Madame Montour

Otstuagy - Madame Montour's Pennsylvania Village
Map of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania showing the location of Madame Montour's village of Otstuagy
Location	Montoursville, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Nearest city	Williamsport, Pennsylvania
Coordinates	41°14′06″N 76°56′34″W / 41.234998°N 76.942721°W / 41.234998; -76.942721

Madame Montour (1667 or c. 1685 – c. 1753) was an influential interpreter, diplomat, and local leader of Algonquin and French Canadian ancestry. Although she was well known, her contemporaries usually referred to her only as "Madame" or "Mrs." Montour. She may have been Isabelle (or Elizabeth) Couc, a Métis born in 1667, or perhaps Isabelle Couc's niece, who was born around 1685 and whose given name is uncertain.

In 1711, Madame Montour began working as an interpreter and diplomatic consultant for the province of New York. Around 1727, she and her husband Carondawana, an Oneida, moved to the province of Pennsylvania. Her village, known Otstonwakin, was at the mouth of Loyalsock Creek on the West Branch Susquehanna River. The modern borough of Montoursville, named for her, developed on the east bank after the American Revolutionary War.

Montour's son Andrew Montour also became an important interpreter in Pennsylvania and Virginia, as did his son John Montour. Some of Madame Montour's female relatives were prominent local leaders in New York and Pennsylvania, and have often been confused with her by historians.

There has been confusion about details of Madame Montour's life. She has often been confounded with her female relatives, particularly Catharine Montour, who was prominent in western New York. Historians have long attempted to separate fact from fiction and piece together her life from a few records and conflicting names.

Much is uncertain about Madame Montour's early life. In 1744, Witham Marshe met the "celebrated Mrs. Montour" at an important treaty conference held in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. When asked about her background, Montour told Marshe that she had been born in Canada to a French father. She said that she had been captured by the Iroquois about fifty years earlier (i.e. around 1694), when she was about ten years old, and that she did not remember much about her parents. She had been adopted and raised by the Iroquois, she said. She eventually married Carondawana, an Oneida war chief, with whom she had several children before his death in battle in 1729.