Historical Sketches of Western New York
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MARY JEMISON. THE WHITE WOMAN OF THE GENESEE. THE story of Mary Jemison was a familiar one around the pioneer fireside. Without regarding the polite phrase of the French, place aux dames, the " white woman of the Genesee," by reason of her interesting and remarkable career as an Indian captive, and by her priority as a white settler on the Genesee River, easily takes her place as a prominent and dramatic figure in the early history of Western New York. She was born on the ship " William and Mary " during its voyage from a port in Ireland to Philadelphia in the winter of 1742-43; her father, Thomas Jemison, and mother, Jane Erwin Jemison, with three older children ? two sons and a daughter ? having embarked on that vessel to try their fortunes in the then new and far-off world. The father, having been bred
...a farmer, removed his family soon after landing to the western frontier of Pennsylvania, where he cleared a large tract of land, and for a number of years enjoyed undisturbed the fruits of his industry. Here two sons were born to him, so that his family at the outbreak of the French War consisted of himself, his wife, four sons, and two daughters, the subject of this sketch being the fourth child. Recounting in her eighty- second year her early recollections, she says: " The morning of my childish, happy days will ever stand fresh in my memory. Even at this remote period the recollection of my pleasant home, of my parents, brothers, and sister, and of the manner in which I was so suddenly and terribly deprived of them affects me so powerfully that I am sometimes overwhelmed with a grief that seems insupportable." In the spring of 1752 and succeeding seasons, reports of Indian atrocities were circulated in Mr. Jemison's neighborhood. In 1754, an army for the protection of...
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