A Lenape among the Quakers: The Life of Hannah Freeman

Chapter 1. The Examination of Hannah Freeman

chapter one The Examination of Hannah Freeman The appearance of Hannah Freeman, an elderly Lenape woman , standing on the West Chester courthouse steps on July 28, 1797, must have seemed a strange sight to those who took notice that day. At the end of the eighteenth century, eastern Pennsylvanians were far removed from the violent borders of Indian country in western Ohio. The great diaspora of Lenape communities who had called southeastern Pennsylvania home was not more than a half century in the past. Most residents believed that Pennsylvania’s Indian population was long gone, and the sight of one old Lenape woman, if noticed at all, would provoke no more than a passing curiosity in those who saw her. But maybe some did take notice. Her dress was not unlike that of her neighbors, but there was no mistaking her indigenous identity. One neighbor described the elderly Hannah as a tall, lean woman with remarkable features that caused those who knew her to consider her a formidable personality.1 Her copper-colored skin and white hair coupled with her stature and comportment may have caused a few heads to turn that hot summer day. Hannah was a Lenape woman and Pennsylvanians recalled her people as a remarkably graceful people of few words. It is likely some townspeople recognized “Indian Hannah” and knew her as a neighbor and friend. She had spent her almost whole life in Chester County, and her life story wove through the memories and recollections of many of Chester County’s most illustrious families, including the Marshalls, Barnards, Brintons, and Harlans. In recent decades Hannah had worked 8 The Examination of Hannah Freeman 1. Hannah Freeman memorial marker, 1909. (Author’s collection) for many of the local farm families, spinning flax and making baskets and brooms. When their children were sick local farmers sought Hannah’s indigenous medical knowledge rather than consult the local physician. Her closest neighbors entrusted the care of their children to Hannah, and these same neighborhood children were probably frequent visitors to her cabin in the woods. Sometimes they came on errands for their parents, bringing supplies to Hannah in her later years. Hannah Baldwin fondly remembered the nickname the old Lenape woman had bestowed upon her, Betsy My-Eye, because the little girl had one blue eye and one brown one, just like Hannah . She also had a sense of humor, reportedly laughing when a friend showed her a machine-stitched broom, which she undoubtedly deemed inferior to her own handcrafted brooms. Many of Hannah’s neighbors remembered the elderly woman as a welcome guest in their homes. She would spend days working beside with her Quaker sisters whom, like Hannah, farm ers hired for seasonal work. But at the end of the day, unlike most other women, Hannah preferred to sit in the warmth of The Examination of Hannah Freeman 9 the open stone hearth and smoke her pipe. It was a familiar and comforting memory cherished by the families who knew Hannah Freeman.2 Possibly Hannah Freeman reminded some townspeople of other, similarly named native residents who appear like shadows in local recollections: “Indian Betty,” “Indian Pete,” and “Indian Mary.” Their irregular appearances at markets or along the country roads walking door-to-door peddling baskets and brooms grew less frequent as the century drew to an end. Hannah may have caused passersby to wonder where those few native neighbors were, what had become of them. They may have remembered the young Lenape boys who occasionally put on public displays of their hunting skills by accepting dares to shoot targets and who most often bested their colonial challengers. Perhaps they recalled the small parties of Lenape women who gathered seasonally to collect plants for baskets, mats, and medicines at traditional locations used for generations. Perchance some recalled the occasional Lenape men seeking wages or trade for work in their fields or Lenape women who came to work spinning flax alongside their Quaker sisters. It is hard to imagine any resident living in Chester County in 1797 who did not have some memory, personal or otherwise, of the Lenape people , who had lived in, worked in, and shared ownership of the place now called Pennsylvania. Hannah was a living reminder of another time, but not the present. For Chester County’s residents the Lenape were a “vanishing race,” and Hannah’s novel appearance in town that day only...