A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison

to America.-Her Birth.-Parents settle

race it further back than my father and mother, whom I have often heard mention the families from whence they origi

tory of their nativity only in the days of my childhood, I am not able to state positively, which of the two countries, Ireland or Sc

but that of all who come within the circle of their acquaintance. Of their happiness I recollect to have heard them speak; and the remembrance I yet retain of their mildness and perfect agreement in the government of their children, together with their mutual attention to our common education, manners, religious instructio

reland, where they lived but a short time before they set sail for this country, in the year

uses of their leaving their mother country and a home in the American wilderness, under the mild and temperate governm

effects on board, they embarked, leaving a large connexion of relatives and friends, under all those painful sensations, which a

in of vicissitudes, unsupported by the advice of tender parents, or the hand of an affectionate friend; and even without the enjoyment from others, of any of th

d his family to the then frontier settlements of Pennsylvania, to a tract of excellent land lying on Marsh creek. At that place he cleared a large farm, and for seven or eight years enjoyed the fruits of his industry. Peace attended their

hose ages there was a difference of about three year

remote period, the recollection of my pleasant home at my father's, of my parents, of my brothers and sister, and of the manner in which I was deprived of them all at once, affects me so powerfully, that I am almost overwhelmed with grief, that is seemingly insupportable. Frequently I dream of those happy days: but, alas! they are gone; they have

meet death in its most frightful form, by having their bodies stuck full of pine splinters, which were i

eat Meadow or Fort Necessity. His wife had died some time before this, and left a young child, which my mother nursed in the most tender manner, till its mother's sister took it away, a few months after my uncle's death. The French and Indians, after the surrender of Fort Necessity by Col. Washington, (which happene

at he would continue to occupy his land another season: expecting (probably from the great exertions which the government was then making) tha

neighborhood, a short distance from our former abode. I well recollect moving, and that th

arvest. My father, with the assistance of his oldest sons, repaired his farm as usual, and was daily preparing the soil for the rece

suspended! Peace in a moment can take an immeasurable flight; health can lose its rosy cheeks; and life will vanish like a vapor at the appe

rected. I was out of the house in the beginning of the evening, and saw a sheet wide spread approaching towards me, in which I was caught (as I have ever since believed) and deprived of my senses! The family soon found me on the ground, almost lifeles

y catastrophe that so soon afterwards happened to our family: and my being caught in