Mary Campbell

Mary Campbell (later Mary Campbell Willford) was an American colonial settler who was known for her abduction by Native Americans during the French and Indian War being the first white child to travel to the Western Reserve. Born in 1747 or 1748, Campbell was taken captive by the Lenape tribe at the age of ten in 1758. It is believed that she lived with the Lenape, possibly under the care of their chief Netawatwees, in locations near Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, and Newcomerstown, eastern Ohio. Campbell's return to her family in Pennsylvania in 1764 was facilitated by British military pressure on the Native Americans. She was among a group of captives released to British forces and transported to Fort Pitt. As an emblematic figure, her abduction and release shed light on the complicated dynamics and moral implications surrounding the colonization of Native American territories by white settlers. Early life Campbell was born in 1747 or 1748. According to oral tradition among her descendants, her family identified themselves as Scotch-Irish. Abduction On May 21, 1758, at the age of ten, Campbell was abducted from a place in or near the town of Penn's Creek, probably the town of that name situated in Cumberland (now Snyder) County, Pennsylvania. Her captors were a band of Lenape, a Native American tribe also known as the Delaware. It is widely believed that during her captivity she stayed in the household of, or with the tribe of, a principal chief of the Lenape called Netawatwees, also known by his English name, Newcomer. According to local tradition, this Native American group brought her to a cliff cavity now known as Mary Campbell Cave near the Cuyahoga River in present-day Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. After a reportedly brief residence in the cave, she is said to have moved to a nearby Lenape village, which may have been along the southern bank of the Cuyahoga River not far from the cave, or else on the flat ground directly above the cave.