Pennsylvania Gazette - Bierce's Early Signs of Ohio - Perrin's History of Summit County - Cherry's The Portage Path
Mary Campbell Cave, located in Cuyahoga Falls within the boundaries of the Gorge Metropolitan Park, was reportedly an American Indian camp site. The cave was created during the last 12,000 years when the Cuyahoga River was forced to carve a new path toward Lake Erie because it was blocked by glacial debris. For many years it was known as Old Maid's Kitchen, until the Daughters of the American Revolution renamed it Mary Campbell Cave.
In the summer of 1759, Mary Campbell, a young girl from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, was abducted by Delaware Indians and taken to an Indian camp in Armstrong County, PA. She was rumored to have been adopted and raised as a daughter by Chief Netawatwees, whose village was located near present day Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. In 1764, Colonel Henry Boquet, an officer of the English army, liberated Mary and other white captives after the French and Indian War ended. There is no known documentation of Mary living in this particular area however.
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"All but the Pennsylvania Gazette article would be considered secondary sources and require a great deal of interpretation, but should help students of local history understand where on earth this story originated - mostly wild imaginations. There is an extraordinary Indian captive account in the PA Gazette about the family of Charles Stewart from the same area where Mary was taken, but it happened in Nov. 1755 and Mary was taken in May 1758. This fact further suggest all these stories originated with Bierce.""The Bierce account is the closest thing we've got to "history" but even that one requires a lot of interpretation.All in all, the family doesn't recognize the Cuyahoga Town or this area for references in any of their family histories. They only know of the place where Mary was taken by Bouquet at the Muskingum. They also say she was captured at Penn's Creek, which is a long way from the Big Cove area of Conegochieg, Cumberland County, PA where almost all the captures took place. I've been unable to locate any references to any hostile Indian actions in the Penn Creek area in 1758 or a few years before or after". - Michael Cohill
The Pennsylvania GazetteOctober 11, 1764 Taken by the Indians, from Cumberland County, May 21st,
Early Scenes in Ohio By L.V. Bierce, 1851Summit County Beacon, November 8, 1851, 1:7ABJ Microfilm SeriesUniversity of Akron, L.V. Bierce Library -----In 1759 Dugald Campbell, a Highland Scotchman of the Campbell Clan was living in Tuscarora Valley on the bank Canncoquin Creek, in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. In the same house with Campbell resided a family by the name of Stuart - consisting of the man, his wife and several children - one of which was an infant.Campbell had a daughter, Mary, a black-eyed, lovely little child of seven summers. Mrs. Stuart left home one day to visit a neighbor’s entrusting her children to the care of Mary Campbell. On her return and when near the house, she heard the children screaming and at that instant a party of Delaware Indians came out of the house with all the children, including her infant and Mary Campbell, prisoners. They seized Mrs. Stuart and added her to the number of captives and then started for their camp on the Catanions in what is now Armstrong County. Soon becoming tired of the infant, they dashed out its brains in presence of its mother. Mrs. Stuart also had a little boy about seven years old, who was either unable to walk or refused to do so and the Indians carried him for three days on their backs. On the third day the Indian who had him on his back, fell behind the company, but soon came up without the child, but with a little white scalp hanging to his belt. Mrs. Stuart recognizing the curly locks of her little Sam, the Indian said “Hoo! Otter skin.” Mrs. Stuart and the rest of her children, remained prisoners until the Treaty of the Muskingum, by Bradstreet and Bouquet in 1763, when they were given up. Mary Campbell was adopted by Netawatwees, head Chief of the Turtle band of the Delawares, who, in 1718, signed the Treaty of Conestoga. From the time of her adoption by Netawatwees, Mary was treated with great kindness and shared equally in the affections of her adopted parents with the other children.At the foot of these falls were two villages, one on the south side belonging to the Iroquois, the one on the north side belonging to the Delaware, the river being the boundary between their nations. Soon after the removal of Netawatwees to the Fall of the Cuyahoga, the Indians made another incursion into Pennsylvania, and murdered a number of people, and took many prisoners at Tulpehauken, in what is now Bercks County. Among the prisoners was a Dutch woman, who was taken to the Falls of Cuyahoga. A council was then called to decide on the fate of the prisoners. They gave the Dutch woman the choice to marry one of three Indians who where willing to marry her, or be killed. One of the three was the murderer of her husband, one a miserable ugly Indian and the third was the adopted uncle of Mary Campbell. She chose the uncle of Mary, to whom she was married and with whom she lived till the Treaty of 1763. They had four children and as by the Treaty, all persons having white blood were to be given up, her husband became almost frantic at the thought of a separation. Gladly would he have abandoned his savage life and returned with them; but such was the hostility of the whites toward them that he was advised that his life would be the price of doing so. His wife finally consented to divide the children - she taking two and leaving two.While Mary was living at the Falls honey bees first made their appearance among the Indians. The Indians were much frightened as they said bees were the forerunners of the pale faces.The reason the Indians did not fight Bradstreet and Bouquet, was Bouquet had sent a man by the name of Owen to carry dispatches to Bradstreet, but he was captured with his dispatches by the Indians. The dispatches, which the adopted uncle of Mary Campbell could read, showed the strength of the whites to be superior to that of the Indians, that they decided to treat, and not fight. Netawatwees refused to attend the Treaty, but attempted to escape. He was intercepted by Bouquets Indian spies and brought before Col. Bouquet, who deposed him from his Chieftainship and put another in his stead. No sooner, however, were the whites gone than the Delaware reinstated him, and he held his office till 1776, when he died at Pittsburgh.While Mary resided at the Falls a pappoose was killed in a mysterious manner. Suspicion rested on an old squaw, but there was not sufficient proof against her to convict. - Soon after a squaw was murdered while at work in a cornfield a little below the present village of Cuyahoga Falls, on the north side of the river. After being a prisoner seven years, Mary Campbell was surrendered up at the Treaty of Muskingum in 1763 and taken home. In 1771 she was married to Joseph Wilford of Cumberland County, Pa. father of the Rev. Samuel and grandfather a Joseph Wilford Esq., lately a Member of the Legislate of Ohio, from Green Township, Wayne County, Ohio, where they now reside.
During the border wars of the last half of the last century, the Indian villages, in what is now Summit County, were actively engaged. They sent numerous small bands to Western Pennsylvania to massacre the white pioneers in the border, and destroy their habitations. It is extremely probable that some of the borderers who were captured on these expeditions were tortured to death at the villages in Summit County. Perhaps these spots, now so quite and peaceful, once echoed with the frenzied death-cries of white men, while around, on every hand, circled the leaping and exulting savages, tearing up with hot iron the bleeding flesh of the despairing sufferers, and filling the air with their dreadful yells of revenge. Here the dusky savages, decked in the gaudy ornaments of border war, invoked the favor of their god before descending like death upon the defenseless settlements. Here could be heard their wild chants - “Ne-gau niu-ne gau nissau - Kitchi-mau-li-sau-negau nissau” (I will kill - I will kill - The white man - I will kill) before they started on those expeditions, of which we read in histories. In 1759, there lived in Cumberland County Penn., a family named Campbell, consisting of the father and a bright girl, about seven years old, named Mary. Residing in the same house was another family named Stuart, consisting of the husband and wife and four or five children, one of those being an infant. One day, when the men were absent, Mrs. Stuart left her children in charge of the little girl Mary, and when a mile or two distant to the house of a neighbor. In her absence, a small band of Delaware Indians took possession of the cabin, and made all the children prisoners, much to the consternation of little Mary, who was old enough to know some awful calamity was pending. The Indians, knowing that the adult members of the family were not far away, made preparations to receive them. As Mrs. Stuart, on her return, approached the house, she heard the children screaming, and hurried forward, but was instantly made prisoner by the savages, who then thought it best not to wait the return of the men, but, with their prisoner, started for their camp in Armstrong County. They soon became tired of carrying the infant, which was fretful, and one of them finally took it, and in the presence of its shrieking mother, dashed its brains out against a tree, and cast its quivering body in the bushes. The Indians pushed on rapidly, urging their weary and agonized prisoners to their best pace, and carrying those that finally gave out. A little boy about seven years old, named Sammy, was carried upon the back of one of the Indians until the latter was tired. On the third day, this Indians fell behind the others, and when he again appeared, the little boy was missing while at his belt Mrs. Stuart recognized the curly locks of her little Sammy. The poor mother and her children were hurried on until at last weary and footsore, they reached the Indian village. Here they were soon separated, and one or more of them was adopted by the Indians. The following year, Netawatwees, the chief of this band, removed with his followers and prisoners to their village at the “Big Falls” of the Cuyahoga, now in Summit County, Ohio. Mary had been adopted by the chief, and was treated with uniform kindness, occupying a position of equality with the Indian children. Here the prisoners remained until 1764, when they were delivered to Col. Bouquet, at his fort in Tuscarawas County, and soon afterward were returned to their friends in Pennsylvania. It is very probable that other white prisoners from the Indian villages in Summit County were delivered up at this treaty. Col. Bouquet had come out with an army of 1,500 men. The appearance of this force awed the Indians, and they sued for peace in the most abject manner, delivering up at the same time, some 300 white captives. Fathers, brothers and husbands Had come out in hopes of finding their lost friends, and when the captives were given up the scene beggars description. “There were seen,” says a writer in the Historical Record, “fathers and mothers recognizing and clasping their once captive little ones; husbands hung around newly-recovered wives; brothers and sisters met after long separation, scarcely able to speak the same language , or to realize that they were children of the same parents! In the interviews, there was inexpressible joy and rapture; while, in some cases, feelings of a very different character were manifested by looks of language. Many were flying from place to place, making eager inquiries after relatives not found, trembling to receive answers to their questions, distracted with doubts, hopes and fears; distressed and grieved on obtaining no information about the friends they sought, and, in some cases, petrified into living monuments of horror and woe on learning their unhappy fate.” “In many cases,” Albach Says, “strong attachments had grown up between the savages and their captives, so that they were reluctantly surrendered, some even not without tears, accompanied with some token of remembrance.” The girl, Mary Campbell, and Mrs. Stuart and her children, were the first white persons known to have lived in what is now Summit County.
The Portage Path, by P. P. Cherry Cherry, Peter Peterson, 1848‑ ??Akron, O., The Western Reserve Company, 1911 Upon the return of Mrs. Stuart from her neighbors she heard the screaming of her frightened children long before she reached the cabins. Starting on a run she was horrified upon opening the door to find the room filled with savages. She was instantly made a prisoner, and hurried preparations were immediately begun for departure. The younger children were divided among their captors who made off with them and their plunder on their backs; Mrs. Stuart carrying the infant which was fretful and hard to keep quite. The savages convinced that it retarded their flight, in spite of the woman’s entreaties, took it from her arms, and in the presence of the shrinking mother, dashed its brains out against a tree and threw its yet quivering body into the bushes besides the path and increased their speed, urging their tired, alarmed and grief stricken captives to their best pace. Among the prisoners was Sammy Stuart, a little 7 year old boy, who found it difficult to keep up with the others, and was frequently carried on the back of the Indian to whom he was assigned. On the third day out from the cabin, the savage who was carrying little Sammy dropped behind the others but soon reappeared alone, with a fresh scalp hanging at his belt which the frantic mother recognized as that of her little son. There was no time for grief, as the savages were continually nagging their captives to a greater speed by frequent use of blows and threats.Arriving at the Indian village the family was separated. All of the children, except Mary were taken to other villages, and upon the expulsion of the Delaware from Pennsylvania valleys in 1759-60, Netawatwees and his tribe, with Mrs. Stuart and Mary Campbell, moved to the Cuyahoga valley, settling at the Big Falls of the Cuyahoga, Hopocan, as the Indians called it. Mary Campbell’s first home in the Ohio country, was in the AOld Maid’s Kitchen, where the squaws and papooses were temporarily domiciled, until the village could be built. This spot, for a time long unknown had been the site of an Indian village. Previous to 1650, the Eries, that little known and very mysterious race, had a village here. After their massacre and dispersion as a race by the combined Five Nations, the Iroquois built a village on the south side of the river; a little later, Netawatwees erected his village on the north bank. As far back as is known, the plain of North Hill was without signs of ancient forest growth. The entire plain, as well as certain points of the Cuyahoga valley, was used by the Indians as corn fields.When first seen by the whites the North Hill was a green oasis of a waist-high, waving mass of variegated wild flowers, beautiful beyond comparison, hemmed in and around by gigantic trees of an ancient forest growth. It was here that little Mary Campbell hoed corn 72 years before Akron became a village. She had been adopted by the King of all Delaware tribes in the Ohio country, and was kindly treated. She spent much of her time at the northern terminus of Portage Path, fishing, nutting, and gathering berries, and as far as is known was the first white female ever on or near the historic path.Not only this, but as far as is known, Mrs. Stuart and Mary Campbell were the first female captives with the limits of the Western Reserve.During the winter of 1755, Col. James Smith was held captive at the falls of Elyria. In making his escape he made his way through Medina County and presumably along the Central Sandusky and Fort Pitt Indian Trail, crossing the northern part of Portage Path at Old Portage.The year that first saw Mrs. Stuart and Mary Campbell prisoner also brought that great historical figure, Pontiac, prominently before the American people. His camp, further down the Cuyahoga, was known to the borders as Ponty’s Camp, and became a great historical landmark. Major Rogers with 200 British soldiers were at that time camped on the Cuyahoga.In 1764, Mary Campbell was turned over to Gen. Bouquet, on the Tuscarawas, and was returned home where she was afterwards married to Joseph Wilford, in the year 1771. She afterwards resided in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, where she raised a large family of children. Her son became one of the earliest pioneers of Stark County, and his son, her grandchild, afterwards became a member of the Ohio Legislature, from Wayne County. He was named after his grandfather, Joseph Wilford. Cherry was an amateur historian, very popular locally and very creative with this history. He was 63 years old when the wrote The Portage Path. He was 75 when he wrote The Western Reserve and Early Ohio, And, he was 85 when the Cuyahoga Falls D.A.R. asked him where he got his information about Mary Campbell’s Cave. The Story of Mary Campbell, The First White Female on the Portage PathAmong the prisoners delivered to Col. Bouquet at his headquarters on the Tuscarawas river - in the fall of 1764, were a Mrs. Stuart and her companion, little 12 year old Mary Campbell. These so far as is known, were the only white prisoners held by the Indians in the territory now included in Summit County. The story of these lonely waifs so far from people of their own color is but one of many in the annals of border warfare of that day. The greatest number of white prisoners held at the time by the Indians can best be estimated by the number delivered to Bouquet but 25 miles below the south line of the Western Reserve. The records show that he received 49 males, and 64 females belonging to Pennsylvania, with 32 males and 58 females belonging to Virginia, a total of 206; plus 356 captives held in but a small portion of the state.In the fall of 1759, shortly after the signing of the Crogan treaty of that year, the Delaware Chieftain and King of the Wolf clans, Netawatwees and his warriors, after a prolonged pow-wow in their village near Kittanning, struck the painted post and in all the rude panoply of war-paint and feathers, marched forth against the scattered white settlements on the Susquehanna. Among the outlying lonely hamlets in this beautiful valley was an isolated cabin occupied jointly by two families; one by the name of Campbell consisting of the father and daughter Mary, the other consisting of Mr. Stuart, his wife and four children. For some time nothing had arisen to alarm the lonely settlers, and in the morning in question, the two men after eating their breakfast, departed to their labor, not knowing that every motion was shadowed by a savage and relentless foe. After the morning’s work was finished Mrs. Stuart who had an errand at their nearest neighbors, several miles distant, left her children in the care of little Mary Campbell and departed on her journey. Some time after the woman’s departure the Indians, much to the alarm of the children, took possession of the cabin, waiting for the return of some of the adults. Little Mary, although too young to understand the full import of the proceeding, was very much frightened and kept the huddled children near her in one corner of the room. While waiting, the Indians ransacked the house and made up their bags of plunder.
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Mary Campbell: Family Accounts
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