Mary Campbell
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- This article is about the British American colonial hostage; for the 1920s Miss America, see: Mary Katherine Campbell
Mary Campbell (1748-1801) was an American colonial settler, taken captive by Native Americans during the French and Indian War, and believed to have been the first white child to travel to the Western Reserve.
Biography
Mary Campbell was born in 1748 in Cumberland, Pennsylvania.On May 21, 1758, at the age of ten years, Campbell was abducted from her home in Penn's Creek, in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania by a band of Lenape. She was brought to present-day northeast Ohio. For a time, she lived with her captors in what is now known as Mary Campbell Cave, a cliff cavity near the Cuyahoga River in present-day Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. After a reportedly brief residence in the cave, she is said to have moved to a nearby Lenape village, which may have been along the southern bank of the Cuyahoga River not far from the cave, or else on the flat ground directly above the cave.
During her captivity, she stayed in the household of, or with the tribe of, Netawatwees (also spelled Netwatwees), a chief of the Lenape in Ohio, who is later known from his relationships with the Moravians. Campbell may have been adopted by Netawatwees.
On August 5 and 6, 1763, Colonel Henry Bouquet's forces prevailed in the Battle of Bushy Run, a key battle that turned the tide of Pontiac's Rebellion. While armed conflict became rare after the battle, no formal peace had been made. Starting from Fort Niagara on August 6, 1764, Colonel John Bradstreet and 1,200 of his soldiers moved through northern Ohio on their way to Fort Detroit. Bradstreet concluded a peace treaty with a number of tribes on August 12, which would have prohibited an expedition by Bouquet to the south. General Thomas Gage rejected Bradstreet's treaty on the grounds that the Colonel had exceeded his authority in making it.
On October 1, 1764, Bouquet held meetings with Shawnee and Delaware leaders at Fort Pitt. The Indians tried to convince Bouquet that their numbers were great, and that he should not move into their territory because his army couldn't survive. Apparently the Indians were bluffing, because within a day or two, they had agreed to give up their white captives to Bouquet and his forces.
On October 3, Bouquet and 1,500 soldiers departed Fort Pitt, arriving at a place called Tuscarawas on October 13. The next day, Bouquet met with Delaware leaders, but the Shawnee did not arrive until later. The meetings lasted until October 20, when Bouquet issued an ultimatum and demanded the return of captives. On November 9, 206 captives were turned over to Bouquet's forces, including Mary Campbell.
Campbell's name is included in a list of 60 former captives who were transferred by Captain Lewis Durry to Captain Charles Lewis for transportation to Fort Pitt. The list was made out on November 15, 1764, at a "Camp at Muskingum," presumably in present-day southeastern Ohio. Campbell would have been around 16 years of age at this time, having spent a little over six years with the Lenape. These captives arrived at Fort Pitt on November 28.
Family tradition amongst Campbell's descendants indicates that she was sad to be separated from the Lenape. Although it is estimated that approximately half of the captives turned over to Bouquet attempted to return to their Native captors, a development which reportedly puzzled both the army and the communities to which the captives were being returned, it is not known whether Campbell was one of them. Family tradition has it that Mary Campbell was first reunited with her brother Dugal Campbell, but it is not known when or where that took place.
On January 17, 1765, The Pennsylvania Gazette published a list of captives that had been turned over to Bouquet, which included Campbell's name. The Pennsylvania Gazette also carried an advertisement placed by Mary Campbell's family, which read in part:
- "...Mary Campbell, then in her 10th year, red haired, and much freckled. Her Father hearing that she is now at Albany, and being unable to go so far, begs that she may, by all good People, be helped on her way to him as he and her aged mother, are very desirous of seeing her."
Campbell married Joseph Willford in 1770 in Mt. Pleasant Township, in what was then York but is now Adams County, Pennsylvania. In 1778 they moved to Bald Ridge Farm, Dunkard Township, in present day Greene County, Pennsylvania. Mary gave birth to five sons, Samuel, Daniel, William, Dougal, and Joseph, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret. She died in 1801, probably in Greene, Pennsylvania, and was buried there.
Cultural Significance
Mary Campbell is widely known of in Northeast Ohio and parts of Pennsylvania, and is spoken of as an example of courage and fortitude. The story is also cited as evidence that popular stereotypes of Native American brutality are not justified. Most long-time residents know the basics of her story, which is frequently told to children, and the general facts of her experience are taught in local schools.Mary Campbell's local popularity has led to a number of books, including Song of Courage, Song of Freedom: The Story of the Child, Mary Campbell, Held Captive in Ohio by the Delaware Indians from 1759-1764 by Marilyn Seguin, and The Beaded Moccasins : The Story of Mary Campbell by Lynda Durrant. Both are fictional books about Mary Campbell and her circumstances. It is possible that fictional material from these books has led to the introduction of false details in contemporary sources of information on Mary Campbell.
Apocryphal and Conflicting Information
While the general story of Mary Campbell is always the same, and the biographical facts are generally well documented, a number of apocryphal details, often in conflict with other information about Mary Campbell's life, persist in present-day sources. These include:
- Some sources give Mary Campbell's birth year as 1750.
- Various sources give her year of abduction as 1757 or 1759.
- According to information from Minnie Myrtle Wiley, a great granddaughter of Mary Campbell, she was taken by Delaware Indians (i.e. the Lenape) from or near a stockade in Penn's Creek, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania where she and others had come for safety.
- Some sources, including the Mary Campbell Memorial placed just outside Mary Campbell Cave, claim that Mary was abducted in 1759 at the age of twelve years. If so, her birth would have been in 1747, and her repatriation would have occurred at around 17 years of age.
- Many modern sources report that Mary Campbell was abducted along with a person identified as Mrs. Stuart or Stewart. A Mary Stewart is listed in the Pennsylvania Gazette list of January 17, 1765, but is not present on Captain Lewis' list.
- Some sources say Mary Campbell was returned in 1765, even though Campbell's return in 1764 is well documented by primary sources. In May, 1765, a second group of captives were turned over to Colonel Bouquet, perhaps principally by the Shawnee. This group included an unrelated couple named "James and Mary Campbell." It is possible that these sources confuse this event for the earlier one that involved Mary Campbell. Some stories say Campbell was reunited with her family in 1765, so it could also be that the date of her reunion with her family is being confused with the date of her repatriation to British forces.
- According to Rebecca Xavier, members of the Willford family, and others, there is a strong family tradition amongst Mary's descendants that she was very well treated by the Lenape, that she was sad to be separated from them, and that the Lenape were sad to see her go.
- Mary is said to have been turned over to Boquet at one of several places, depending on the source. It is plausible that Campbell could have moved through several or all of these locations in the course of leaving her Lenape home on the Cuyahoga and returning to her family in Pennsylvania. The locations indicated as the site of her return to Bouquet include:
- * the confluence of the Tuscarawas River and White Woman's River (now known as the Walhonding River) near present-day Coshocton, Ohio;
- * Chillicothe, Ohio;
- * Newcomerstown, Ohio;
- * the banks of the Muskingum River in Ohio (her presence there is supported by Captain Lewis' list);
- * Fort Carlyle, Pennsylvania.
- Some stories indicate that Mary Campbell was reunited with her family when they attended a return of prisoners between Native Americans and settlers on July 25, 1766. These sources sometimes state that Mary Campbell recognised a lullaby that her mother was humming, and that thereby the "little girl" (as the sixteen to eighteen year old woman is invariably called in such accounts) was reunited with her family. The earliest publication of this story is probably in Akron and Summit County History by Grismer, who identifies it only as a possibility. It seems certain the story does not reference Campbell.
- The Willford History contains an account that differs from the usual in several important respects. It gives her year of abduction as 1757 (and says it happened while she was tending cows with her brother William), was held in captivity for seven years near the Muskingum River, until Bouquet's officers returned her to her parents at Fort Carlyle, Pennsylvania, in November or December 1764. This account also says that Campbell hoed corn on the Muskingum floodplain, using a hoe made from a deer scapula attached to a stick with tendon. There is also a family tradition that Mary's brother William was also abducted but died in captivity.
- According to Eleanor Womer, Dugal Campbell (Mary's brother) accompanied Colonel Bouquet to the Muskingum. He stood on a log and yelled out Mary Campbell's name, and saw that a Native woman clapped her hand over a girl's mouth in response. The girl was Mary Campbell, and that is how she was recovered. While this is uncertain, it is known that relatives of a number of known captives traveled with Bouquet in October 1764.
- In addition to brothers Dougal and William, Mary Campbell also had a brother Daniel. Daniel and William are said to have served in the Revolution; Daniel in the same outfit with Campbell's husband, Joseph Wilford. The William who served in the revolution is known from his pension record, and is documented to have been born in 1761, so cannot be the same William described in the Wilford History.
See also
- Catherine See, another captive during the French and Indian war, and part of Captain Lewis' group along with Mary Campbell.
Sources
Sources consulted for the "Biography" include:- [Adell Carr Smith's research summary]
- [Rebecca Xavier's research summary]
- Karl H. Grismer, Akron and Summit County History, Higginson Book Co, 1994. ASIN: B0006P5YLE
- Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin #30, Part 2, Page 58 (establishes Netawatwees presence at Cuyahoga Falls during Mary Campbell's captivity).
- John Heckewelder, A Narrative of the Mission of the United Brethren Among the Delaware and Mohegan Indians, Page 230 (establishes Netawatwees presence at Cuyahoga Falls during Mary Campbell's captivity).
- Photocopy of pages 317-318 of the Bouquet Papers. The originals are held in the British Museum; copies are available in the Canadian Archives in Ottawa, and the US Library of Congress. The papers record Colonel Bouquet's actions in the area of Western Pennsylvania and Ohio, and is the source for Captain Lewis' list. See also this same list as reproduced [in a See family history]. This source also establishes the association between Netawatwees and Mary Campbell.
- Pennsylvania Gazette, LIST of CAPTIVES taken by the INDIANS, and delivered to Colonel BOUQUET, by the Mingoes, Delawares, Shawanese, Wyondots and Mohickons, at Tuscarawas and Muskingam, in November, 1764, published on January 17, 1765. Part of this notice is reproduced [in some documentation for the Fincher family history]. Note that the Report to the Cuyahoga Falls Chapter, D.A.R., mentions the same notice as appearing in the Maryland Gazette of the same date.
- Report to the Cuyahoga Falls Chapter, D.A.R., June 1934, by Mrs. J. B. McPherson entitled "Mary Campbell - The First White Child on the Western Reserve". This report is also available at the [Mary Campbell site].
- Pennsylvania Gazette, advertisement by Mary Campbell's family, published October 1764 (sic). This is the source adopted here for Campbell's year of birth and date of abduction. The year of publication of this advertisement comes from a handwritten note on an incomplete photocopy of low quality, and is possibly in error or is being misread. If the month is correct, the ad is likely to be found in an October 1765 edition, since several traditions tell of Mary Campbell reunion with her family in 1765. Someone else with a photocopy of this ad has commented on it [in another family history archive].
- This article's original author's childhood recollections.
- Information on the books from Amazon.com.
- [An Otterbein bibliography]
- The Mary Cambell Memorial, a plaque laid by the Mary Campbell Society, Children of the American Revolution of Cuyahoga Falls, in 1934.
- Metroparks interpretive signs, as of 2005.
- Metroparks brochure, no author, dated 1978.
- Summit County Historical Society information sheet, ca. 1981 (no author).
- The Summit MetroParks web page about [Gorge Park].
- [The Cuyahoga Valley Indians page]
- William Willford. Genealogy and History of the Willford Family in America. Canton Minnesota: 1916. This history contains recollections of William's grandmother Mary Ann Willford, nee Eniex or Enochs. She was the wife of Joseph Wilford Jr. who was one of Mary Campbell's sons. This work is one source of the 1750 birth date for Mary Campbell.
- Peter Peterson Cherry, The Portage Path, Western Reserve Co, 1911. ASIN: B00085IORI
- The Legend of Mary Campbell, in the December 1985 edition of Our Town Akron, pages 2 through 4.
- John E Hopley, History of Crawford County and Representative Citizens, Whipporwill Publications, 1983. ASIN: B0006YBZZ4. See the biography of Lorenzo Dow Willford on pages 1229 to 1233.
- Allan W. Eckert, The Conquerors, Bantam Books, 1981, p. 768.
- (unknown author and date), Green Islands, Akron Metropolitan Park District. This is a brochure, which contains an article "Why Mary Campbell Cave?"
- A book called "History of the Delaware Indians." This might refer to Richard C. Adams, A Brief History of the Delaware Indians, US Congress and Senate, 59th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Document Number 501, Serial Number 4916, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1906.
- John Gottlieb Ernestus Heckewelder and Paul A. W. Wallace, Thirty Thousand Miles with John Heckewelder, Wennawoods Pub (April, 2000), ISBN 1889037133
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