She Walked Over 200 Miles in the Snow to Feed a Starving Army. The Oneida Nation Has Remembered Polly Cooper for 250 Years

As one of America’s first allies, the Oneida Nation sent 47 warriors to Valley Forge in 1778. Among them was a woman named Polly Cooper, whose skill, generosity and knowledge of white corn kept Washington’s soldiers alive

On April 25, 1778, a party of 47 Oneida warriors departed Kanonwalohale (located in present-day Vernon, New York) into a cold and snowy April. Among them was a woman named Polly Cooper. They carried baskets of white corn and walked over 200 miles south to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where George Washington's Continental Army was starving.

When they arrived on May 15, a soldier recorded their presence in his journal: "A few days ago, 40 Indians, of the Oneida [Indian] nation, arrived at our camp . . . to scout near the lines.” He made no mention of Cooper, but Oneida oral traditions have preserved her name and her story. Much of what is known about Polly Cooper originates in firsthand verbal accounts that have been recorded by Oneida historians such as Chief William Honyost Rockwell (1870-1960), an Oneida leader and descendant of Polly Cooper who heard the stories as a child and wrote them down.

America’s First Ally

The Oneida were one of the six nations of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy. Their society was organized along matrilineal lines, with women passing down cultural and agricultural knowledge through generations. It was not incidental that Cooper, as a woman, was sent to Valley Forge with corn among a group of warriors.

The winter of 1777-78 had been devastating for the Continental Army. Around 2,000 soldiers died from exposure, starvation, or diseases like influenza and typhoid while they camped at Valley Forge. General Washington needed the help of knowledgeable Native scouts to keep his soldiers alive and sent a message to recruit Oneida warriors. The decision to come was neither simple nor without cost. The Oneida had formally allied with the British after the French and Indian War and declared neutrality at the beginning of the colonies’ fight for independence. Then, in September 1777, British loyalists and Mohawk forces under Joseph Brant destroyed the Oneida village of Oriska. Following this attack, it was difficult for the Oneida to remain neutral. When the message arrived with Washington's request for scouts and supplies, Chief Shenendoah (also called Skenandoa), who was instrumental in guiding the Six Nations’ relationship with the colonists, supported sending warriors south.

When the Oneida arrived with corn, the starving soldiers tried to eat it raw. Cooper knew that uncooked white corn, with its hard hull requiring extensive cleaning and preparation, would have swollen in the soldiers’ stomachs and caused them pain. So, she cooked it first: soup, cornbread, and mash, sometimes adding strawberries or nuts to improve flavor and nutrition. While the Oneida warriors went to Barren Hill to help fight off the British, she remained at camp to teach the soldiers how to prepare the corn themselves.

By mid-June, most of the party returned to Kanonwalohale, though the Oneida Nation continued to provide a small number of guides, scouts, and couriers throughout the remainder of the war.

The Legend of Polly Cooper’s Shawl

When the Continental Army offered Cooper payment for her services, she refused. In lieu of money, Oneida oral tradition holds that a bonnet and shawl were purchased and given to Cooper as tokens of gratitude. In one version of the story, Cooper and some soldiers' wives were window shopping in Philadelphia when she admired a black shawl and bonnet in a store window. The wives told their husbands and weeks after Cooper returned home, two soldiers appeared at her door with a package containing the shawl and bonnet. In another version, the shawl and bonnet were purchased for Cooper by Martha Washington while they were shopping together in Philadelphia. The bonnet has since been lost, but the shawl remains with her descendants. Though some scholars question the details of the story, the shawl is considered a significant relic.

Cooper is not recorded by name in colonial documents, and no written papers confirm the shawl's purchase. Much of what is known about Cooper has been preserved through the Oneida oral tradition and supported by the physical preservation of the shawl.

Supporting American independence cost the Oneida their homes and way of life. The U.S. government formally recognized their support and offered compensation in 1794 with the “Treaty With the Oneida, etc.,” This acknowledged them as “faithful friends” who “at an unfortunate period of the war, were driven from their homes, and their houses were burnt and their property destroyed” as a consequence of supporting American independence. Years earlier, the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix guaranteed the Oneida ownership of their traditional lands, but it was not enforced and their lands were reduced by 1820. While a core community has always lived on at the principal homeland villages in upstate New York, many of the Oneida people had been forced out of their homeland in upstate New York and moved west to what is now Wisconsin.

In January 2026, the U.S. Mint released the 2026 Native American $1 coin honoring Polly Cooper and the Oneida Nation. Celebrating the coin’s release, Ray Halbritter, a representative of the Oneida Indian Nation of New York, described Cooper as someone who “symbolizes courage that is not just found on the battlefield but in compassion and willingness to help others, which is just a part of Oneida culture and hospitality.”

Sources:

1. Kandice Watson (Wolf Clan), “Polly Cooper: From Humble Cook to Oneida Icon.” Oneida Indian Nation. Accessed May 28, 2026.
2. “The Polly Cooper Shawl: Testimony to a Pact of the Revolutionary War,” Oneida Indian Nation, February 5, 2023.
3. “Honoring Women.” Oneida Indian Nation. Accessed May 28, 2026.
4. “American Revolution,” Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. Accessed June 2, 2026.
5. William Sawyer, “The Oneida in the American Revolution,” National Park Service. Accessed May 28, 2026.
6. "Treaty with the Oneida, Etc., 1794." Avalon Project, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.
7. Savannah Peters, "Polly Cooper, an Oneida Woman Who Helped Save Washington's Army, Is Honored on $1 Coin," Associated Press, January 30, 2026.

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Meredith Herndon | Read More

Meredith Herndon is the writer and editor for the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum.