Hugh Gibson (American pioneer)
Hugh Gibson (1741 - 30 July 1826) (referred to by Marie Le Roy and Barbara Leninger as "Owen Gibson") was an American pioneer and a Pennsylvania frontiersman. In 1756, when he was 14 years old, his farm was attacked by Lenape Indians and he was taken prisoner. He was adopted as a brother by Pisquetomen, a Lenape chief, and lived for three years with the Lenape, moving to several different communities. In 1759 he escaped, together with three other captives. Gibson told a brief, first-person version of his captivity narrative to Archibald Loudoun, who published it in 1811. At age 85, he told a longer version of his story to Timothy Alden, who published it in 1837, after Gibson's death. Birth and early life Hugh Gibson was born in 1741 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. His father, David Gibson, came from Sixmilecross in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, in 1740. His mother's name was Mary McClelland. They bought land near Peach Bottom Ferry on the Susquehanna River in Lancaster County. David Gibson died when Hugh was an infant, and his mother took Hugh, his sister Mary, and his brother Israel to live with her brother William McClelland outside Robinson's Fort, in "Shearman's Valley," now known as Shermans Dale, Pennsylvania. Captivity Hugh Gibson was captured in July, 1756 by Delaware Indians. In his first-person account published in 1811, he states that he was living at the time outside Robinson's Fort, "twenty miles above Carlisle," near present-day Southwest Madison Township, Perry County, Pennsylvania. Due to recent attacks by Indians, most of the local population had taken refuge inside the fort, but Gibson, his mother, and Elizabeth Henry, a neighbor, were outside the fort looking for lost cattle when they were attacked by the Indians. Gibson's mother was killed and he was taken captive by "a son of King Beaver." Elizabeth Henry was also captured, but the two were separated and Gibson never saw her again. Adoption by Pisquetomen, 1756 Gibson was brought to Kittanning, where he was adopted as a brother by Pisquetomen (whom Gibson refers to as "Bisquittam" or "Busqueetam"), and named "Munhuttakiswilluxissohpon," which was the name of a deceased brother of Pisquetomen and was translated to Gibson as "Big-rope-gut-hominy." Gibson was taken to the river to "wash away all his White blood, and make him an Indian." He was then painted and given Indian clothes. Gibson reports that Pisquetomen spoke and understood English well. Raid on Kittanning Gibson and Pisquetomen were living in Kittanning on 8 September 1756, when it was attacked by Colonel John Armstrong's forces, and Gibson asked Pisquetomen what he should do. Pisquetomen told him to stay with the women, where he was guarded with several other white captives, including Simon Girty, Marie Le Roy and Barbara Leininger. After the attack, he was forced to witness the torture of a woman who had attempted to escape with Armstrong's men, and observed that one of the Indians was wearing his mother's scalp, "which hung as a trophy from his belt."