Mary Draper Ingles (1732 – February 1815), also known in records as Mary Inglis or Mary English, was an American pioneer and early settler of western Virginia. In the summer of 1755, she and her two young sons were among several captives taken by Shawnee after the Draper's Meadow Massacre during the French and Indian War. They were taken to Lower Shawneetown at the Ohio and Scioto rivers. Ingles escaped with another woman after two and a half months and trekked 500 to 600 miles, crossing numerous rivers, creeks, and the Appalachian Mountains to return home.
Two somewhat different accounts of Mary Draper Ingles' capture and escape, one written by her son John Ingles,Pendleton, William Cecil. History of Tazewell County and Southwest Virginia: 1748–1920. W. C. Hill printing Company, 1920; pp 443–447 and the other by Letitia Preston Floyd,Floyd, Letitia Preston, "Memoirs of Letitia Preston Floyd, written Feb. 22, 1843 to her son Benjamin Rush Floyd," transcribed from the original by Jim Glanville and Ryan Mays; in Smithfield Review, vol. 20, 2016 an acquaintance, are the main sources from which the story is known.
The story became well known following the 1855 publication of William Henry Foote's account in Sketches of Virginia: Historical and Biographical, William Henry Foote, Sketches of Virginia: Historical and Biographical, Vol. 2; William S. Martien, 1855; p. 149. based on Mary's son's manuscript. It was further publicized in 1886 with the publication of an embellished version in John P. Hale's Trans-Allegheny pioneers: historical sketches of the first white settlements west of the Alleghenies.John P. Hale, Trans-Allegheny pioneers: historical sketches of the first white settlements west of the Alleghenies, Cincinnati: The Graphic Press, 1886.
Biography
Early life
Mary Draper Ingles was born in 1732 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to George and Elenor (Hardin) Draper, who had immigrated to America from County Donegal, Ireland in 1729. Between 1740 and 1744, the Draper family moved to the western frontier of Virginia, settling in Pattonsburg on the James River. According to John P. Hale, in 1744 George Draper went on an exploratory trip into what is now West Virginia, and never returned, although there is evidence that Draper was still alive as late as 1748.Ryan S. Mays, "The Draper's Meadows Settlement (1746–1756)," Part II, The Smithfield Review, Volume 19, 2015 By 1746 his family had established Draper's Meadow, a pioneer settlement on the banks of Stroubles Creek near modern-day Blacksburg, Virginia.Ryan S. Mays, "The Draper's Meadows Settlement (1746–1756)," Part I, The Smithfield Review, Volume 18, 2014
In 1750, Mary married fellow settler William Ingles (1729–1782). They had two sons prior to Mary's captivity: Thomas Ingles, born in 1751, and George, in 1753. Three daughters and a son were born to them after Mary's return from captivity.
Draper's Meadow massacre
On 30 July (or 8 July, according to John P. Hale and Letitia Preston Floyd), 1755, during the French and Indian War, a band of about sixteen Shawnee warriors (then allies of the French) raided Draper's Meadow and killed at least four settlers, including Colonel James Patton, Mary's mother and Mary's infant niece, and a neighbor named Caspar Barger. Paper presented at Northern Kentucky History Day, 2009. They took five captives, including Mary and her two sons, her sister-in-law Bettie Robertson Draper, and her neighbor Henry Lenard (or Leonard). Mary's husband was nearly killed but fled into the forest.
Captivity The Shawnee took their captives, along with several horses loaded with items taken from the settlers' homes, northwest along the New River, then along the Ohio River. They traveled for a month to Lower Shawneetown, located at the confluence of the Scioto and Ohio rivers. Upon arrival at the town, the prisoners were made to undergo the ritual of running the gauntlet: When their Warriors arrive within half a Mile of their Towns, it is their custom to whip those who have been so unfortunate as to fall into their Hands, all the Remainder of the Way till they get to the Town, and that it was in this Manner our poor unhappy Neighbors from Virginia had been treated by them.Contemporary newspaper account of Mary Ingles' escape in the New York Mercury, 26 January 1756, p. 3, col. 1; in Early Documents Relating to Mary Ingles and the Escape from Big Bone Lick, transcribed by James Duvall, Boone County Public Library, Burlington, KY 2008
According to her son, Mary was not required to do this. Mary was separated from her sons, who were adopted by Shawnee families. According to John P. Hale, Mary's oldest son Thomas was taken to Detroit, her sister-in-law Bettie was taken to what is now Chillicothe, Ohio, and her youngest son George was taken to an unknown location and died soon afterward. One source states that another captive, Mary's neighbor Henry Leonard, later escaped, although no details are given.Lyman Chalkley, Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish Settlement in Virginia: Extracted from the Original Court Records of Augusta County, 1745–1800, Volume 2. Augusta County (Va.): The Commonwealth Printing Company, 2010; p. 510. An article in the New-York Mercury of 16 February 1756, describing Mary's capture and escape, mentions that while in Lower Shawneetown she saw "a considerable Number of English Prisoners, who have been taken Captives from the Frontiers of Virginia."
Letitia Preston Floyd and other sources state that, about "three months" after being taken prisoner, Mary gave birth to a daughter, although there is evidence to the contrary. As a prisoner, Mary sewed shirts using cloth traded to the Indians by French traders and, at the insistence of the traders, she was paid in goods for her work. The Mercury newspaper account states that Mary was also assigned "to attend [the Native Americans] as Servant, to dress their Victuals, and stretch the Skins they might procure." In October 1755, about three weeks after reaching Lower Shawneetown, she was taken to the Big Bone salt lick to make salt for the Indians by boiling brine.
Escape and journey home While working at Big Bone Lick, in late October 1755, Mary persuaded another captive woman, referred to as the "old Dutch woman" but who may have been German, to escape with her. The next day (probably 19 October) they asked permission of the Native Americans to go into the forest to gather wild grapes, and set off, retracing the route their captors had followed after Mary was taken captive in July. They wore moccasins and carried only a tomahawk and a knife (both of which were eventually lost), and two blankets. As they were leaving the camp, they met three French traders from Detroit who were harvesting walnuts. Mary traded her old dull tomahawk for a new one.
The women went north, following the Ohio River as it curves to the east. Expecting pursuit, they tried to hurry at first. As it turned out, the Shawnee made only a brief search, assuming the two women had been "destroyed by wild beasts." The Shawnee told this account to Mary's son Thomas Ingles, when he met some of them many years later after the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774.
After four or five days the women reached the junction of the Ohio and Scioto rivers, where they could see Lower Shawneetown in the distance, on the opposite riverbank. There they found an abandoned cabin, which contained a supply of corn, and an old horse in the back yard. They took the horse to carry the corn, but he was lost in the river when they tried to take him across what was probably Dutchman's Ripple.
They followed the Ohio, Kanawha, and New rivers, crossing the Licking, Big Sandy, and Little Sandy rivers, Twelvepole Creek, the Guyandotte and Coal rivers, Paint Creek, and the Bluestone River. During their journey, they crossed at least 145 creeks and rivers—remarkable as neither woman could swim. On at least one occasion they "tied logs together with a grape-vine [and] made a raft" to cross a major river. They may have traveled as much as 500 to 600 miles, averaging between eleven and twenty-one miles a day.
Once the corn ran out, they subsisted on black walnuts, wild grapes, pawpaws, sassafras leaves, blackberries, roots and frogs but, as the weather grew cold, they were forced to eat dead animals they found along the way. On several occasions they saw Indians hunting and each time managed to avoid being seen. On one occasion they were able to obtain deer meat from a kill abandoned by an Indian hunter, having ...got very near an Indian before they saw him, but as he was busy in skinning a Deer, he did not see them, till they hid themselves behind a Log, towards which the Indian’s Dog kept a continual barking, which frightened the Indian as well as the Women, and having dispatch’d the skinning of his Deer, with as much speed as possible, he made off, leaving the Carcase behind him, which afterwards afforded an agreeable Repast to the starving Travellers, and after having satiated their Hunger, took as much of the Meat along as they could carry, and pursued their Journey, making the River their Guide, and feeding on Grapes and Nuts for their Support.
By now the temperature had dropped, it was starting to snow, and the two women were weak from starvation. At some point, the old Dutch woman became "very disheartened and discouraged", and tried to kill Mary. (Letitia Preston Floyd's account reports the two women drew lots to decide "which of them was to be eaten by the other.") Mary managed to "keep her in a good humor" by promising "a sum of money" to be paid to her by Mary's father-in-law upon their safe return to Draper's Meadow. Soon after they reached the mouth of the New River, the old Dutch woman made a second attempt on Mary's life, probably about 26 November, but Mary "got loose...and outran her." (The New-York Mercury article states that "the Dutch woman attempted to kill her...in order, as it was supposed, to Eat her; but [Mary] after a fierce struggle, released herself...and fled away.") She hid in the forest and waited until dark, then continued along the riverbank. Finding a canoe, Mary crossed the New River at its junction with the East River near what is now Glen Lyn, Virginia.
Mary continued southeast along the riverbank, passing through the present-day location of Pembroke. Four or five days after leaving the old Dutch woman, she reached a hunting cabin belonging to her friend Adam Harman,Zola Troutman Noble, "Adam Harman, German Pioneer on the New River," The Smithfield Review, Volume XIII, 2009 on or about 1 December 1755, 42 days after leaving Big Bone Lick. Shortly afterward, a search party went back and found the old Dutch woman. Harman took her to the fort at Dunkard's Bottom, where she joined a wagon party traveling to Winchester, Virginia, with the goal of returning to her home in Pennsylvania.
Aftermath