| MARY CAMPBELL — Mary Ann Eniex | ||
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Mary Ann Eniex The story of Mary Campbell has to be the most fascinating part of our family history. Each source has a little bit different information so you will have to use your imagination and decide for yourself which version is fact. What I would consider the most factual come from her descendants. The first is from her daughter-in-law Mary Ann (Enochs or Eniex) Willford. Her grandson, William Willford, wrote the Willford History in 1916 largely from statements made to him by Mary Ann from 1854 to 1866. He states, “During the twelve years of our intimate acquaintance with this lady, we lived about one half a mile from where she resided. We found that she possessed a remarkable active mind, and had a tenacious memory, besides she had the faculty of imparting to others what she had heard related”. According to Mary Ann, Mary Campbell was born in Cumberland Co. Pennsylvania in 1750. Her story, as it must have been told to her by her husband, Joseph Willford, who was Mary Campbell's son, is: “Mary Campbell was taken as a captive by the Delaware Indians near Penns Creek, Cumberland Co. Pa. in the summer of 1757 while going with her brother William for the cows, and was held in captivity seven years along the Muskingum River, until Colonel Bouquet with his little army, made a peace treaty with the Delaware and Shawnee Indians at the Forks of the Muskingum River, where she was given up to the commanding officer of the Expedition, who returned her to her parents at Fort Carlyle, Pa. in Nov. or Dec. 1764. Mary Campbell while a captive with the Delaware Indians from 1757 to 1764 hoed corn on the rich bottomland along the Muskingum River, in Ohio with a hoe made by fastening a shoulder blade bone of a deer to a stick with the tendons taken from a deer leg. This was the corn raising country of the Delaware Indians at that time.” Questions concerning the site or its content can be asked here. | ||