Described as a strong and uniquely able woman, Jenny joined the sons of her enslaver, Capt. James Wadsworth, when they left the family home in Durham to settle the “frontier” in western New York State. Landing near present-day Geneseo, legend has it that the Wadsworth brothers, James and William, fell ill with a malaria-like disease and would have died had Jenny not nursed them back to health. She is also said to have befriended local Indigenous healers, from whom she learned the medicinal benefits of regional plants. There are few records available to document Jenny’s life, but local history and Wadsworth family lore describe her importance to the brothers in multiple accounts. One Wadsworth descendant was even said to have become an outspoken critic of slavery and a leading Union general in the Civil War because of her influence on him and his family.