Sitting Bull, the N.E. PA Connection

In 1924 the Executive Director of the Wyoming Valley Historical Society, Wilkes-Barre, PA was a young woman named Frances Dorrance. She was very aware of the great history of the American Indians of the Wyoming Valley. George Catlin, noted artist and author is from this area as well as Frances Slocum, the little white girl taken captive from Wilkes-Barre and raised as an Indian. Most people have heard of the Wyoming Massacre, for which the state of Wyoming was named, and which occurred here locally.
To stir interest in the American Indian, Miss Dorrance purchased the
complete outfit which Sitting Bull gave to General Thomas while he was an Indian Agent in Oklahoma in 1890, just months before Sitting Bull was killed.
Miss Dorrance then went to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC where they employed a statue maker. It was he who made the statue that now stands in the Wyoming Historical Society. Also by chance, while in Washington she met one of Sitting Bull's sons.
The records show that when she brought the statue of Sitting Bull back to the museum she had a glass case made to house it, but the case was sold years later.
Frances was responsible for starting a 'Sitting Bull' club for children in
the area. She also founded an archeological chapter nearby which still bears her name today and personally took members on digs to the Susquehanna River.