Merry Flanagan

The next story is from Merry Flanagan. It is the story as told to her by her mother, Stella Maust Barr who is Mary Campbell’s great, great, great, great grandaughter. “Count on your fingers five grandparents back - one, two, three, four, five - and you come to your grandmother Mary Campbell. Mary was a little girl living with her daddy, mother and brothers in the wilderness of eastern U. S. One time the Indians were on the warpath, scalping people. So Mary’s family all went to a fort to stay until the danger was past. The fort was very crowded because people had come from many miles to be safe from the Indians, and they brought their cattle with them.
One day when the danger seemed over, the people let their cattle out to pasture. That night the men rounded up the cattle and saw no Indians. The next day they let the cattle out again. Still no sign of Indians. So as the children were getting restless, the next day the parents said, “you can go and get the cattle”. The children were very happy and excited. Among the children going out for the cattle was 7 year old Mary Campbell. Well, the Indians came whooping out of the woods and captured the children! Poor little Mary was taken away from her parents and brother! Of course her parents were sad, and they never gave up looking for Mary. Whenever there was a gathering of Indians Mary’s brother would stand up on a stump and shout her name. (Every child was taught to remember its name.) About 7 years after Mary was lost, her brother was at a gathering of Indians. He stood on a stump and yelled, “Mary Campbell’. He saw an old Indian squaw clap her hand over a girl’s mouth. He went down to that squaw and the girl beside the squaw had blue eyes! No Indian had blue eyes. He had found his sister. How happy Mary’s parents and brother were. Mary was now 14. She had lived with the Indians 7 years and been adopted by the Indian Squaw. She was always treated kindly and she had trouble getting used to white people’s ways again. When she was 20 she married Joseph Willford and had several children, but she always liked to go out in the woods by herself and remember her years with the Indians.

The following information also comes from Merry Flannigan.
Documentation of the Mary Campbell story has been made by the D.A.R., by U.S. military records and by other written records. These records show:
Mary's parents of Scotch-Irish heritage lived in Pennsylvania prior to 1757. The Scotch-Irish had been early settlers in Pennsylvania. Unlike the Quakers and German Mennonites who were other early settlers in the state, the Scotch-Irish were apt to be pugnacious. Penn, founder of the state, recognized this Scotch-Irish trait and settled this group along the Pennsylvania-Maryland border to "discourage" the Maryland Catholics infiltrating "his" colony. Also, because of this trait, it seemed Scotch-Irish didn't always get along with their neighbors, and consequently pushed inland. For whatever reason, Mary Campbell's parents were among the latter group. At least they were in upper Pennsylvania during the French and Indian War.
During this war between France and England, the Indians primarily assisted the French, and attacked the settlers in British areas many times. The settlers for protection built forts - really fortified houses - to which they would retreat when Indians threatened. It was to one of these so-called forts along Penn Creek in middle and upper Pennsylvania that Mary Campbell's family had gone in 1757. And from such a fort the children, among them Mary, went out to round-up cattle, and were attacked by Delaware Indians. Some children were killed; others, like Mary, were made captive.
Mary, at that time seven years old, was adopted by the tribe of Chief Netawatee, and taken to the "big falls" on the Cuyahoga River. At that time this was Western Reserve Territory; today it is Ohio. The Indians lived in a cave near the falls and grew corn nearby. Mary helped cultivate the corn using a hoe made by fastening a deer's shoulder blade bone to a stick with tendons from a deer's leg. During the years of captivity Mary was treated kindly by the Indians, and like some other captives became quite content.

Questions concerning the site or its content can be asked here.