Mary Jemison or Dehgewanus"The White Woman of the Genesee"In the fall of 1743, somewhere in the stormy Atlantic, a child was born to Thomas and Jane Jemison aboard the ship William and Mary. The little girl was named Mary, and although she wasn't aware of it, she was joining her parents, brothers, and sisters on a journey to the New World. The Jemison family landed in Philadelphia and soon joined other Scots-Irish immigrants on the western frontier, a place that promised them cheap land and freedom. Thomas Jemison took his family to the Marsh Creek settlement near South Mountain (not far from present-day Gettysburg PA), built a cabin, and began building a new life. Although life was tough on the western edge of the Pennsylvania colony, Mary fondly remembered these "childish and happy days," filled with hard work and the love of a family now numbering six children. But when Mary turned fifteen, these happy times ended tragically. The French and Indian War raged in the English colonies and Canada. It was a bitter struggle between two European powers, and the colonies and natives on both sides suffered. Those at the border suffered the most. In the spring of 1758 a party of French soldiers and Shawnee warriors descended on the frontier region that included Marsh Creek. On Wednesday, April 5, they swept the small clearing where the Jemisons lived. The two older boys escaped, but Mary, her parents, and the rest of the family were taken prisoner. The raiding party headed west toward Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh). The decision was made to lighten their load as they had too many prisoners to escape the pursuing militia. As night fell they separated a tearful Mary from her family, along with a nearby boy who had also been captured, and took them away. The rest of the Jemison family were killed and scalped. At Fort Duquesne Mary was purchased by a group of Senecas who loaded her into a canoe and headed down the Ohio. When he arrived at the village, he found himself in a very different world; the world of the Seneca people. They adopted the teenager, shedding her old name, her clothes and her existence in Ohio and wrapping her in her own name identity. It was now Dehgewanus, or "Two Falling Voices." In later years Dehgewanus learned the ways of Seneca. She took a husband from Delaware, Sheninjee.