Hannah Freeman, known as "Indian Hannah," was a Lenape healer, artisan, and farmer who historically was thought to be the last surviving member of the Lenape in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
13 Facts About Hannah Freeman
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Hannah Freeman grew up in a close-knit matrilineal extended family of grandmother, mother, and aunts.
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Hannah Freeman grew up fluent in both English and Unami languages and customs.
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Hannah Freeman earned a living by spinning, sewing, making brooms, weaving baskets, and working for neighboring Quaker farmers.
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Hannah Freeman gained a reputation for healing the sick through her knowledge of indigenous medicinal plants.
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In 1758, Hannah Freeman moved to Chester Creek to live with relatives and steer clear of the violence between western Lenape and colonial Pennsylvanians during the French and Indian War.
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Hannah Freeman gave up her farmstead and travels and began living year-round with various Quaker neighbors in Newlin Township, working as best she could in return for room and board.
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Hannah Freeman's dying wish was to be buried in an old Indian cemetery by the Brandywine, but her interment instead became the first in the potter's field behind the poorhouse.
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The declaration that Hannah Freeman was "an ancient woman of the Delaware tribe and the only person of that description left among us" was made in 1800 when her neighbors committed her to the county poorhouse.
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Hannah Freeman's gravesite is marked by another bronze plaque mounted on a boulder in 1909 by the Chester County Historical Society.
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Longwood Gardens features a simple memorial cross dedicated to Hannah Freeman, continuing a nineteenth-century tradition begun by one of the previous owners of the property, George W Peirce.
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Hannah Freeman preserved a bean traditionally grown by her Lenape people as part of the Three Sisters companion planting technique.
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Two baskets reportedly made by Hannah Freeman are held in the collections of the Chester County History Center.