In 1685, while in the French service, he was wounded in a fight with two Mohawk warriors on Lake Champlain. Subsequently he deserted the French cause and again lived among the Indians. In 1709 he was killed while inducing twelve of the Western tribes to support the English.
One of his sisters became a noted interpreter and friend of the English, and was known as Madame Montour; the other sister married a Miami Indian and her history is lost.
Madame Montour was born previous to the year 1684. When about ten years old she was captured by some Iroquois warriors and adopted, probably by the Seneca tribe, for at maturity she married a Seneca named Roland Montour, by whom she had five children: Andrew, Henry, Robert, Lewis and Margaret.
After the death of Roland, Madame Montour married the noted Oneida chief, Carondowanen, or “Big Tree,” who later took the name Robert Hunter in honor of the royal governor of the province of New York.
About 1729 Robert Hunter was killed in battle with the Catawba, against whom he was waging war.
Madame Montour first appeared as an official interpreter at the conference at Albany, September 15, 1711. At this conference the wanton murder of her brother, Andrew, by Vaudreuil, was bitterly resented by Madame Montour, and she employed her great influence with telling effect against the French, who tried to induce her to remove to Canada, but she remained loyal to the English and was put in a position of great power with lucrative return.
Madame Montour was the interpreter in Philadelphia in 1727 at a conference between Deputy Governor Patrick Gordon and the Provincial Council on the one hand and the Six Nations, Conestoga, Ganawese and Susquehanna Indians on the other.
It is claimed that Madame Montour was a lady in manner and education, was very attractive in mind and body, and that she was entertained by ladies of the best society on her trips to Philadelphia; but as her sister married an Indian and she was twice wedded to an Indian warrior, it is probable her education and refinement were not so marked as is claimed.
Nevertheless, from the testimony of those who saw and knew her, but contrary to the statement of Lord Cornbury, who knew her brother, it seems almost certain that she was a French-Canadian without any admixture of Indian blood, and that for some unaccountable reason she preferred the life and dress of her adopted people.
Madame Montour was always uniformly friendly toward the proprietary Government, and such was the loyalty of her family that at least two of her sons, Henry and Andrew, received large grants of “donation land” from the Government. That of Henry lay upon the Chillisquaque Creek, in Northumberland County, and that of Andrew, on the Loyalsock, where Montoursville, in Lycoming County, is now situated.