Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 October 1905 — FRANCES SLOCUM. [ARTICLE]

FRANCES SLOCUM.

Dress Owned by Indian Queen to be Worn at Battle Ground Barbecue. L On the second day of November, 1778, on the banks of the Susquehanna, in Pennsylvania, lived Jonathan Slocum, a Quaker. Two neighboring boys were sharpening a knife on a grindstone in front of the Slocum cabin. One of these boys was shot by Indians. Three Indians came into the honse, and taking Frances Slocum, a 5-year old girl from beneath the staircase, where she had hid, carried her away, despite the entreaties of the mother.

The brothers of little Frances grew to be men, and year after year they offered rewards and hunted for their sister among the Indian tribes; but no trace of her could be found. Finally in 1835, fifty-seven years after she had bqgn taken away. Colonel Ewing, of Logansport, stopped one night at an Indian village ten miles from Peru. He there saw a white woman 62 years old, the wife of the chief of the village. This woman told Colonel Ewing that she remembered being taken away from her old home on the Susquehanna by three Indians; that her father was a Quaker, and that her father’s name was Slocum. Colonel Ewing wrote a letter to the postmaster at Lancaster, Pa. The postmaster’s wife, to whom the story appealed, had the letter pub lished in the newspaper, although her husband declared .it to be a hoax. The letter was brought to tle attention of a brother of Fiances "and he came to Peru. Frances’ finger had been struck by a hammer in the hands of her brother in the- old Quaker home; and the bone was so injured the nail came off. The nail was still off when this brother visited the Indian village near Peru. Besides Frances could remember the old Quaker home on the Susquehanna, and little incidents connected with her childhood. She had married a i Indian chief, who had died. Two of her boys had died, and she had two living daughters. SI e was an Indian queen. Her brother asked her, “were yo i ever tired of living with the Indians?”

She replied, “no; I always had enough to live on, and have lived well. The Indians have treated me kindly. , My husband and mj boys are buried here; my daughters live here. I have everything to make me comfortable. Why should Igo to Pennsylvania! I would be like a fish out of water. I can not go back. lam an old tree. I was a sapling when they took me away. 1 will not go. lam happy here.” One of the daughters said, “a tree can not live out of the forest.” The other daughter said, “a fish dies quickly out of the water. My mother should not go.” And then she stayed and lived an Indian queen; and there she died.

Gabriel Godfroy, who will be present at the Battle Ground baroe cue, is a grandson of, Frances Slocum. He h: s pres<r.ed the dress of Frances Slocum as Ilidian queen, and it will be worn at the Battle Ground celebration by the great grandchildren of Frane«s Slocum. There is a pathos wrapped up in this true historical incident not -•quailed in any Imok offiction.

ALVA O. RESER.

In Lafayette Journal.