The St. Johns herald., 1900-07-07
A ROMANTIC HISTORY
Life of Frances Slocum, the "Lost
 Child of Wyoming"
Monument to Mark Her Grave in Wabash County, Indiana Memorial to Faith
 fuI Woman.

A very interesting monument is 500,
 to be dedicated on the high knoll over
 looking the valley of the Mississinev
 river, in Wabash county. Indiana. Tn
 monument will mark the burial plac
 of woman of singular and rcmanti
 history, known as Frances SlOcur among the white people and as Whit
 Rose among the Indians-who wa
 stolen from Quaker parents in th
 Wyoming valley of Pennsylvania il
 ITS, and brought up among the Tn
 dians in the West. Her parents wer 1 Jonathan and Mary SlCcum Of Cen
 nee;icut, who had moved 10 Wilkes
 barre, Pennsylvania. when that was
 small frontier settlement. There, whe1
 Frances was a young girl, their dwell
 ing was attacked by Delaware Indians
 Two CT three members of the family
 were killed. and little Frances was car
 ried away, first to Ohio, and later tc
 Indiana and Michigan. Socn after hel
 capture her father was killed by tho | Indians, but her mother, aided by Frances brothers and other white men
 made persistent search for Frances 1 who became known in those parts as
 the Host child of Wyoming" She was not found.
 For, meantime, the Indians had car- ricd her far away, ever mountains and
 through forests. They treated her kindly, giving her blankets to sleep
 upon at night in beds of leaves. At length, too, they gave her horse to riGe and dressed her in garments of buckskin, decorated V. tn bright beads. All this pleased her; she dried her tears and became happy in her new life.
 She was taught to fear ard late the white man. and whenever she saw enc she ran away. NCne of the white men who visited her tribe suspected, there fore, that they had white child among them. She learned to shoot well with the bow and arrow. When the Dela- wares had war with the whites, she was run of into the north with the other women and children. She did not lament this.
 When she was 16 years old she was married to a Delaware chief, Little Turtle. He treated her cruelty, and she left him, and afterward was rar- ried to the Osage chief ChePokenah, CT Deaf Man." Le was gocd ro Ter, and she remained with him through a long life.
 She remembered the wars Of the In- dians against Cen. Wayne ard Cen. Harrison, ard in beth her s.-EPGtGics were With the Indians. After the las. war her husband and his people settled on the M;ss.ss.nCva, at place called Deaf L.@n's Village.
 To th.s place in 1S35-ffty-seven years after Frances had been carried away frCzn the Wyoming vaIicy-theIe came enc night a trader n2nCd George Ewing; bCi&tcd Cn the road, Ee sought . nights lCCG;ng. The cid c1.Cf took L;m into k.s cabin. The c:.ieis wife Lu5ild hcraClf about the room, anG as the trader waited for lis supper he watched her. Ee noticed that sIe looked like a white woman. Once she raised Ter &r-s for something; her loose sleeves fCll away, revealing arms i that were sUspiciously white.
 The trader could speak the Indian tongue, and Gs she mace no response | when he addressed her in English, he | questioned Ter in that language. She | admitted that she was white woman | -2d Lad been stCion in her giTlhCOd. She remembered her name and the names Of her father and mother, G5 well as that Cf the place from which she had been taken.
 Ewing, L1Uch interested, wrote to the postmaster Cf NiIkesbarre, asking if here were any people Of the name of 5lccUm sill living in that vicinity. It Cok two years for his letter 70 fall ntO the hands Of Frances surviving 'elativCs, but at last it reached iI1n.
 In due time her brothers a!d listers .aEne to Ter cabin. An affecting inter view took place between her aEd them. md they were instantly satisfied that he was indeed their lcng-Iost sister. They implored her to go hCne with hem, but she refused.
 "I am old," she said, land have lived II ny life with these people. They are ny people. l love my husband and am lappy Wiin mn.
 She even refused to go with them as ar as the neighboring town of Peru, pparently suspecting a trap. They ?e1t away scrrowful. Not long after | gaId her husband died Her relatives anne again, Cnce more irplor:ng her o go home with them to Pennsylvania. ; .ut now she declared that she could I ot leave her bones elsewhere than by { he side Of her husbands. She lived I here until 1S47, when she died. ' Her story is often told in Indiana, { nd the monument to her memory will ( e not only a reminder of romantic f istory, but the memorial of a people I -ho had wen her love as we'll as her f oyalty. V