"She had passed up through the 'New River Narrows,' the great rift where New River had cut its way through the solid 'Peter's Mountain' (so named at the eastern end for Peter Wright, a famous old hunter and pioneer, but here named after a pioneer family named Peters). It is one of the wildest scenes in the state. She had passed the butte of Wolf Mountain and the mouth of Wolf Creek. Near here Peterstown, on the east side, had since been built. She had passed near the present site of Giles C. H., and nearly under the shadows of the towering 'Angel's Rest' Mountain, on the west side (so called by General Cloyd), 4,000 feet high, with its rock-ribbed sides and castellated towers, said to strongly resemble Mount Sinai, but it brought no rest nor peace to her. "She had passed the cliff near Giles C. H., had crawled around or over the huge cliffs just below the mouth of Stony Creek. She had by some means gotten beyond that grand wall of cliff jutting into the river for two miles, extending from opposite Walker's Creek to Doe Creek, and, two miles above this, another seemingly impassable cliff had been scaled. She had gotten about two miles beyond these last named cliffs and was near the base of the 'Salt Pond Mountain,' with its beautiful lake near its summit, 4,000 feet above tide and one of the greatest natural curiosities of the state; but her mind was not occupied with the grandeur of the scenery nor the beauty of these then nameless localities she was passing; she only knew that each one passed put her that much nearer home-sweet home.

"Night was approaching; snow had fallen and it was bitterly cold (it was now about the last of November). Just before her she was confronted by still another gigantic cliff, hundreds of feet high, the base in the water and the crown overhanging. At last her progress seemed utterly barred; there were no ledges, no shelving rocks, no footholds of any kind to climb around on. The only chance left it seemed was to wade around the base, as she had done in other cases. This she tried, but found that, to her, it was an unfathomable gulf.

"Her heart sank within her; night was now upon her; cold before, she was now wet and colder still. She had nothing to eat; she could find no soft couch of leaves, no friendly cave or hollow log.

"In despair she threw herself down on the bare ground and rocks, and there lay in that pitiable condition, more dead than alive, until next morning.

"With the dawning of the day there was a feeble revival of hope-for while we live we will hope. She thought of the only possible remaining way of passing this gigantic barrier; this was to climb over the top of it, but in attempting to rise she found that her limbs were so stiff and swollen and sore from the wet, cold and exposure that she could scarcely stand, much less walk or climb. Still there was no choice; if she could she must, so again she tried.

"Slowly, as the effort and exercise relieved her somewhat from the paralyzing chill, she wound her devious, tedious and painful way, hour after hour, getting a little higher and a little higher, so feeble and faint from hunger, such soreness and pain from her lacerated feet and swollen limbs that from time to time she looked down from her dizzy heights almost tempted from sheer exhaustion and suffering to let go and tumble down to sudden relief and everlasting rest.

"Climbing and resting, resting and climbing, she at last reached the summit, and the day was far spent.

"While resting here, her thoughts had wandered on up the river to her home and friends. She knew that she must now be within twelve or fifteen miles of that home. 'So near and yet so far.' If she had strength how quickly she would fly to it; but, alas, in her now desperate and deplorable condition the chance of reaching it seemed fainter even

than when she left Big Bone Lick with strength, hope and resolution. Now she did not know what hour her powers might utterly fail; what minute nature might yield and she would be lost.

"As long as she lived, Mrs. Ingles always referred to this as the most terrible day of her eventful life.

"Arousing herself again to the necessities of the hour, she started on her painful and perilous descent; crawling, falling, slipping and sliding, she at length reached the bottom as the day was about departing.

"I have talked with a friend of mine, born and reared in this neighborhood, and who is perfectly familiar with all this part of New River. He tells me that this cliff is 280 feet high to the top, measured, the first 100 feet overhanging, and that the water in the pool at the base has never been fathomed. He has often tried in his youth with long poles and with weighted lines, but never got bottom. There is, he says, a whirlpool or sort of maelstrom here, down into which when the river is high, logs, driftwood, etc., are drawn, coming up again some distance below. No wonder Mrs. Ingles could not wade around the cliff; no wonder it took her a whole day in her exhausted condition to climb over it. "The highest point of this front cliff, from some real or fancied resemblance to a huge anvil, is called 'Anvil Rock.' Just across the river, in a corresponding cliff-all of the blue limestone is a natural arch, which is called 'Caesar's Arch,' and near it a natural column called 'Pompey's Pillar.'

'Sinking Creek,' a considerable stream which in low water loses itself underground some miles in the rear, finds its surface in the deep pool at the base of Anvil Rock cliff. In freshets the surplus water finds its way to the river three-fourths of a mile below."

After reaching the base of the cliff Mrs. Ingles was almost unable to proceed. She dragged her way along the river bank, and about the setting of the sun came to a clearing, surrounded by a rail fence, in which had been grown a crop of corn that was then standing in the field. She was unable to see a building of any description and, being too far spent to make search for the people she believed to be living near, she commenced to halloo at the top of her voice, in the hope of attracting the attention of any persons who might be in the vicinity of the clearing which, it turned out, was the field of Adam Harman. His son, Adam Harman, Jr., a good-sized lad, was high up a steep mountain spur, almost directly above Mrs. Ingles, returning from hunting. As he descended toward the field, the weak and tremulous wail of Mrs. Ingles attracted his attention. In the wilderness all sounds and alarms that could not be immediately accounted for were at once attributed to Indians. In great alarm he came down the mountain to the field where his father was gathering corn in a part which was situated in a depression and behind a ridge, and which was not within hearing of Mrs. Ingles. When his son informed him that he had heard Indians in the woods, Adam Harman seized his gun and set out for his cabin in great haste. Coming up to the top of a ridge near Mrs. Ingles he heard her voice. He stopped a moment to listen and was soon convinced that it was not the voice of Indians which had frightened his son. He set off hurriedly toward the quarter whence came the voice. He found a strange-looking figure seated on a log. Her long hair had not been combed for months and was matted in a tangled mass about her head. She was almost destitute of clothing. What remained was slit, torn and tattered to rags. Adam Harman was well acquainted with Mrs. Ingles. She had been his neighbor for years. But it was hard for him to realize that the exhausted, torn, dirt-begrimed, weather-blackened, hunger-worn, emaciated figure that he found sitting on the moss grown log in the woods uttering feeble wails of despair was the young and accomplished wife of his friend William Ingles.

Mrs. Ingles was unable to stand unsupported when Harman found her. He gave his gun to his son and lifted her in his arms. Her weight was little more than that of a child. He carried her to his house. There she was taken in charge by his good wife and daughters. They administered her a small quantity of brandy and gave her a little food. In the course of a few hours she was ravenously hungry and cried and begged piteously to be allowed to eat as much as she wished. Poultices were applied to her torn, frozen and swollen feet and limbs. It required half a day for one of Harman's daughters to untangle, cleanse and dress Mrs. Ingles' long and beautiful hair.

Mrs. Ingles rapidly regained her strength and recovered her health under the tender care of the Harman household. She was anxious and impatient to see her husband. She wanted to proceed on her way home. At the end of three days Mr. Harman believed her strong enough to stand the journey. She was still too weak to retain her seat on horseback. Mr. Harman placed a pillion behind him on his horse. He placed her on this and she rode behind him to the Dunkard's Bottom, where nearly all the families of the settlement were gathered in a fort.

IX
CONCLUSION

When William Ingles escaped from the Indians on the day of their attack upon his home and the capture of his family, he urged his friends and neighbors to help him rescue his wife and children. In his entreaties he was joined by John Draper. Their misfortunes and distress and their anxieties for their families in the hands of the savages rendered them desperate and unreasonable. The settlement was in no condition to make a successful pursuit. The guns and ammunition of the settlers had been carried away by the Indians. The settlement's apportionment of powder and lead had been delivered to William Ingles before the attack upon his home, and it had fallen into the hands of the Shawnees. Realizing at length that it was impracticable to make any early attempt to rescue their families, Ingles and Draper, together with the other settlers of Draper's Meadows, set about enlisting the Government in an expedition to punish the Indians and rescue the captives. This they succeeded in inducing the authorities to do. The defeat of Braddock had left the frontier settlements at the mercy of the Indians on the Ohio. From all along the border came importunities for some action which would hold the savages in check.

In compliance with these demands, Governor Dinwiddie ordered an expedition sent against the Shawnees by the way of the Great Sandy Creek, as the Big Sandy River was then known. It was intended that the expedition should be under way by October, 1755, but it was found impossible to procure a sufficient force of men by that date. Further delay ensued. The campaign was on the verge of failure for want of troops in force adequate to accomplish its purposes, when the settlers about the New River suggested the enlistment of a company of Cherokees. The proposition was received by the authorities with favor, and Christopher Gist, William Ingles, John Draper and Matthias Harman were sent to the Cherokee towns on the Little Tennessee River on this mission. They were successful, and 130 Cherokee warriors went in the following February (1756) with the English on the "Sandy Creek Voyage," as the expedition was always called by the frontiersmen. The Indians were commanded by Richard Pearis.

Ingles and his companions returned from the embassy to the Cherokees about the time that Mrs. Ingles arrived. They camped in the woods about six miles from the fort in the Dunkard's Bottom the night of Mr.

Harman's arrival there with Mrs. Ingles. They came on to the fort on the following morning and were astonished beyond measure when informed of Mrs. Ingles' return. The meeting of husband and wife was a happy one. But their joy was turned to sorrow when they remembered their children in savage huts on the banks of the distant Ohio.

Mr. and Mrs. Ingles remained at the fort until spring, when they went to Vaux's Fort on the Roanoke River. Mrs. Ingles' horror of again falling into the hands of the Indians made her fearful of remaining even there, and they soon afterward removed to Bedford, in Botetourt County, east of the Blue Ridge. Their removal thither proved their salvation. Vaux's Fort was captured this same year and the families that had taken refuge there murdered or carried away captive.

The other prisoners remained for years with the Shawnees. George Ingles and the infant died shortly after their separation from their mother. After much difficulty Thomas was ransomed by his father thirteen years after his capture. When his father procured his release and brought him home he was almost grown, unable to speak English, and an entire savage in his manners and habits. He was afterward educated at the home of Dr. Thomas Walker in Albemarle County and became a man of much worth. Mrs. Draper was released by the Shawnees at the end of seven years.

Mrs. Ingles' captivity and escape occupied 52 months. From the time when she left the Big Bone Licks in Kentucky until her arrival at the Dunkard's Bottom was a period of more than forty days of such danger, toil, fatigue, privation, hardship and suffering as few people have been called upon to undergo. When the Shawnees were informed of her escape and told that she was still alive, they refused to believe it. They did not think it possible. When she and the elder captive failed to return to the camp at the Licks, the Indians searched for them in all directions, but found no trace of them and concluded that wild beasts had devoured them. That two lone women would attempt to make their way to Draper's Meadows unarmed and unsupplied with food they could not comprehend, and that they had successfully accomplished their rash and reckless undertaking they refused to believe. Mrs. Ingles died in 1815, aged eighty-three years.

The following is Foote's account of the rescue of "the old Dutch woman":

"While Mrs. Ingles was at Harman's lodge she entreated her host to go or send for the old woman. He positively refused, both on account of her bad treatment of his guest and also that he knew that she would come to a cabin on her side of the river. To this cabin she came, and found in it a kettle nearly full of venison and bear's meat the hunters had prepared and just left. She feasted and rested herself a day or two, and then dressing herself in some clothing left by the hunters, and making a bark bridle for an old horse left there, she mounted him and proceeded on her way. When within about fifteen or twenty miles of the Dunkard's Bottom she met some men going in search of her. They found her riding, carrying the bell she took from the horse left in the river and had brought along all through her journey and hallooing at short intervals to attract the attention of hunters. Nothing is known of her after her arrival at the fort; the only remarkable event in her life was her escape with Mrs. Ingles."

Doctor Hale's account of her rescue:

“Mrs. Ingles awoke next morning greatly rested and refreshed. She called Harman and told him of her experience with the old woman, her companion, and begged him to send his boys back down the river in search of her, but the boys, having heard Mrs. Ingles relate the story of her adventure with the old woman, and, very naturally, feeling out

raged and indignant at her conduct, refused to go, and Harman, sharing their feelings, declined to compel them; so the old woman was left, for the present, to make her own way as best she could.

"After arriving at the fort, Mrs. Ingles again begged Harman, now that he had restored her to her friends, to comfort and safety, to go back and hunt for the poor old woman and, if still alive, to bring her in. This he now consented to do and started promptly down the west bank of the river.

"A few miles after she and Mrs. Ingles had parted company the old woman met with a piece of genuine good luck. She came upon a hunters' camp just abandoned, apparently precipitately, for what reason she could not tell-possibly from an Indian alarm-but they had left on the fire a kettle of meat, cooking, to which she addressed herself assiduously. "She remained here two or three days, resting, eating and recuperating her strength. The hunters had left at the camp an old pair of leather breeches; these the old woman appropriated to her own personal use and adornment, being by no means fastidious about the fit or the latest style of cut, or fashion, her own clothes being almost entirely gone.

"An old horse had also been left by the supposed hunters, loose about the camp, but no sign of saddle or bridle.

"The old woman remained at the camp, its sole occupant (no one putting in an appearance while she was there) until she had consumed all the meat in the pot; she then made a sort of bridle or halter of leatherwood bark, caught the old horse, put on him that same bell which was found on the horse captured opposite the Scioto and taken off by the practical minded old woman when that horse had been abandoned to his fate among the drift logs in Big Sandy and carried through all her terrible struggles and sufferings to this place.

"Having taken the wrapper from around the clapper and so hung the bell on the horse's neck that it would tinkle as he went, as, being so near the settlement, she now hoped to meet settlers or hunters, she mounted him, riding in the style best adapted to her newly acquired dress of leather unmentionables, and again started up the river on her way to the then frontier settlement.

"Thus slowly jogging along, hallooing from time to time to attract the attention of anyone who might be within hearing, she was met in this plight about the 'Horse Shoe,' or mouth of Back Creek, opposite 'Buchanan's Bottom,' by Adam Harman, in search of her, and taken on to the Fort.

"The meeting between Mrs. Ingles and the old woman was very affecting.

"Their last parting had been in a hand-to-hand struggle for life or death not instigated by malice or vindictiveness, but by that first great law of nature, self-preservation, that recognizes no human law; but now that they were both saved, this little episode was tacitly considered as forgotten. Remembering only the common dangers they had braved and the common sufferings they had endured together in the inhospitable wilderness, they fell upon each other's necks and wept, and all was reconciliation and peace.

"The old woman remained here for a long time, awaiting an opportunity to get to her own home and friends in Pennsylvania. Finding before long an opportunity of getting as far as Winchester by wagon, she availed herself of it, and from there, with her precious bell, the sole trophy of her terrible travels and travails, it was hoped and believed that she soon got safely home, though I cannot learn that she was ever afterwards heard of in the New River settlement."