Jenny Wiley

Jenny Wiley (born Jean "Jenny" Sellards in 1760 in Pennsylvania – 1831) was a legendary pioneer woman who was taken captive by Native Americans in 1789. Wiley endured the slaying of her brother and children and escaped after 11 months of captivity. Jenny Wiley State Resort Park in Prestonsburg, Kentucky is named in her honor.

Jenny Wiley was born to Hezekiah Sellards and Jean Brevard (Jean Brevard is in dispute as some believe that Hezekiah may have married a Cherokee). Her family moved to Walkers Creek, in what is now Bland County, Virginia. It was here in 1778 that Jenny met and married Thomas Wiley, an Irish immigrant.

Soon after, they built a log cabin and had their first four children.

On October 1, 1789, Thomas set out for a trading post with a horse heavy laden with ginseng to barter for domestic necessaries. That afternoon, Jenny's brother-in-law, John Borders, heard owl-call signals in the woods that made him suspect Native Americans were in the area and planning an attack. He warned his sister-in-law to pack up her children and leave the cabin, but Jenny wanted to finish some household chores before leaving.

A group of eleven Native Americans, composed of two Cherokees, three Shawnees, three Wyandots, and three Delawares stormed the cabin. Jenny and her brother heard the Native Americans coming and tried to barricade the door, and also attempted to fight them off. They killed her younger brother of about fifteen years of age and her children, with the exception of her youngest child of about fifteen months. Jenny, who was expecting her fifth child, and the surviving child were then taken captive. There was some dispute amongst her captors about whether or not to kill her and her baby as they were slowing the party down, but they kept her and her baby alive until the baby became ill. At that point the captors killed the child while Jenny slept. She gave birth shortly thereafter, but that child was also murdered from scalping. The test was to put the baby on a piece of wood and send it down the river; if it cried, they would scalp it. If it did not cry, it'd live.

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