It Happened Here--"The White Woman of the Genesee"
"Tne Genesee"--the heart of the homeland of the Seneca, the largest, most powerful people of the Haudenosaunee (the Iroquois confederacy), the "keepers of the western door," and in their midst lived Mary Jemison.
Her grave site was relocated near here in 1874 from Buffalo Creelk to the Letchworth State Park, Council Grounds. The statue was erected here in 1910.
Mary Jemison was born in 1743 on board
The extended family probably lived in a traditional bark longhouse similar to this one
Mary's daughter's house from the Gaudeau Tract, at Letchworth State Park. Mary's house in Little Beard's Town would have been similar.
While most of Mary's people crowded into towns untouched by the Sullivan invasion, even seeking shelter in the shadow of the British headquarters at Fort Niagara, Mary took her family south, along the Genesee to an old abandoned village that would become known as the Gardeau Tract. There she met a pair of escaped slaves who had raised a large field of corn. They took her and her family in, feeding and sheltering them, in exchange for help in shucking and shelling the corn, through a severe winter that devastated the Haudenosuanee people through cold and famine. Mary stayed with her family, after the former slaves moved on. Reunited with her husband, she built cabins, farmed and raised livestock. Peace came and she became surrounded by a scattering of white squatter-settlers. 
In 1797 Robert Morris an extremely wealthy investor, and a major financier of the Revolution bought the rights to be the sole negotiator to buy land owned/occupied by the Senecas and other tribes in western New York, (the right of Preemption). Morris arranged for a meeting with the Senecas at the town of Big Tree (near present day Geneseo). Mary attended the meeting, as respected clan matriarchs often did, advising their tribes' chiefs. The meeting was contentious, and unsavory, dragging on for over a month, with American negotiators using alcohol and bribes to win over individual Indian delegates and with Native Americans realizing the flood of white settlers would continue unabated unless they made concessions, surrendered land for payments and got (some-hoped-for) legal protections for their established towns and "developed" lands. Mary was an outspoken advocate for her people. Morris' company bought the entire Seneca lands west of the Genesee to the New York western border with the exception of twelve "reservations"--mostly settled Indian towns and farmlands for $100,000 (roughly $5 billion, today). The money was invested stocks in the Bank of the United States with the stipulation that $6000 or up 6% of the earnings of the stocks be returned to the tribe as an annuity. Mary's Gardeeau Tract was one of the reservations.
ship when her parents were immigrating from Ireland to America. Her family settled and prospered on the Pennsylvania frontier for over a decade. However, with French and Indian War raging, a raiding party of Shawnee warriors and four French soldiers captured the, then, twelve year old Mary and her family. Two of Mary's older brothers escaped capture. The raiders, fearing they would be overtaken by militia pursuers killed and scalped Mary's mother, father and other siblings but took Mary to the Ohio country where she was sold to a Seneca family living there who were mourning the loss of a son/brother killed in the the war. Gradually their care for her, sympathy and kindness won her over as she was formally adopted into the family. [1] Formally adopted, Mary was re named "Dickewamis," (pleasant girl, handsome girl or a pleasant, good thing .) [2] After a few years she was married to a Delaware man, Sheninjee with whom she had a son, Thomas, who she named after her father. The couple moved in with her clan mother , her clan sisters and brothers in a Seneca town on the Ohio River.
(longhouse reconstruction in Ganondagan, Seneca village near Victor, New York)
On a visit to the British Fort Pitt during an apparent truce, Mary was observed by British colonists there. Fears that they might attempt to take her from them contributed to the family deciding to return to their Genesee homeland, moving into "Little Beard''s Town. With peace at hand, in 1768 a bounty was offered for the return of white captives. A dutch trader and a local chief the "Old King" conspired to capture Mary to collect the bounty. She successfully hid from them . Away on a hunting trip, Mary's husband became sick and died. She remarried a Seneca man, Hiokatoo with whom she had two sons and four daughters. She settled into the quiet life of a native-American squaw, raising corn,beans and squashes and , dressing skins, preparing and preserving venison, occasionally accompanying hunting parties to help carry back game, but more often working in close society with her clan sisters. "Our labor was not severe, [and our] cares certainly not nearly half as numerous nor as great [as white women's]." [3] The Seneca's material culture, however, was changing fast with native -Americans becoming increasingly dependent on goods available only from Europeans and European Americans. The Little Beard's Town Mary moved to was in many ways indistinguishable from "white" frontier towns on the edge of the wilderness with log cabins, plowed fields [4] and orchards.
Mary reported greed for these things led their chiefs to support the British over the rebels.
At first, the Revolutionary War little impacted Mary and her sister's lives, as their warrior husbands and brothers occasionally left and returned from distant raids. A major exception to this was the Oriskany Battle to which the Seneca were invited to "watch." and "smoke their pipes" while "Regulars" and "Loyalists" punished the upstart rebels. Instead, the Senecas became fully involved, fighting for their lives. Dozens of warriors from Little Beard's Town were killed and wounded. [5] Mary also frequently hosted visits by Colonels Butler and Bryant in their travels to Little Beard's Town. Her peace, however, was shattered in 1779 when Washington, fed up with constant Indian raids directed armies led by Generals Sullivan and Clinton to crush the Haudenosaunee. Meeting at Tioga Point on the Susquehanna the combined armies swept up through the finger lakes burning every Cayuga, Tuscarora and Seneca village before them, destroying crops and food stocks, and cutting down orchards. At the head of Conesus Lake the Senecas and Butler's Rangers set up an ambush to try to stop Sullivan's forces before they could enter Little Beard's Town. But before they could effect the ambush, a scouting party sent out earlier by the Americans blundered into the ambush and in a running skirmish the party's commander, a Lieutenant Parker, and a Sargent Boyd were taken prisoner. The enraged and disappointed warriors took their prisoners to the village where they were tortured and beheaded, before a council of chiefs decided that, with the element of surprise gone, their only option was to withdraw before this much larger army. Little Beard's Town, it crops and orchards was utterly destroyed.
Letchworth Park Rd., Castile
cor. U.S. 20 A and Mary Jemison Dr., Geneseo
For the next thirty four years Mary and her family lived on the Gardeau Tract but it was not without stress and tragedy. The Gardeau Tract, whose boundaries set out by treaty were thought to encompass about two square miles but when surveyed were discovered they encompassed 16,927 acres! This gave her ample land to lease acreage to neighboring farmers so she could live comfortably but it was also large enough to attract the attention of land speculators and land hungry neighbors who developed repeated schemes to take land from her. The stresses of living on the edge of the white society also effected her family. Her oldest son Thomas and middle son John frequently clashed in violent alcohol-fueled altercations. In July 1811 John killed Thomas. Hiokatoo died later that year from advanced age and consumption and her youngest son Jesse died in a fight with John in 1812. Five years later, John was killed in a brawl with two other Senecas in a neighboring reservation.
Despite her losses and struggles Mary bore her personal disasters with grace and good humor, never turning away persons who came to her in need. Her neighbors encouraged her to meet with James Seaver who interviewed her in 1823 to tell her remarkable story. The following year he published A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison.
In 1831 she moved to the Buffalo Creek Reservation with her remaining daughters and their children, selling the remainder of her lands. She died there in 1833 at the age of 91.
[1] It is important to remember that Iroquois (Seneca) families are matrilineal so their extended families center around the clan mother. Husbands essentially marry into their mother-in-law's family, thus throughout most of her life, Mary Jemison's life would center around her clan mother's life and her adoptive sisters.
[2] Later english renditions of her name represent it as "Dehgewanus" and translate it as "two falling voices". One can imagine her as a young scared girl speaking English and learning the Seneca dialect-- starting to speak, but having her voice trail off in fear and uncertainty.
[3] A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison. Chapter VI. James E. Seaver. 1824.
[4] Living along the Ohio, Mary reported they used a short sharpened stick as a hoe-like instrument to plant their corn, but moving into her own piece of land, the Gardeau Tract, she brought a pair of horses and plowed her fields to grow her corn.
7550 N. Broadway, Redhook
Another Silk City Diner exists in Albany. Built in 1941 it had a number of owners and operated under several names, Lill's Diner, The Miss Albany Diner and currently, Tanpopo Ramen and Sake Bar.
[5] see also "NYSHMs: It Happened Here. Apr. 11., 2025."
--A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison is available on line in text at "Project Gutenberg" and as an audiobook at "Librivox"
--The online "Exploring Letchworth State Park History " by Tom Breslin and Tom Cook is a wealth of articles and time lines about the park, the Gardeau Tract and Mary Jemison
--all the usual internet suspects.
Marker of the Week Fortnight (!) -- Diners
The descendants of "lunch wagons" and modeled after railroad dining cars, these prefabricated light-meal restaurants were popular in the 1920's, and after WWII. Completely pre-wired with appliances, plumbing, booths, counters, and "bar stools" these original fast-food restaurants were virtually ready for business as soon as they were delivered and connected up to public utilities. Known as the Village Diner or Halfway Diner (because it was said to be halfway between New York and Albany ) , this Redhook restaurant was fabricated in Paterson, NJ and brought to Redhook by flatbed rail car and truck in 1927.
After the Taconic Parkway was built it was moved to the intersection of Rte.199 and the Parkway, then moved back to Redhook after the building of the mid-- Hudson Bridge redirected a greater flow of traffic through Redhook. Like many other diners an extended kitchen was added in the rear.
One of about ten diner manufacturers, Silk City Diners was a division of the Paterson Wagon Company that produced about 1500 diners from 1926 to 1966.
In 1987 it was featured prominently in the film Ironweed.
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