Akron and Summit County History

This next story is from the Akron and Summit County history. “In 1763 Co. Henry Bouquet soundly defeated a large force of Indians at Bush Run and in the fall of 1764 led an expedition into Ohio and forced several tribes to sue for peace. Bouquet so intimidated the Indians that they agreed to turn over to him every white person they had captured since hostilities began at the start of the French and Indian War. The Indians kept their promises and brought in 81 men and 125 women and children. The captives were released at Bouquet’s camp at the junction of the Tuscarawas and White Woman’s River, now known as the Walhonding, near the present town of Coshocton, about 60 miles south of Akron.
An old account of touching scenes at this history making reunion told about a woman who came to Colonel Bouquet’s camp in search of a daughter she had lost long before. Day after day this woman anxiously waited but saw no familiar face and heard no familiar voice. Finally, just as she was about ready to give up hope, a girl clad in Indian clothes was brought before her. The woman’s heart pounded. This undoubtedly was her daughter. Breathlessly the woman moved forward to clasp the girl in her arms. Then she stopped. The girl looked at the woman with no glimpse of recognition in her eyes, and had turned away.
Colonel Bouquet stepped up. “Perhaps she had forgotten you,” he said. “Sing a song you sang over her cradle; she may remember.” The woman sang a lullaby, one she bad sung countless times before when her daughter was a baby. The girl stopped and listened intently.
then, suddenly tears came to her eyes and she rushed into the woman’s arms. Both wept with happiness. Mother and daughter were reunited.
This reunion could easily have been that of a girl named Mary Campbell and her mother. (Because of the family stories that her brother found her, it isn’t Mary.) Mary’s home had been in Cumberland County, Pa. Another family was living with her parents, a Mr. and Mrs. Stuart and their four children. One day in the summer of 1759, when all the grown people were away, a group of Indians crept out of the forest. They seized the children, shoved them into the cabin, and then hid outside, waiting for the adult members of the family to appear.
A short time later, Mrs. Stuart came down the path alone. She heard the children screaming in the cabin and hurried forward, only to be captured by the Indians. Without waiting longer, the savages tied their prisoners together and forced them to walk many miles to an Indian camp in Armstrong County. There the group was separated. Mary Campbell, then seven years old, was adopted by Chief Netawatwees and taken to his village at the big falls called Coppacaw on the Cuyahoga River.
During the years of captivity which followed, Mary was always treated kindly, the chief was fond of her and gave her everything he gave to his own children. She learned to live as the Indians lived and, as time went on, became quite happy. she remained at the big falls until Chief Netawatwees delivered her to Colonel Bouquet. It is said that when the red man said farewell to her, his voice choked with sorrow. He stroked her hair, gripped her arm, and then hurried away into the forest, never once looking back.
To perpetuate the name of the girl captive who lived on the Cuyahoga so many years ago, the cave at the falls known to old timers as Old Maid’s Kitchen has been renamed the Mary Campbell Cave by the Daughters of the American Revolution. It is located on the north bank of the river in Metropolitan Park close to the Ohio Edison dam ( Akron, Ohio).

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