Frances Slocum

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Frances Slocum (Maconaquah, "The Little Bear") was an adopted member of the Miami tribe taken from her family home by the Lenape in Pennsylvania at the age of four and raised in what is now Indiana.

Frances Slocum was taken captive by a group of Lenape on November 2, 1778 when she was just five years old. Her family had been among the first whites to settle in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. It is believed that she escaped captivity that first night but was soon recaptured and was held for the night under a rock ledge along Abraham Creek in what is now part of Frances Slocum State Park near Wyoming, Pennsylvania (named in her honor). Frances Slocum spent the rest of her life with the Native Americans. Her brothers found her 59 years later living on an Indian Reservation near Peru, Indiana. Despite the pleadings of her brothers, Frances refused to leave her family. She had been married twice and was the mother of four children. Frances, now called "Maconaquah" (meaning "Young Bear"), lived for the rest of her life in Indiana. She passed away in 1847 when she was 74 years old. Her name lives on in Indiana, where the Frances Slocum State Recreational Area and Lost Sister Trail in the Mississinewa Reservoir and State Forest are named in her memory. Her final resting place is marked with a monument along the banks of the Mississinewa River in Indiana. There is a high school named Maconaquah after her. There was a Frances Slocum Elementary School in Fort Wayne, Indiana named after her, closed around 1975.

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Frances Slocum State Park

Biography and genealogy of Frances Slocum