Individual Details

Event

Frances Slocum was a young girl who was "stolen by the Delaware Indians from her father's house near Wilkes-Barre, in Wyoming Valley, Luzerne county, Pa.," in September, 1778. They took her from the house in broad daylight before the eyes of her mother, and that mother never saw her child again.

Event

In January 1835 a visiting fur trader, Colonel George W. Ewing, noticed the whiteness of France's skin, questioned her (in the Miami language), and eventually learned her story.


From the Letter to the Postmaster at Lancaster, Pa., Jan. 20, 1835

"There is now living near this place, an aged white woman, who a few days ago told me, while lodged in the camp one night, that she was taken away from her father's house, on or near the Susquehanna River, when she was very young -- say, from five to eight years old, as she thinks -- by the Delaware Indians, who were then hostile towards the whites. She says her father's name was Slocum; that he was a Quaker, ... She says three Delawares came to the house in the daytime, when all were absent but herself, and perhaps two other children; her father and brothers were absent, working in the field. The Indians carried her off, and she was adopted into a family of Delawares, who raised her and treated her as their own child. They died about forty years ago, somewhere in Ohio. She was married to a Miami, by whom she had four children; two of them are now living -- they are both daughters -- and she lives with them. Her husband is dead; she is old and feeble, and thinks she will not live long."

Your obedient servant,
Geo. W. Ewing."



She remembered that the Delaware Indians came to her father's house and carried her off when she was a very little girl; that her father was a Quaker, wore a broad-brimmed hat and a round coat, and his name was Slocum; that he lived on the Susquehanna river near a fort. Several of the family were away from the house when the Indians came, but her mother, sister, and brother were there. The Indians took what things they wanted from the house, and while they were pillaging, Frances and her little brother hid under the stairs. But the Indians discovered her, picked her up and carried her off screaming. Her elder sister caught up her little brother and ran off with him, and thus saved him from the savages. A boy that was living with the Slocums was shot by the Indians as he was grinding a knife near the door. Two other children, whose name she thought was Kingsley, were taken by the Indians at the same time, but as they cried constantly, the Indians became tired of them and killed them. [Note: Another account says that one of the Kingsley boys returned home, married, and died in Rhode Island.] They stopped the first night in a cave, where the Indians had left their blankets and other articles while they went out on this raid. Frances soon learned the Indian language and forgot her own. They wandered a different times from place to place, living for while near Niagara, then near Detroit, then at Fort Wayne, and finally on the Mississenawa.


Her brothers Joseph and Isaac, and her sister Mary (Towne) excitedly came to visit her in 1838, and kept in contact until her death in 1847. Frances Slocum found her home surrounded by white settlements, and felt the need of some friend to protect her rights. She desired that either of her brothers settle near her. This they could not do, but George Slocum, her brother Isaac's son, settled near them in 1847. He was an earnest Christian and a member of a Baptist church. He learned their language and interested himself in their temporal and spiritual welfare to the time of his death.

On the monument to Frances; East face: "Frances Slocum, a child of English descent, was born in Warwick, R. I. March 4th, 1773, was carried into captivity from her father's house at Wilkes-Barre, Pa., November 2, 1778, by Delaware Indians soon after the Wyoming Massacre. Her brothers gave persistent search, but did not find her until September 21, 1837."
West face: "Frances Slocum became a stranger to her mother tongue. She became a stranger to her brethren, and an alien to her mother's children, through her captivity. (See Psalm lxix., 8.) This monument was erected by Slocums and others who deemed it a pleasure to contribute, and was unveiled by them with public ceremonies May 17th, 1900."
North face: "When, inclined by a published letter describing an aged white woman in the Miami Indian village here, two brothers and a sister visited this place and they identified her. She lived near here about thirty-two years with the Indian named Ma-con-a-qua. She died on this ridge March 9, 1847, and was given a Christian burial."
South face: "She-po-con-ah, a Miami Indian Chief, husband of Frances Slocum - 'Ma-con-a-quah', died here in 1833 (?) at an advanced age. Their adult children were: 'Ke-ke-nok-esh-wah,' wife of Rev. Jean Baptiste Brouillette, died March 13th, 1847, aged 47 years, leaving no children.
"'O-zah-shin-quah,' or Jane, wife of the Rev. Peter Bonda, died January 25th, 1877, aged 62 years, leaving a husband and nine children." [From Frances Slocum; The Lost Sister of Wyoming, by Martha Bennett Phelps, and The Peru Evening Journal, Peru, Indiana, Thursday, May 17, 1900]

The Frances Slocum Indiana Historical Marker located at the intersection of CRs 650 West and 900 South, southwest of Wabash, Wabash County, is inscribed, "Captured as a child by the Delaware Indians in 1778 from her Pennsylvania home, she grew up with the Indians, married a Miami chief, and lived in Indiana till her death, 1847."

Death

Burial: Frances Slocum Cemetery, Waltz Township, Wabash Co., Indiana