In 1755, during the French and Indian War, Mary Draper Ingles, a pregnant 23-year-old woman living in southwest Virginia, was kidnapped by a band of migratory Shawnee. They transported her to Ohio, and kept her as a slave.
Ingles escaped her Shawnee captors, and eventually fled home along a river route. Part of this route has been named after Ingles, the Mary Ingles Highway in Northern Kentucky.
As I live in the Cincinnati area, I’ve been on the Mary Ingles Highway many times, but I never knew much about the actual woman.
I’ve been reading James Alexander Thom’s biographical novel of Ingles, Follow the River (1982). Suffice it to say that the book is a page-turner. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys both history and a good story.
