She is known as the "white woman of the Genesee". Her Indian name was Dehgewanus. Her English name was Mary Jemison and was of Scotch-Irish decent. She was born in 1743 on the ship William and Mary while heading to Philadelphia.
After arriving in Philadelphia, the Jemison family traveled to western Pennsylvania and settled in the Marsh Creek area 10 miles west of Gettysburg and not far from the Mason-Dixon Line. There Mr. Jemison built a cabin and took care of his family. Fifteen years later on April 5 the Jemisons from their world turned upside down.
Tragedy Rocks Adams' County
The French and Indian War was raging on when the Shawnee Indians and French soldiers approached the Jemison farm capturing Mary, her parents, and a visiting neighbor boy. The party and their captives headed west towards Pittsburgh leaving Mary's two younger brothers behind who were able to escape the raid by hiding in the barn.
Pennsylvania Gazette reported the following account of the incident: "Three Indians were seen this day by two boys near Thomas Jameson's, at the head of Marsh Creek; upon which gave alarm, when 6 men went to said Jameson's house and found there one Robert Buck killed and scalped; also a horse killed, that belonged to William Man, a soldier at Carlisle. Thomas Jameson, his wife and 5 or 6 children are all missing. This has thrown the country into great Confusion." (April 13, 1758)
Traveling over the rugged Allegheny Mountains was not easy, especially when the Shawnee and French were also trying to stay ahead of militia. The captives were a burden to their kidnappers and in order to alleviate the burden Mary’s parents were killed, while Mary and the neighbor boy traveled on to Fort Duquesne.
Making a New Life on the Frontier
Once arriving at Fort Duquesne, Mary was sold to the Seneca Nation, which is part of the Iroquois Confederacy. The Seneca stripped Mary of her English clothing, dressed her in Seneca attire, and gave her the Indian name of Dehgewanus, which means “Two Falling Voices”. She accepted the Seneca way of life.
During the summer of 1758 while Mary lived with the Seneca Tribe a group of Delaware Indians traveled to the Seneca village. Mary’s Seneca sisters encouraged her to marry Sheninjee, a Delaware. Mary reluctantly married him and had two children, the first, a girl, only two days and the second was a boy who she named Thomas Jemison after her father.
Mary, Sheninjee, and their son left the Seneca village in the Ohio Valley and traveled to another Seneca Village in upstate New York near the Genesee River in the Sehgahunda Valley. Near the village Sheninjee separated from Mary and his son to do some trapping and hunting. During his time away he fell ill and died. Mary was devastated. She was in an unknown area and scared, but Sheninjee clan members soon took her and her son in and welcomed them. Mary married a second time to a Seneca warrior. His name was Hiokatoo. To him she had six more children.
Jemison’s Final Years
Mary Jemison had no desire to return to the “white” world and found comfort living amongst the Seneca tribe. In 1831, she relocated to the Buffalo Creek Reservation where she died in 1833 at the age of 90. Years later, when the Reservation closed and the Indian burial ground was threatened, Mary’s decedents moved her to her former home near the Genesee River, located in present day Letchworth State Park. She was reburied with full Indian honor.
A monument stands today where she is buried as well as in Adams County, Pennsylvania where her life took a tragic turn.
Sources:
Seaver, James E. A narrative of the life of Mary Jemison. New York, Harper Brothers, 1918.
Namias, June. White Captives: Gender & Ethnicity on the American Frontier. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina, 1993.
Glimpses of the Past: People, Places, and Things in Letchworth State Park. By Tom Cook & Tom Breslin (Website)
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