In July 1755 Mary Draper Ingles was captured during a Shawnee raid on Draper's Meadows in Augusta County, Virginia. Mary was eventually taken to Big Bone Lick in present-day Boone County, Kentucky. In October of that year, Mary and another woman escaped. Traveling on foot for 43 days, they made their way back home to Virginia.
Mary Ingles frequently told the story of her escape to her children and grandchildren. One of her children, Colonel John Ingles, later included it at the beginning of a narrative he wrote in 1824. The first 13 pages of his manuscript, covering Mary's escape, have been transcribed in this document from digital scans of the original handwritten manuscript. The scans were supplied by the University of Virginia, where the original manuscript is housed in their Special Collections Library.
