By Barbara Mumma • Mauch Chunk Museum and Cultural Center and Alisa Dupuy, Special Guest Speaker
We are excited to invite you to join us in celebrating our history at our tea party taking place on Saturday afternoon, June 8th, 1PM, at the Mauch Chunk Ballroom in Jim Thorpe, PA. Pennsylvania has a rich history dating back to the 1700’s. Our guest speaker, Alisa Dupuy, will portray Mary Jemison, known to history as the “White Woman of the Genesee.”
Mary was born at sea on the Atlantic Ocean in 1743. She was kidnapped at age 12 and was adopted into the Seneca family as a young girl on the western Pennsylvania frontier during the French and Indian War. She became a part of the Indian culture. She married a Delaware (Lenape) brave, and he took her 700 miles north along the Genesee River, present-day Western New York state. They had one son. As a widow she was taken in by relatives. Her second husband was a Seneca man and they had six children.
Mary chose to remain a Seneca rather than return to American colonial culture. Mary (Alisa) will tell her life’s story with a look into Native American life, points of view about both cultures and teach us about the religion, customs and the language of the Seneca, part of the Iroquois Confederacy. Discover how important Iroquois ideas were to our Founding Fathers. She lived to age 89 or 90 and passed away in 1833.
We look forward to your joining our historical tea party!
Please consider also visiting our town’s award-winning Mauch Chunk Museum and Cultural Center. Here you can see historical videos, many artifacts and working models, such as the Switchback Gravity Railroad model train. Learn our local history from our early days in the 1700’s as Mauch Chunk. With the Industrial Revolution our town grew from our coal mining heritage, railroads, and canal days into a blossoming tourism community.
Our Gravity Railroad in the early 1900’s was considered America’s first roller coaster. In 1954 we renamed our town, Jim Thorpe, after the famed athlete. He has his burial memorial and park on the east side of town. For more information, call the museum at 570-325-9190. We are open from 11AM to 5PM in April, Saturdays and Sundays; May, Fridays through Sundays; June through Sept., 5 days, Fridays through Tuesdays; October daily; Nov. & Dec. Fridays through Sundays. Full tours are $10 each and walk-through tours are $7.50 each. Children 11 and under are always free. Group rates are available. We look forward to sharing our history with you.
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