USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania : from its first beginnings to the present time, including chapters of newly-discovered early Wyoming Valley history, together with many biographical sketches and much genealogical material. Volume II > Part 99
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With a cry of terror Mrs. Slocum slammed to and barred the door, snatched from his cradle her seven-weeks'-old infant, Jonathan, called to the other inmates of the house to run for their lives, fled out of the back door and across the lot to the log fence beyond which lay the swamp previously mentioned, and there hid herself and baby. Mean- while the younger Kingsley boy had made his way from the yard into the house, and he and Frances Slocum (then five years and seven months old) ran and hid under the staircase. Judith Slocum, with her three-year-old brother, Isaac, fled towards the swamp, while little Mary Slocum (not quite ten years of age) started on a run in the direction of Fort Wyoming, carrying in her arms her year-and-a-half-old brother, Joseph. Ebenezer Slocum, then in the thirteenth year of his life, was lame-having been wounded in one of his feet-and consequently was unable to get away with the others.
While the Slocums were fleeing from their home the Indian in their door-yard was joined by two other Indians, who came hurrying
* NATHAN KINGSLEY, the husband of Mrs. Kingsley and the father of the boys above mentioned, had been captured by a band of Indians and "Rangers" at his house in Wyalusing in October, 1777, and shortly after that, their home being broken up, Mrs. Kingsley and her boys were given a home in the family of Jonathan Slocum. Nathan Kingsley came to Westmoreland from Connecticut in 1774 or '75, and settled at Wyalusing, in what is now Bradford County. His name appears in the Westmoreland tax-lists for 1776 and 1777, but not in the list for 1778. In May, 1776, he was com- missioned Lieutenant of the 9th Company, 24th Regiment, as mentioned on page 874. At Saratoga, New York, under the date of July 24, 1779, Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler wrote (see "Journals of the Sullivan Expedition," page 349) as follows: "Yesterday a certain Nathan Kingsley, who was made a prisoner in October, 1777, near Wyoming, returned from captivity in Canada. He appears a sen- sible & intelligent man, and has given me a good account of Niagara and Buck Island." Shortly after this Lieutenant Kingsley rejoined his wife at Westmoreland. His name appears in the tax- list of the town for the year 1781. After the close of the Revolutionary War-probably about 1783 or 1784-he and his wife returned to their old home at Wyalusing.
Upon the erection of Luzerne County, Nathan Kingsley was elected one of the two Justices of the Peace in and for the 3d District of the County, and was duly commissioned May 11, 1787. The same day he was appointed and commissioned one of the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County. This latter office he resigned January 14, 1790. In 1788 he was elected and com- missioned Major of the "Upper Battalion of Militia in Luzerne County." About 1798 or '99 Major Kingsley removed to Ohio, where he died a couple of years later.
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from the woods above North Street. They arrived in time to see Mary Slocum scurrying across the fields towards the fort, but they mnade no effort to pursue her. Instead, they shouted loudly after her, and laughed to see the speed with which she ran and the tenacity with which she held on to her infant brother. The three Indians now made their way into the house, which they quickly ransacked, upstairs and down. Frances Slocum and young Kingsley were discovered in their hiding- place and were quickly dragged forth, while Ebenezer Slocum was seized in another part of the house. Then, with their plunder and three young captives, the Indians went out of doors and began to make hur- ried preparations for their departure.
Breathless and full of fear, Mrs. Slocum had watched from her place of concealment on the edge of the swamp for the Indians to come out of the house, and when she saw them lead forth the three children her heart almost ceased beating. However, her motherly instincts soon overcame all fear, and, leaving her baby behind, she rushed from her hiding-place into the presence of the Indians and their captives. With tears streaming from her eyes she implored the savages to release the children. Believing that Ebenezer, on account of his lame foot, would be unable to travel with his captors, and in consequence would suffer cruelties or death, Mrs. Slocum pointed at the feet of the boy and exclaimed : "The child is lame; he can do thee no good !" This seemed to appeal to the Indian who had Ebenezer in charge, and with a horrid grin he released the boy to his mother. The latter then begged piteously for her little daughter, but in vain. The chief Indian of the three slung Frances athwart his shoulder, one of the other Indians did likewise with young Kingsley, while the third one of the party should- ered the bundle of plunder which had been taken from the house. They then dashed across the road into the woods, and that was the last Mrs. Slocum ever saw of her daughter Frances. Overwhelmed with grief the mother slowly made her way back to the thicket where she had left her infant.
When Nathan Kingsley, Jr., was shot down, as narrated, the report of his slayer's gun was heard at Fort Wyoming ;* and as the indiscrimi- nate and unnecessary firing of guns within and near the fort was pro- hibited (see page 1089), this shot alarmed the garrison. As soon as possible Colonel Butler ordered out a squad of soldiers, directing them to march to the upper end of the town-plot and discover, if they could, why a gun had been fired. The men had marched but a short distance when they met little Mary Slocunt (well nigh exhausted from her efforts to get to a place of safety with her young brother, whom she still bore in her arms), and having learned from her that there was trouble at the Slocum house, they hurried thither. Just as they arrived there Mrs. Slocum was preparing to return to the house from the swamp, with her baby. Seeing something moving in the bushes, one of the soldiers drew up his gun to fire, but fortunately Mrs. Slocum was recognized in time, and was assisted to the house instead of being shot down. She pointed out the direction the savages had taken on their retreat, and the soldiers
* Miner states (in his "History of Wyoming," page 247) that the Slocum house was "within an hundred rods of the Wilkesbarre fort;" and others following him, who have written about the capture of Frances Sloeum, have made the same statement-presuming, undoubtedly, that the Wilkes- Barré fort of that period stood on the Public Square. On the contrary, it was located on the River Common just above Northampton Street (as fully explained on page 1099), and the distance from that point to the Slocum house, in a bee-line, was upwards of half a mile.
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endeavored to follow in pursuit ; but after spending some time in fruit- less efforts to find even a single trace of the savages, they returned to the fort.
Years later it was learned from Frances Slocum herself that she and young Kingsley, on the' day of their capture, were carried some distance through the woods-" over a mountain, and a long way down on the other side"-to a cave, where the Indians had left their blankets and some other articles. There the party stopped while it was yet light, and there they staid all night. Early the following morning they set out, and traveled all day ; and the next day, and then the next, they did the same. " When we stopped at night," said Frances, " the Indians would cut down a few boughs of hemlock on which to sleep, and then make up a great fire of logs at their feet, which lasted all night. When they cooked anything they stuck a stick in it and held it to the fire as long as they chose. They drank at the brooks and springs," and for Frances and Kingsley they made a little cup of white-birch bark, out of which they drank.
After many days of this sort of traveling the party arrived at an Indian village-the first one they had struck in the course of their jour- ney. Where it was located and what its name was Frances could not recollect. Undoubtedly it was Chemung, in southern New York (see page 972), the Indian settlements at Sheshequin and Tioga Point hav- ing been destroyed by the Hartley Expedition five weeks previously. "I can only remember that we staid several days at this first village," stated Frances in 1837 .* "After we had been there some days, very early one morning two of the same Indians took a horse and placed the boy [Kingsley] and me upon it and again set out on our journey. One went before on foot, and the other behind, driving the horse. In this way we traveled a long way, till we came to a village where these Indians belonged. I now found that one of them was a Delawaret chief by the name of 'Tuck Horse.' This is a great Delaware namne, but I do not know its meaning. We were kept here some days, when they
* See "The Lost Sister of Wyoming," by the Rev. John Todd of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A story written for children, from authentic data furnished the writer by Joseph Slocum in 1841. Pub- lished in 1842. See also Stone's "Poetry and History of Wyoming," Third Edition, pages 309-317.
As stated in the note on pages 423 and 424, Volume I, there were no Delaware Indians east of the Alleghenies at the beginning of the Revolution. The Delawares were then occupying a large part of the present area of Ohio, having emigrated thither from Pennsylvania and southern New York a dozen or more years previously, with embittered feelings against the English colonists generally. Nevertheless, twice in the year 1764 they accepted the terms of peace offered them by Colonel Brad- street and Colonel Bouquet, as narrated in the second paragraph of note "t" on page 423. For some time after the opening of the Revolutionary War the Delawares were influenced by "White Eyes," one of their most prominent chiefs, not to take up the hatchet against the Americans; but an opposite influence being exercised by another prominent chief, "Captain Pipe," the nation became divided.
Early in the Spring of 1778 three noted Loyalists fled from Fort Pitt, in Pennsylvania, to the Delawares in the Ohio region, where they used their utmost efforts against the American cause. "Cap- tain Pipe" was so much influenced by their counsel that, in a large assemblage of warriors, he con- cluded a harangue by declaring "every one an enemy who refused to fight the Americans, and that all such ought to be put to death." Finally the Delawares, as a nation, decided to "raise the hatchet" against the struggling States. But the successful operations of the American troops in the neigh- borhood of Fort Pitt, during the next six months, had such an effect on the Delawares as to promote the conclusion of a treaty of peace, which was signed September 17, 1778, by the chiefs "White Eyes," "Captain Pipe," and "Killbuck." This was the first of a long list of treaties concluded between the United States and the various Indian tribes-as noted on page 156, Volume I.
During the whole of the Revolutionary War a considerable number of Delaware warriors lived among the Senecas in New York, and, as noted on page 424, there were still some Delawares among the Senecas as late as the year 1809. It is quite probable that the Delawares who made the irruption into Wilkes-Barre, and carried away Frances Slocum and young Kingsley, belonged to the clan which, some sixteen years earlier, under the kingship of Teedyuscung, had dwelt within the bounds of Wilkes-Barré Township. It is also probable that these three braves were of the number of Delawares who were then (in 1778) living among the Senecas; although it is not impossible that they had come all the way from the Ohio region to Wyoming at that time, to work out some indefinite scheme of evil against the pale-face dwellers in the valley which certain clans of the Delaware tribe had once occupied. Reference is made on page 424 to the fact that it was a common thing for small parties of Delaware braves to go long distances from their villages, through a country inhabited by their enemies, to wreak vengeance on some one.
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came and took away the boy [Kingsley], and I never saw him again, and do not know what became of hini.
"Early one morning this 'Tuck Horse' came and took me and dressed my hair in the Indian way, and then painted my face and skin. He then dressed mne in beautiful wampum beads, and made me look, as I thought, very fine. I was much pleased with the beautiful wampum. We then lived on a hill, and I remember he took me by the hand and led me down to the river side to a house where lived an old man and woman [of the Delaware nation]. They had once several children, but now they were all gone-either killed in battle, or having died very young. I was brought to these old people to have them adopt me, if they would. They seemed unwilling at first, but after 'Tuck Horse' had talked with them awhile, they agreed to it, and this was my home. They gave me the name of We-let-a-wash, which was the name of their youngest child, whom they had lately buried. The Indians were very numerous here,* and here we remained all the following Winter [1778- '79]. The Indians were in the service of the British, and were fur- nished by them with provisions. They seemed to be the gathered rem- nants of several nations of Indians. I remember that there was a fort here.
" In the Spring [of 1779] I went with the parents who had adopted me to Sandusky [in what is now Ohio], where we spent the next Sum- iner ; but in the Fall we returned again to the fort [Niagara]-the place where I was inade an Indian child-and there we spent the second Win- ter [1779-'80]. In the next Spring we went down to a large river, which is Detroit River, where we stopped and built a great number of bark canoes. When our canoes were all done we went up Detroit River, where we remained about three years [at Brownsville, Ontario]. Peace had now been made between the British and Americans, and so we lived by hunting, fishing, and raising corn. The reason why we staid here so long was, we heard that the Americans had destroyed all our villages and corn-fields. After these years my family and another Delaware family removed to Ke-ki-ong-a. I don't know where the other Indians went. This was now our home, and we lived liere many years."
Ke-ki-ong-a, the home of Frances and her foster-parents at that time, was located at the point where the rivers St. Joseph and St. Mary's flow together to form the Maumee River. The site of the old village lies within the limits of the city of Fort Wayne. Frances stated that she was there long after she was " full grown," and that she was there "at the time of Harmar's defeat." That was in October, 1790, Brigadier Gen- eral Harmar having set out from Fort Washington (Cincinnati) for the Miami country with a force numbering less than 1,500 men, chiefly militia. Successful at first, the campaign ended in a disastrous defeat on the banks of the Maumee River, a few miles from Ke-ki-ong-a. The remnant of his army which Harmar led back to Fort Washington liad the unsubdued savages alinost continually at their heels. "As a rebuke to the hostile tribes the expedition was an utter failure, a fact which was soon made manifest. Indian attacks on the settlers immediately became bolder." Frances said in 1837 that at the time the battle with Harmar was fought [on the Maumee] "the Indian women and children
* This was, undoubtedly, Fort Niagara, previously mentioned in these pages. It was there that Frances Slocum was seen by her cousin, Isaac Tripp, 2d, as narrated on page 1088.
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were all made to run north ; and after the battle the Indians [Delawares, Pottawatamies, Slawanese and Miamis, who had taken part in the bat- tle] scattered to their various homes, as was their custom." Frances said that she returned to her home at Ke-ki-ong-a. At that time the Delawares and Miamis were living together, and about 1790 or '91 Frances was married to a young Delaware brave named " Little Turtle."
In the Spring of 1791 Brig. Gen. Charles Scott organized a brigade of inounted riflemen in Kentucky, crossed the Ohio River, and surprised and destroyed several Indian villages on the Wabash and Eel Rivers, in what is now Indiana, laid waste their corn-fields, and returned in June with fifty-eight prisoners. In the following August a similar raid was made by Col. James Wilkinson against the villages on the northern tributaries of the Wabash. In the Autumn of 1791 another expedition was sent against the Indians of the North-west, this time under the com- mand of Brig. Gen. Arthur St. Clair, who marched from Fort Washing- ton (Cincinnati) on October 3d in command of 2,900 men. A month later, on one of the branches of the Wabash, this ariny was terribly defeated-600 men being killed and wounded. During the fight British officers in full uniform were seen on the field, they having come fromn Detroit (where there was a British garrison) to witness the exploits of their savage friends.
Before making another use of force, various efforts were made by the United States Government to win over the Indians; but those Indians who were willing to listen to the peace-messengers of the Gov- ernment would hear of no terms of peace tliat did not promise the removal of the whites from the northern side of the Ohio River. The British urged the tribes to make this extreme demand. Spain also sent mischief- makers into the camps of the exultant red inen, while Simon Girty, a noted renegade from Pennsylvania, who had great influence with the savages, declared that he would "raise all hell to prevent a peace." The only remedy for all this was vigorous war, and, in the judgment of those in authority, the most vigorous man to prosecute it was Anthony Wayne of Pennsylvania-"Mad Anthony", the dashing soldier of the Revolution. Accordingly, in 1792, he was commissioned Major Gen- eral and appointed to the supreme command in the West.
In October, 1793, General Wayne led his army forth from Fort Washington, marched eighty miles, built Fort Greenville (the present Greenville, Ohio), and went into Winter quarters. August 20, 1794, Wayne's army came upon the united tribes of Indians encamped on the north bank of the Maumee, and there, near the rapids of the Maumee, the Indians were forced to face the most alert and vigorous enemy they had yet encountered. Encouraging and marshaling the Indians were painted Canadian white men, bearing British arms. Many of these men fell on the field, and others were captured. Wayne's victory was com- plete, the slaughter of the Indians being very great. After destroying the Indian crops and possessions in sight of the British Fort Maumee, Wayne fell back to Fort Defiance, laying waste the country as he went. Then he continued his march to the Miami village, Ke-ki-ong-a (previ- ously mentioned), where he erected Fort Wayne-the beginning of the present city bearing this namne. This campaign ended the Indian reign of terror in the North-west, and rendered the name of Wayne a bête noire to the savages. Later, Wayne fell back to Fort Greenville, and there,
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in Angust, 1795, made the celebrated treaty by which the Indians ceded a large tract of land (two-thirds of tlie present State of Ohio) to the United States, and at the same time came to a permanent peace with the white inhabitants of the country.
In 1837 Frances Slocuni stated that she well remembered " a battle and a defeat of the Americans at Fort Washington." This was the defeat of St. Clair, previously mentioned. She also said : "I remnem- ber how Wayne drove the Indians away and built the fort at Ke-ki-ong-a. The Indians then scattered all over the country, and lived upon gaine, which was very abundant. After this they encamped all along on Eel River. After peace was made [in August, 1795] we all returned to Fort Wayne and received provisions from the Americans ; and there I lived a long time."
Throughout the troublous times which prevailed during the years 1790-'94 in the territory now lying within the bounds of the States of Ohio and Indiana, and of which we have just given a brief account, Frances Slocum and her foster-parents, and perhaps her husband, " Little Turtle," were almost constantly on the move. Her foster-father made chairs, which he sold ; he also played on the violin, and frequently went to the frontiers and played, for which he was paid. The old squaw inade baskets and brooms, which they sold. Frances said her foster- father could speak English ; and so could she, until he died, when she lost her mother-tongue because she never heard it spoken. About 1793 or '94 her husband " Little Turtle " left her and went west of the Missis- sippi. It was a tradition among the Miamis, years later, that the foster- parents of Frances drove "Little Turtle " off because he did not treat his wife well. She said, however, that he went west when the Dela- wares removed thither, and she refused to accompany him, preferring to remain with the old inan and woman who had adopted and reared her. She was now about twenty-one years of age.
Some time in the latter part of 1794, or early in 1795, while the foster-parents of Frances were floating in a canoe on a river in north- western Ohio, and she was riding a horse along the bank, she discovered an Indian lying in the patlı, suffering from wounds which he had probably received in some skirmish with the whites. She dismounted and dressed his wounds, and when her parents came up they took him into their canoe and carried him to the point of their destination, where they cared for liim until his wounds were healed. He remained with them some time and kept them well supplied with game, as he was a good hunter. At last he purposed to leave them and pass on, but they would not hear to his departure. The old people insisted on his remain- ing with them, proposing, as an inducement, that they would give him their adopted daughter in marriage. This plan seenied to be satisfactory to all concerned, and so Frances became the wife of this brave, who was She-po-con-ah, a chief of the Miami* tribe. He was very inucli older than she, and is reputed to have been a great warrior until he lost his hearing. As a hunter, too, he is said to have been very successful.
* The Miami tribe of Indians belonged to the Algonkin family, described on page 100, Volume I. It was the oldest and at one time the most powerful tribe in the North-west, and originally occupied the country lying along the Wabash River and its branches. At an early day the Miamis were known as the "Twightwees" and as the "Naked Indians," (See pages 205, 390 and 400, Vol. I.) Though never subjugated, as were the Lenni Lenapés, yet the Miamis were reduced to the last extremity by the repeated attacks of the Five Nations, and the members of the tribe were dispersed over a wide extent of territory. In the first quarter of the eighteenth century there was quite a large number of them located at the western end of Lake Erie. The first treaty ever held by the English with the
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Soon after the marriage of Frances her foster-parents died in Ohio, and then Frances and her husband inade their way to Fort Wayne-the treaty of peace of August, 1795, having been consummated a short time previ- ously. About 1801 or 1802 Frances and her husband and their chil- dren (two boys and a girl) removed from Fort Wayne to what was known as the Osage village, on the Mississineva River, about one mile from its confluence with the Wabash. This village, located in the present county of Miami, Indiana, was inhabited by Miami Indians, and She-po-con-ah was chosen their war-chief. About the same time his wife, Frances, was formally adınitted to membership in the Miami tribe, and received the name Mac-on-a-quah, signifying "A Young Bear."*
At the Osage village She-po-con-ah and Mac-on-a-quah remained until the former, owing to his deafness and other infirmities, became unable to perforin his duties as war-chief. He then resigned his office (being succeeded therein by Francis Godfroy, who served until 1840) and, in 1815, removed with his family four miles farther up the Missis- sineva River, to a location in what is now Wabash County, just across the Miami County line. There the former chief built a log house, and the settlement that grew up around it became known as " Deaf Man's Village," while She-po-con-ah himself was commonly called "The Deaf Man." At that time his family consisted of his wife and two daughters -Ke-ke-nok-esh-wah (" Cut Finger "), born in 1800, and O-zah-shin-quah (" Yellow Leaf "), born in 1815. His two sons had died in early youth. She-po-con-ah died in 1832 or '33 at " Deaf Man's Village." His wife and daughters continued to reside there-and there we will leave them, while we set forth certain incidents which occurred in Pennsylvania and New York within a period of thirty years following the seizing and car- rying away of Frances Slocum.
An account is given elsewhere (see page 1111) of the murder of Jonathan Slocum and the wounding of William Slocum (father and
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