nor is there any record or tradition even of his fate. Mary was given to the two pleasant looking Indian squaws, who, taking her with them, left the Fort, entered a small canoe, and went down the Ohio River, arriving at night at a small Seneca Indian town, at the mouth of a small river, called by the Indians “She-nan-jee,” where they resided.  Arraying their captive in a suit of Indian clothing, “all new, and very clean and nice,” they took her to their wigwam, and at once proceeded, by formal ceremonies of a very affecting and impressive character, in which all the squaws of the town took part, to adopt her as a member of their family and of their tribe.  As such she was ever afterwards recognized and treated.  She received then the name of “Dick-e-wa-mis,” which being interpreted, means “a pretty girl.”

 

Of her sisters by adoption, Mary Jemison speaks in terms of the highest regard.  She says: “I was fortunate in falling into their hands; for they were kind, good-natured women; peaceable and mild in their dispositions; temperate and decent in their habits, and very tender and gentle towards me.  I have great reason to respect them.  I was ever considered and treated by them as a real sister, the same as though I had been born of their mother.”  The prevailing opinion that all Indians, men and women, were and are unmitigated barbarians, without a redeeming quality, is evidently too sweeping.  Mary Jemison’s experience was otherwise; and she does not stand alone in such experience, as incidents of recent date loudly testify.

 

An adopted member of the Seneca tribe, and provided with a home, Dick-e-wa-mis was employed in nursing children and doing light work about the house.  Occasionally she accompanied the Indian hunters, when they went but a short distance, to help them carry the game.  Her situation was easy; she had no particular hardships to endure.  Nevertheless, the recollection of her parents, brothers, and sister, and home, and the fact of her captivity, destroyed her happiness during many following years.

 

Encouraged and aided by her adopted sisters, who would not allow her to speak English in their hearing, she soon learned to understand the Indian language and to speak it fluently.  Remembering the charge her mother gave her just before she was separated from her in that “dark and dismal swamp,” Mary made it her business, whenever she chanced to be alone, to repeat the prayers taught her in childhood, or her Catechism, or something else she had learned, in order that she might not forget her mother tongue.  Thus it happened that when, years afterwards, she came in contact with English people she could converse with them.

 

A little more that a year after her adoption she went with her sisters and other Indians on a visit to Fort Du Quesne.  Many white people were there, who questioned her as to her name, her abduction and her condition, and who determined to secure her liberation.  The prospect of liberty, she says, made her “heart bound.”  The sight of those who could speak English inspired her with an unmistakable anxiety to go home with them, and share in the blessings of civilization.  But her Indian sisters took alarm, and fearing that she might be taken from them, hurried her away to their home down the Ohio river.

 

Only during the season extending from the time the corn was planted to the time it was harvested, did the Senecas dwell in their town at the mouth of the Shenanjee.  Their winters were spent further down the Ohio, at the mouth of the Sciota, where they continued hunting until spring.  Perhaps because of the long distance from their winter quarters, they abandoned Shemanjee, and selected Wiishto, (supposed to have been about 70 miles above the Big Sciota,) for their summer camp.  It was at this place, during the second year of her captivity, (1757) when but fourteen of fifteen years of age, that she was married, by command of her sisters, “according to Indian custom,” and much against her will, to a Delaware Indian, She-nin-jee by name.  Of the husband she says: “He was a noble man; large in stature; elegant in his appearance; generous in his conduct; courageous in war; a friend to peace, and a great lover of justice.  He supported a degree of dignity far above his rank, and merited and received the confidence and friendship of all the tribes with whom he was acquainted.  The idea of spending my days with him seemed at first perfectly irreconcilable to my feelings.  But his good nature, generosity, tenderness, and friendship towards me, soon gained my affection; and, strange as it may seem, I loved him!  To me he was ever kind in sickness and always treated me with gentleness; in fact, he was an agreeable husband, and a comfortable companion.  We lived happily together till our final separation.”  Not every wife can speak such words of praise of her husband, even though he be of Anglo-Saxon blood!

 

The year following her marriage, “at the time that the kernels of corn first appeared on the ear,” she bore her first child, a girl that lived two days only.  The sorrowful young mother was so far reduced that there was but little hope of her recovery.  At length, however, her complaint took a favorable turn, and “by the time that the corn was ripe” she was able to get about again.

 

In the fourth winter of her captivity (1759) she had a son born of her, whom, to commemorate the name of her much lamented father, she called Thomas Jemison.

 

It is generally supposed that the lot of Indian women is one of degrading toil, and that they are little better than slaves to the other sex.  This supposition Mary Jemison takes pains to refute.  She says: “Our labor was not severe; and that of one year was exactly similar, in almost every respect, to that of the others, without that endless variety that is to be observed in the common labor of the white people.  Notwithstanding the Indian women have all the fuel and bread to procure, and the cooking to perform, their task is probably not harder than that of white women, who have these articles provided for them; and their cares certainly are not half as numerous, nor as great.  In the summer season we planted, tended and harvested our corn, and generally had all our children with us; but had no master to oversee or drive us, so that we could work as leisurely as we pleased.  We performed the whole process of planting and hoeing with a small tool that resembled a hoe with a very short handle.  Our cooking consisted in pounding our corn into samp or hominy, boiling our hominy, making now and then a cake and baking it in the ashes, and in boiling or roasting our venison.  As our cooking and eating utensils consisted of a hominy block and pestle, a small kettle, a knife or two, and a few vessels of bark or wood, it required but little time to keep them in order for use.  In the season for hunting it was our business, in addition to our cooking, to bring hoe the game that was taken b the Indians, dress it, carefully preserve the eatable meat, and prepare or dress the skins.  Our clothing was fastened together with strings of deer skin, and tied with the same.  In that manner we lived, without any of those jealousies, quarrels and revengeful battles between families and individuals, which have been common in the Indian tribes since the introduction of ardent spirits and amongst them.”

 

The different Indian tribes, as a rule, occupied separate and well defined districts of country which they held as their exclusive domain.  Members of a tribe would often wander far away, and live mingled with similar parties from other tribes on some common hunting ground, and then after many years absence return to their tribal home.  The Seneca tribe, of which Mary Jemison had become a member, dwelt along the Genesee River in a large town called Genishaw, lying south west of the present town of Genesee, Livingston Co., N. York. Hither her two sisters, those “pleasant looking squaws” to whom she was strongly attached, had gone after her marriage.  And thither three of her Indian brothers concluded to go, and proposed to take her with them.  To this her husband consented, intending after another winter’s hunt on the Sciota, to rejoin her the following spring.  At the close of the summer, “when the time for harvesting corn had arrived,” this young woman, of delicate constitution but of stout heart, started with her three brothers on the long and toilsome journey to the home of their tribe.  Leaving the Ohio river they went northward to Upper Sandusky, Wyandot county, Ohio, and then turned to the north-east, skirting for a while the shore of lake Erie, and arriving at last on the banks of the Genesee.  Of this jou9rney she speaks as follows:  “Those only who have traveled on foot the distance of five or six hundred miles through an almost pathless wilderness, can from an idea of the fatigue and sufferings I endured on that journey.  My clothing was thin and illy calculated to defend me from the drenching rains.  At night, with nothing but my blanket to cover me, I had to sleep on the naked ground, and without a shelter, save such as nature had provided.  In addition to all that I had to carry my child, then about nine months old, every step of the journey, on my back or in my arms, and provide for his comfort and prevent his suffering, as far as my poverty of means would admit.  Such was the fatigue I sometimes felt that I thought it almost impossible for me to go through, and I would almost abandon the idea of even trying to proceed.  My brothers were attentive; and at length we reached our place of destination, in good health, without having experienced a day’s sickness.  We were kindly received by my Indian mother and the other members of the family, who appeared to make me welcome; and my two sisters, whom I had not seen for two years, received me with every expression of love and friendship; and that they really felt what they expressed I have never had the least reason to doubt.  The warmth of their feelings, the kind reception I met with, and the continued favors I received at their hands, riveted my affection for them so strongly that I am constrained to believe that I loved them as I should have loved my own sister had she lived, and I had been brought up with her.”

 

In the summer (1760) following her arrival in the Genesee country, whilst anxiously awaiting the coming of her husband, she received the sad intelligence that he had died the previous winter on the banks of the Ohio.  Her adopted mother and family gave her all the consolation in their power, and provided for the support of herself and her young child.

 

During the war between the French and English the Seneca Indians were the allies of the French.  That war was brought to an end in the fall of the year 1760.  From that time till the beginning of the Revolutionary war these Indians dwelt in peace.  During this period of rest from war the Indians occupied their time in the observance of the religious rites of their progenitors, attending with scrupulous exactness and a great degree of enthusiasm to the sacrifices, and in the practice of mimic warfare and various athletic games.  That these years of peace were, upon the whole spent contentedly by Mary Jemison, can be inferred from what she says about her people.  “No people can live ore happy than the Indians did in times of peace, before the introduction of spirituous liquors amongst them.  Their lives were a continual round of pleasures.  Their wants were few, and easily satisfied; their cares were only for today; the bounds of their calculations for future comfort not extending to the incalculable uncertainties of tomorrow.  If peace ever dwelt with men, it was in former times, in the recesses from war, amongst what are now termed barbarians.  The moral character of the Indians was uncontaminated.  Their fidelity was perfect, and became proverbial; they were strictly honest; they despised deception and falsehood; chastity was held in high veneration, and a violation of it was considered sacrilege.  They were temperate in their desires, moderate in their passions, and candid and honorable in the expression of their sentiments on every subject of importance.”

 

This is high eulogy, coming too from one fully qualified to speak from personal knowledge, and the experience of nearly seventy years familiar intercourse.  If the Indians are not now what they once were, if they have fallen and degenerated, whose fault is it?

 

After the close of the war with the French, the English authorities made the humane effort to restore to their lives all white captives in the hands of the Indians.  To this end they offered a bounty to any one who would bring any captive to a military post.  This offer quickened the cupidity of a strolling Dutchman, John Van Sice by name, who had become acquainted with and partaken of the hospitality of Mary Jemison.  He made known his intention to taker her to Niagara and get the promised bounty.  To propose to do is one thing, to accomplish is another, as this impecunious.  _______________________.  This is what the resolute little woman says about the matter:  “I was notified of his intentions; but as I was fully determined not to be redeemed at that time, especially with his assistance, I carefully watched his movements in order to avoid falling in his hands.  It so happened, however, that he saw me alone at work in a corn field, and thinking probably that he could secure me easily, ran towards me in great haste.  I espied him at some distance, and well knowing his errand, ran from him with all the speed I was mistress of, and escaped.”  The old King of the Seneca tribe, inspired with the same motive that actuated John Van Sice, made the same attempt, with the same result.  Evidently Mary Jemison was not in the humor to abandon those who had adopted her and treated her so kindly.

 

In the year 1763 she was married to an old Seneca warrior, Hiokatoo by name.  The difference in their ages was considerable.  She was twenty; he was fifty-five.  With him she lived in happy wedlock for forty-eight years, and bore to him six children, four daughters and two sons.  He died in 1811, when he was one hundred and three years old.

 

The outbreak of the Revolution put an end to the long peace the Indians had enjoyed.  During the stormy years that followed Mary Jemison was called to endure many hardships, of which she gives and account in her interesting narrative.

 

The western portion of the State of New York was occupied by a powerful Indian Confederacy, known as the Six Nations, to which the Seneca tribe belonged.  With this Confederacy the Americans made a treaty to the effect that if a war should occur with England the Six Nations would not take up arms on either side.  Subsequently, however, they were persuaded by means of promises and presents to break this treaty and joined the British.  Several years ____ars after the commencement of the __ar, Gen. Sullivan, commanding a large force of American troops, invaded and ___tterly waste the country occupied by the Senecas.  Poor Mary Jemison was driven from her home, and found a refuge in the Gardow flats, on the Genesee River.  The only inhabitants of those flats were two runaway negro slaves, who lived in a small cabin, and had planted and raised a large field of corn.  As they were in want of help to secure their crop, Mary Jemison assisted them and received as pay for her labor twenty-five bushels of corn, on which she and her children subsisted during the severe winter that followed.

 

Soon after the close of the Revolutionary war she was told by her Indian friends that she was at liberty, if such was her choice, to leave them and go to her white relatives.  After due consideration she resolved to stay and spend the remainder of her days with the Indians.  Her motherly affection brought her to this unexpected decision.  She says:  “I had a large family of Indian children that I must take with me,; and if I should be so fortunate as to find my relatives, they would despise them, if not myself, and treat us as enemies; or at least with a degree of cold indifference, which I thought I could not endure.”  That the Indians appreciated her decision their subsequent conduct proves beyond question.

 

Mary Jemison was a faithful wife and other, and secured the unbroken affection of her children.  Her sons were named Thomas, John, and Jesse; her daughters were Jane, Nancy, Betsy, and Polly.  Jane died in 1779, aged 15 years.  The other daughters married Indian husbands, and begat children.  They were living in the year 1823, when she related the story of her life.  At that time she had 39 grandchildren, all living in the neighborhood of the Genesee River, and at Buffalo.

 

With the peace that followed the close of the Revolution, white traders introduced the use of ardent spirits among the Indians, a cause of sore affliction to Mary Jemison.  She says: “To the introduction and use of that baneful article, which has made such devastation in our tribes, and threatens the extinction of our people, I can with the greatest propriety impute the whole of my misfortune in losing my three sons.”  All of her sons met with a violent death.  Thomas was killed in 1811, Jesse in 1812; both b their brother John.  John was intemperate, and a thoroughly bad Indian.  His vices were so great and so aggravated that his mother confessed she had nothing to say in his favor.  The mother’s partiality for Thomas and Jesse excited the envy of John to so great a degree that nothing short or their death would satisfy it.  In 1817 he was killed by two Indians with whom he had a drunken quarrel.

 

At a Council of the Six Nations held in the year 1797, which Mary Jemison attended at the request of a leading Chief, she was authorized to choose and describe the bounds of such lands as she thought would suit her.  She chose the land known as the Gardow Tract, containing upwards of nineteen thousand acres.  On this tract she had found refuge with the runaway slaves during the trying times of the Revolutionary war.  In the year 1817 the Ligislature of New York passed an act of naturalization, making her a citizen, and confirming her title to the reservation she had received from the Six Nations.  Portions of her land she sold; other portions she leased to white people to farm on shares; and thus, as regards temporal support, she seemed comfortably provided for during the remainder of her life.

 

Such is the story of Mary Jemison, as far as she related it, wen about 80 years old, et in full possession of her bodily and mental faculties.  Here story is like a picture that is nearly all shadow, illuminated here and there only with a ray of light.  It may serve to bring times past to present view; and should make us thankful that out lot has been east in more tranquil and better days.

 

                    


 

 

Local

Indian History

 

BUCHANAN VALLEY, ADAMS CO., PA.

 

Abduction and Massacre of the Jemison Family b the Indians in 1755

 

The Story of Mary Jemison, or Dick-e-wa-mis, “The White Woman of the Genesee.”

 

Written for the Gettysburg Compiler by KNOR

 

CHAPTER IV

 

The Close of Mary Jemison’s Eventful Life

 

After the previous three articles were ready for the press, it occurred to the Editor of the Compiler and the writer that an effort to ascertain some facts concerning the closing years of Mary Jemison’s eventful life might be fruitless.  The effort was made and the result exceeded our expectations.  We procured a book entitled “The Life of Mary Jemison, De-he-wa-mis, The White Woman of the Genesee.” Published in the year 1877, at Buffalo, N.Y.  The title page shows that it is the 5th edition, revised, enlarged, and illustrated, of the little well-worn book mentioned in our first article.  The Editor of this edition is Wm. P. Letchworth, Glen Iris, Portageville, P.O., Wyoming County, N.Y.  It is evident that, in the region of the country where most of her life was spent, the affecting story of Mary Jemison, the Adams county girl of a former century, has not been forgotten.

 

With the aid of this last edition of this interesting book I can give the readers of the Compiler an authentic account of what remains to be told of the life of Mary Jemison.

 

In the year 1825 the Seneca Indians disposed of their lands on the Genesee river, and removed to other reservations.  Mary Jemison, with her daughters and sons-in-law, did not follow their example, deeming it best to remain on her Gardow flats where she had spent so man peaceful years.  It was not long, however, before she realized that she had made a mistake in allowing herself to be separated from her adopted people.  Though surrounded by whites she could not readily affiliate with them.  Accustomed to the companionship and mode of life of the Indians, her discontent increased until she finally determined to rejoin her tribe.  Accordingly she disposed of all her lands and removed, in the year 1831, to the vicinity of Buffalo, N.Y., where the Senecas had reservation.  There she purchased a cabin, and a small piece of ground, where she remained until her death.  Her daughter Polly, and son-in-law, George Shonego, with their five children occupied the same house, and took care of her in her old age.

 

The proceeds of the sale of her Genesee lands she entrusted, soon after her removal to Buffalo, to a white man who, by an unfortunate speculation, lost the whole of it.  So many had been the trials and hardships of her life; suffering and sorrow had so long attended her, that this new misfortune did not fall upon her as upon one unaccustomed to endure.  Her wants were few and simple, and these her daughter and son-in-law, with filial affection, took pains to supply.

 

In the summer of 1833 she was visited by Mrs. Asher Wright, the wife of a missionary who had shortly before taken charge of the Indian mission established at Buffalo.  This good woman gives the following affecting account of her visit to the aged and feeble Mary Jemison:

 

“I found her in a poor hut, where she lived with her daughter.  There was a low bunk in one corner of the room, on which she lay.  It was made by laying a few boards on some logs.  A little straw was on the boards, over which a blanket was spread.  She was curled up on her bed, her head drawn forward sound asleep, and as she lay, did not look much larger than a child ten years old.  My interpreter told her daughter what had brought me to her hose.  She said her mother did want to see us very much, and she was glad we had come.  She then went to the bunk and tried to awaken her mother, but she slept so soundly I feared she would not succeed.  After calling her repeatedly, she shook her with considerable force and partly raised her up in bed, and told her some strangers wished to see her.  After she was roused so as to recognize us, I went forward and shook hands with her, and told her who I was and why I had come.  As soon as she understood the object of my visit, she said with much emotion: “I am glad to see you.”  There with sobs and tears she told Mrs. Wright the counsel her other gave her the last hour they were together, on the second evening after their abduction, (1755) while they were encamped in a dark and dismal swap.  This counsel was that she should never forget the prayer she had been taught and had daily repeated with her brothers and sister.  And now in her old age, when memories of her childhood so predominated as to obscure recollections of her later lie, she was filled with great sorrow because she had forgotten the promise she had made to her mother, had forgotten that prayer, and knew not how to pray.  The kind missionary sought to comfort the sorrowing woman by speaking to her of God’s infinite love.  Then she repeated the Lord’s Prayer in the English tongue.  Mary Jemison “listened with an expression both solemn and tender till near the close, when suddenly it was evident a chord had been touched which vibrated into the far distant past, and awakened memories both sweet and painful.  She immediately became almost convulsed with weeping, and it was some time before she could speak.  At length she said: “That is the prayer my mother taught me and which I have forgotten so many years.” 

 

Shortly thereafter, under the faithful ministrations of Rev. Asher Wright, missionary, she embraced the Christian faith.  After a brief illness she suddenly departed this life, and the scene of her many afflictions, on the 19th day of September 1833, and was buried, with the usual Christian ceremonies, in the graveyard belonging to the Seneca Mission Church, a large concourse of people witnessing by their presence their interest in the one who had departed from them.  A marble slab was planted at the head of her grave to mark her resting place.  It contained the following inscription:

 

In

Memory of

The White Woman

Mary Jemison

Daughter of

Thomas Jemison & Jane Irwin,

Born on the ocean, between Ireland and

Phila., in 1742 or 3.  Taken captive at

Marsh Creek, Pa. in 1755 carried down the

Ohio, Adopted into an Indian family.  In

1759 removed to Genesee River.  Was

naturalized in 1817.

Removed to this place in 1831.

And having survived two husbands and five

Children, leaving three still alive;

She Died Sept 19th 1833 aged about ninety-

One years,

Having a few weeks before expressed a hope

Of pardon through

JESUS CRHIST

“The counsel of the Lord that shall stand.”

 

 

The descendants of Mary Jemison were so numerous that they might have formed a distinct clan by themselves.  The name “Jemison” became one of the most common and most honorable among the Senecas.  Many of her descendants were not unworthy of their white ancestress.  They were highly respected both by their own people and by the white.  They adopted the dress and codes of life of civilized people, and spoke the English language with fluency.