Mary Jemison: The White Woman of the Genesee
Pennsylvania
In seventeen fifty-five, during the French and Indian War, a party of French soldiers and Shawnee warriors seized Mary Jemison from her home a few miles from here. Most of her family and neighbors were killed in the raid. Mary was spared and adopted by two Seneca women, who integrated her fully into their community.
She lived with the Seneca, married, and raised children among them. Years later she made her way to the Genesee River in what is now western New York. When the war ended and she was offered the chance to return to colonial society, Mary chose to remain with the Seneca.
She became known as the White Woman of the Genesee and lived among her adopted people for the rest of her long life.
