Mary Ingles

July 8, 1755 began as an ordinary day for Mary Draper Ingles, frontier wife and mother. Her husband, William, was toiling in a faraway field while she worked in the cabin. Their dwelling, one of a small group of log houses in Draper’s Meadows, was west of the Allegheny divide in the mountains of Virginia.

The peaceful morning was shattered by warring Shawnee. Many in the settlement were killed. Mary, her two young sons; Tommy and Georgie, her sister in law Bettie Draper and a neighbor; Henry Lenard were taken captive.

The Indians headed west with these prisoners. Mary, unfamiliar with the country they were traveling through, memorized landmarks. She realized that most of the journey followed rivers.

A month later the group arrived at a Shawnee village on the banks of the Ohio and Scioto Rivers, the location of Portsmouth, Ohio today. A few weeks after their arrival the captives were split up. Tommy and Georgie were sent to Shawnee villages deeper into the Ohio country while Mary was purchased by two French traders. Bettie Draper was adopted by a middle aged chief who had recently lost his daughter. She was taken to the region of Chillicothe. It is unclear what happened to Henry Lenard.

Mary was shattered when separated from her children but strengthened in her resolve to return home.

About the middle of September the French traders took Mary and another captive, the “Old Dutch Woman”, to Big Bone Salt Lick to make salt. It is near present day Cincinnati.

The women conspired to escape, slipped away from the camp, and headed home. They followed the Ohio, the Kanawha, and the New Rivers. The journey took forty three days and by its completion they had walked over 800 miles. They arrived weak and skeletal.

Some of the history of Mary’s ordeal is hazy and lost to time. Two primary accounts were written about it. One was written by her great-grandson, John P. Hale. It says that Mary was nine months pregnant when captured and gave birth a few days afterward. The other account, written by Mary’s grandson, John Ingles, Sr., makes no mention of a baby.

Little is known of the “Old Dutch Woman”. Her given name is even unknown. She returned to Pennsylvania after the incident.

Bettie Draper was ransomed from the Shawnee in 1761 and lived the rest of her days with her husband at Draper’s Meadows.

Georgie died in Indian captivity but Thomas was bought back at the age of 17. He had a difficult adjustment, however and preferred to live on the edge of the frontier. Ironically, his own family was attacked by Indians. Two of his children were killed and his wife severely wounded.

William and Mary had four children; three daughters and one son, in the years following her return. William died in 1782 at the age of 53. Mary died in 1815 at 83.

Alexander Thom wrote a best-selling novel, Follow the River, about Mary’s experience.

Bullskin Trace

The Bullskin Trace was one of the most significant roads in the Northwest Territory and most of it is still in use today.

The trail was first created by migrating buffalo and other animals on their way to the salt licks in Kentucky. The Trace then followed a progression of development through the years. It became an Indian trail, and then a pioneer route, was an Underground Railroad conduit, and finally became a part of modern highway systems. The path provided access from the Ohio River north to Detroit Michigan.

As an Indian trail The Bullskin Trace was used by such famous people as Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, and Tecumseh. From a British Fort in Detroit the British and Indians followed it south to attack the Kentucky settlements.

Later it became a pioneer route. Roads were important to the settlers because rivers in the area were difficult to maneuver with anything larger than a canoe. Going upstream against the current was almost impossible for flatboats.

However, flatboats coming down the Ohio River could pull off at a wide valley where Bullskin Creek emptied into the Ohio River. There pioneers would unload in a protected, easily accessible area, and continue traveling overland on the Bullskin Trace.

On February 4, 1807 part of The Trace became one of the first Ohio public highways. It was then named Xenia State Road. It was widened to 20 feet and had a right-of-way of about 60 feet. Marshy spots were covered with halved logs laid side by side producing a corduroy road. The state paid $700.00 for these improvements with money obtained by the sale of public lands.

During the War of 1812 the road was used to get supplies and troops from the Ohio River to the Great Lakes. On one occasion a group of fifteen supply wagons bumped up its rough surface.

The trail was used by run away slaves on the Underground Railroad. Some Xenia and other Greene County residents ran stations on this clandestine route.

Looking at a modern day road atlas one can see the route the Bullskin Trace followed. It began in Clermont County at the Ohio River near Chilo and headed north, following what is now Ohio 133. It passed through Warren County, where near Clarksville it jogged on to old Ohio 380 and followed it into Xenia. The Bullskin Trace continued on through Old Chillicothe, a former Shawnee village which is now called Oldtown. From Xenia to Detroit it followed the path of US 68, then Ohio 25, and finally US 24.

How the Trace got its name has various explanations. M. A. Broadstone in his History of Greene County Ohio says, “It was given its name because of the fact that it started from an Indian village of this name on the Ohio River.” While the book, Greene County 1803-1908 says, “It. extended from a village and ferry on the Ohio River called Bullskin, from which the road took its name…”