Mary Jemison statue

Last week I scanned Arch Merrill’s book The White Woman and Her Valley (1955). This book is almost all about tales from Genesee River valley and Livingston County.

The first and longest chapter is about Mary Jemison who was called the White Woman of the Genesee. She was captured by Indians and became part of their tribe(s). She was married to two native men and had a children by both of them. When she discovered again by early white settlers, she was given a chance to return to white culture but didn’t because she didn’t want to leave her children. She was interviewed by James Everett Seaver and that resulted in a book about her experiences that was first published in 1825. That book has been re-published many time and can be found many places on the internet. I think the best digitization is this one done by the Rochester Public Library. I also that same book as an audio book on the Internet Archive. There are other books about Mary Jemison on the Internet Archive that you can “borrow.” Just go to the Internet Archive and do a search for her.

Another chapter in this book is about the ambush and death of Lt. Thomas Boyd and Sgt. Michael Parker. They were in a scouting party that was part of a large group of US soldiers that were sent to destroy Indian villages during the Revolutionary War. I wrote about them in this blog post in June 2022.

Other chapters are about the Genesee Valley Canal, the Wadsworth family of Geneseo, the Spa in Avon with it’s sulfur water. The chapter on the Sea Serpent in Silver Lake (Wyoming Co.) really interested me as my mother lived on the lake for many years. Then to round out the book are chapters on the Genesee Valley Hunt, Clara Barton and the monks of the Abbey of the Genesee.

Lots of good reading as are all of Arch Merrill’s books.