The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1859-03-02
THE LOST SISTER.
VALLEY OF WYOMING.

After the battle and massacre, most of the
settlers fed. But here and there few strag-
glers returned from the wilderness, and in the
| course of three or four months, other cabins
were going up over the ashes of their former
homes, and quite little neighborhood was col
lected But the Indianskept prowling around
the mountains, now descending here and now
there, killing this family, scalping that, or
making it captive. At a little distance from
the present Court House of Wilkesbarre, lived
a family by the name of Slocum, upon whom
the visitation of the Indians cruelties were
awfully seyere. The men were one day in the
fields; and in an instant the house was sur
rounded by Indians. There was in it, the
mother, the daughter about nine years of age,
son aged thirteen, another aged five, and
little boy aged two and a-haif. A young man
and boy by the name of Kingsley, were pres
ent grinding a knife. The first thing the In
dians did, was to shoot down the young man.
and scalp him with the knife which. he had in
his hand. The nine year old sister took the
little boy, two years and a-haf old, and ran out
of the door to get back to the fort The In
dians chased her just enough to see her fright
and to have hearty laugh as sheran and clung
to and lifted her chubby little brother. They
then took the Kingsley boy and young Slocum,
aged thirteen, and little Frances, aged five, and
prepared to depart. But finding young Slo-
cum lame at the entreaties of the mother, they
sat him down and left him. Their captives
were then young Kingsley and the little girl.
The mothers heart swelled unutterably, and
for years she could not describe the scene with
out tears. She saw an Indian throw her child
over his shoulder, and as her hair fell over her
face, with one hand she brushed it aside, while
the tears ran from her distended eye, and
stretching out her other hand towards her
mother, she called for her aid. The Indians
turned into the bushes, and this was the last
seen of little Frances. This image probably
was carried by the mother to her grave. About |
a month after this theyscome again, and with
the most awful cruelties, murdered the aged
grandfather, and shot ball in the leg of the
lame boy. This he carried with him in his leg |
nearly sixty years, to the grave. The last child
was born few months after these tragedies
What were the conversations, what were the
coniectures what where the hopes and the fears |
the fate of little Frances will not |
attempt to describe Probably the children |
saw that in all after life, the heart of the
stricken mother was yearning for the little one
whose fate was uncertain, and whose face she
could never see again.
As the boys grew up and became men, they
were very anxious to know the fate of their
little fair-haired sister. They wrote letters,
they sent inquiries; they made journeysthrough |
all the west and into the Canadas, if peradven-
ture they might learn anything respecting her
fate. Four of these long journeys were made
in vain. A silence deep as that of the deep
est forest through which they wandered, BURG
over her fate, and that foI sixty years.
My reader will now pass over ffty-eight years
from the time of this captivity, and suppose
him far in the wilderness, m the farthest part of
the far West Indiana. very respectable agent
of the U. States is travelling there, and weary
and belate, with tired horse, he stops at an
Indian wigwam for the night. He can speak
the Indian language. The family are rich, for
Indians have horses and skins in abundance
In the course of the evening he notices that
the hair of the woman is light, and her skin,
under her dress, is also white She told him
she was white child, but had been carried
away when very small girl. She could only |
remember that her name was Slocum, that she
lived in little house on the banks of the Sus-
quehanna, and how many there were in her
fathers family, and the order of their ages y
But the name of the town she could not re- |
member. On reaching his home, the agent
mentioned this story to his mother; she urged |
and pressed him to write and print the account. |
Accordingly he wrote and sent it to Lancaster,
of this State, requesting that it might be pub
lished. By some, to me unaccountable blunder,
it lay in the Office taoo gears before it print
ed. But last summer it was published. In
a few days it fell into the hands of Mr.. Slocum,
of Wilkesbarre, who was the little two-and-a-
half years old boy, when Frances was taken
In few days he was off to seek his sister, ta-
king with him his oldest sister,-the one who
aided him to eseape,--writing to a brother VINO
now lives in Ohio, and who I,beGeve was born
after the captivity, to meet him and go with
him. s--
The two brothers and sisters are now 1889
on their way to see little Frances, just sixty
years after her captivity. After travelling more
than three hundred miles through the wilder ]