Mr. Morris owing to the lateness of the hour, and the impatience of the commissioners, gave his consent to the boundary named, supposing it might include a hundred or a hundred and fifty acres. But much to his surprise, the tract when surveyed, was found to contain not less than seventeen thousand, nine hundred and twenty-seven acres. [Footnote: Indian Treaties, p. 39. This reservation has been variously represented to contain, four thousand, and by others a larger number of acres. Col. Stone makes it thirty thousand. The amount given in the text is that obtained by actual survey of the boundaries in question. They are as follows: "Beginning at the mouth of Steep Hill Creek, thence due east until it strikes the Old Path, thence south until a due west line will intersect with certain steep rocks on the west side of the Genesee river, thence extending due west, due north, and due east, until it strikes the first mentioned bound, enclosing as much land on the west side, as on the east side of the river."
The survey by Augustus Porter, surveyor, gives it 17,927.]
Mary Jemison, the White Woman, had thus secured to her, according to the pledge of the Indians to give her a home, a princely domain, where for years after in primitive simplicity, she planted her beans, potatoes and corn, and maintained, as in former years, the usages of her Indian life.
The most of this tract she afterward sold to John Grey and Henry B. Gibson of Canandaigua; a deed for which was executed bearing date of September 3d, 1823.
She retained for her own use twelve hundred and eighty acres, and received for the balance, the sum of four thousand two hundred and eighty-six dollars, or an annuity of three hundred dollars forever.
The Senecas became gradually dispossessed of their lands in the valley of the Genesee, and in the year 1825, removed to their reservation at Buffalo. At the time of their removal, the White Woman refused to part with the residue of her land, and continued to reside at the place, where she had passed the greater part of her long life, and which was now endeared to her by many associations in the past.
But here she soon found herself surrounded by another race, and as time advanced, she longed to be among the people she had chosen for her kindred, and disposing of her possessions in the Genesee valley, removed to Buffalo in 1831.
She had now upon her the infirmities of age. Long had the parting injunction of her christian mother passed from memory. The religion as well as habits of the Indian, had become hers. Ninety summers had passed over her head. The missionary had visited her, and had been assured that her faith had long been in accord with that of the red man, and she had no desire to change her religious views.
But ere her last hour came a voice reached her from the distant past. It awakened memories long forgotten. She sent for the missionary. He came and stood by her. She was almost withered away. Her small, shrivelled, finely wrinkled face, silvery hair, toothless mouth, the nose almost touching her chin, and her thin, wasted form, indicated the presence of second childhood. The memory of that long lost mother rushed back upon her mind. She cried out in anguish, as well as sincerity of heart, "Oh, God! have mercy upon me!" The prayer of her childhood returned; she instinctively began to say.—"Our Father which art in heaven."
As a child she received the instructions of the missionary, and before departing this life, her soul was lighted up with a cheering hope, based upon a reception of the clear and living truths of Christianity.