John Calvin Campbell was a beautiful child, with strangely clear, deep
blue eyes, close clinging golden curls, a complexion fair to paleness,
though tinted to a delicate ruddiness by exposure. He was thoroughly
self-reliant and independent.
The neighbors spoke of him as a strange boy; not that he was mentally or
physically weak; but his manner and thoughts and method of expression
were unnatural in one so young.
His mother looked after him with such solicitude that his father, half
vexed, said: "You are spoiling that boy; give him a chance to live his
own life; I want him to find interest and pleasure in the same things
other boys do."
"If you do, you are going to be disappointed; he is not like other boys.
He is more like his grandfather than little David Clark. He is not
contentious, yet without apparent effort, for the mere asking, he seems
to have his way with other children. Though he is just seven and wanders
about the mountain side alone, I am not worried. When I remonstrated, he
replied with calm assurance: 'Mother, you need not worry, I will not get
hurt, I am learning things;' I have come to believe that what he said is
true. I asked why he climbed out upon the Pinnacle Rock and he answered:
'When on the big rock, I think and learn and see things I cannot here. I
see earth and heaven as one great whole.' The boy seems not to mind in
the least being alone; though he often acts as guide for one of the
older boys to the rock, any one of whom will quit his games to go.
Several times when he went off alone, I followed and unseen watched him
climb carefully to the Pinnacle, where, finding a seat not too near the
edge, he sat looking out over the Valley and seemed to dream in
wide-eyed wonder. The birds flew about as though he were not there; and
the little ground squirrels that burrow in the rocks came out and sat up
and rubbed their faces and combed their bushy tails within a foot of his
hand. When he rose up to come home he held out his little hands towards
the valley as though he would take all that he saw within his tiny arms
saying: 'O the joy of it! the joy of it!' What are we to do with a boy
like that? Let us watch over him carefully and let us follow the way God
leads. Sometime have him tell you what he sees."
He began making his little journeys to the rocks when he was five years
old; first with his mother or Ruth, then alone. Each day from the spring
of 1773 until the following May, his little feet wore a distinct and
narrow path from the kitchen door to his aerie. The people of the Valley
seeing the little boy on the big rock, called it John Calvin's Rock; and
it is so called to this day, though very few know the reason. A local
historian writing of the early Presbyterian settlements of the Valley,
making fact fit theory, refers to the rock as having in some unknown way
been called after the father of Calvinism.
Mr. Campbell first made the acquaintance of Thomas Fairfax and his wife
on the trip to Winchester in 1771, stopping at their plantation on his
way from the Hite settlement. This acquaintance, renewed at the meeting
house, had ripened into a warm friendship mainly through Dorothy's
instrumentality; who, beginning with the peep hole conversation three
years before, insisted on talking with John Calvin every time she saw
him.
The two families occasionally lunched together in the church grove; or
if it rained, the Fairfaxes spent the night with the Campbells, as the
distance to Greenaway Court was great.
The two men for more than a year had planned a bear hunt in the Kanawha
cliffs and at last Mr. Fairfax had come to the plantation for that
purpose, bringing his wife and little Dorothy, who were to remain with
Mrs. Campbell.
He and Mr. Campbell, accompanied by two servants and half a dozen dogs,
crossing over the mountains, camped on the benches overlooking the
wilderness of the Kanawha.
One day, Mr. Campbell with his servant, John Mason, went down into the
river meadows hunting for deer, and while quietly stalking, themselves
unperceived, saw three Indians traveling the path towards the
settlement. As small parties occasionally visited them or hunted in the
valley of the Kanawha, it never occurred to him that it was a war party;
nor were they decorated with pigments and root stain as a war party.
When he got back to camp he told of seeing the Indians; whereupon Mr.
Fairfax suggested they better return home as he had heard just before
leaving Winchester of trouble between the whites and Indians, growing
out of the recent killing of the Logan family by Captain Cresap and his
men at the mouth of Yellow Creek.
----
The morning after Dorothy's arrival, John Calvin started for school,
nearly two miles away. Dorothy, who, since the day she had commanded him
to peep through the hole, had continued issuing her commands, demanded
to accompany him and had her way as usual. She insisted on sitting with
him in the boys' room. There they sat together and studied and recited
from the same primer. Dorothy could read almost as well as the boy; but
he knew all the Shorter Catechism, while she knew only the first three
pages.
After they had returned home and had dinner John Calvin started for his
accustomed aerie overlooking the valley and Dorothy waited to be called;
then seeing she was forgotten, followed slowly after, up the narrow
path; too hurt to call out and too anxious to follow to be piqued into
remaining.
The little girl of the valley, half way up and nearly out of breath,
stumbled, and slightly hurt, cried out with pain. The boy looked round,
saw and ran back, saying: "O Dorothy! I did not know you would care to
come. Let me have your hand and help you. I will show you the big valley
and tell you what I see beyond."
Hand in hand they finished the ascent; and on the top in the very center
of the great rock he made a heap of pine straw, where they sat side by
side; the boy blue eyed and golden haired, birth-marked by his
Anglo-Saxon ancestry, and the girl carrying from the centuries past her
Norman birthright of brown eyes and dark tresses. As they sat, looking
down upon the valley, her dark curls, tousled by the wind, played tag
with his golden locks.
How different the two children were. Dorothy's eyes and thoughts were of
the valley, which the distance transformed into toyland. The houses
suited the people, who were tiny dolls. The cattle as they came from the
barns looked like the tiny creatures of a toy ark. These she talked
about in a chirpy, rambling way; but the boy, mind-marked by his
forebears, did not hear. He sat and gazed into the May-blue sky, blotted
at intervals with fluffy, half transparent clouds, wind rolled from the
Blue Ridge towards the Alleghanies.
He began to talk of them: "The clouds are the chariots of the angels and
if you watch closely you may see them driving with reins of gold. Above
the clouds, if you look hard and pray the while, you may see the face of
God. The angels watch over us; and if we do something we should not they
drop a tear to wipe out the deed. Sometimes the tears miss their mark
and fall into the sea, and they become pearls. The little shell fish
which live upon the bottom where it is dark gather and store these
treasures in their homes, because in passing from sky to sea they have
taken into their hearts the colors of the rainbow and the sun. When the
Son of God was nailed upon the cross, the angels hiding their faces lost
track of earth and drove their chariots far out to sea, where, in the
dark, undisturbed depths the sad old shell fish dwell; and as they
traveled most of them were too sad even for tears; but a few great tears
were shed and fell great, perfect pearls into the sea. These the old
shell fish found and gathered up. Once in many years one of these old
fellows is torn from his moorings in the darkness of the deep and washed
towards the shore. A fisherman gathers in and opens the old moss grown
shell and, finding the pearl, is very glad--'Wherefore, do ye spend
money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which
satisfieth not. Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is
good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear and
come unto me; hear and you shall live.'"
The boy turned towards the girl; and saw an Indian with uplifted
tomahawk standing over her ready to strike. The girl looking up, saw
too, and cowering in terror, crept close to the boy. He, without fear or
hesitancy, rose and on tiptoe reached up and took him by the arm. So
they stood for several moments; then the Indian, strangely moved by the
face of the boy, in which there with neither fear nor anger but calm
confidence that he would not strike, lowered his arm and smiled; and the
boy smiled back.
The Indian, a Mingo chief, who spoke a little English said: "No hurt
little boy and girl but they must come with Logan." He called the two
braves who stood guard at the foot of the rock and ordered them to take
up the children. The boy uttered no sound, but the little girl whimpered
for her mother.
They were carried hastily over the mountain and by the time the stars
came out were on the head waters of the Kanawha. Resting for an hour or
more, until the moon rose over the tree tops, they traveled an old trail
far into the night and, camping, slept until the first light of day;
then on again until they reached the mouth of Meadow Creek, where they
breakfasted on venison and parched corn. Then while Logan destroyed all
evidences of the camp the other two dragged a canoe from the willows and
paddled to a projecting rock, from which the party embarked.
As they were leaving a small black dog with a bark of joy ran up and
jumped into the canoe. It was Jerry, christened Jeremiah when a puppy by
Mr. Campbell, because he was given to much lamentation; later the name
had been changed to Jerry at the suggestion of the boy's grandfather.
The dog as the canoe left the bank gave a couple of sharp barks which
were answered by some one from the woods. One of the Indians, lifting
the dog out of the canoe, silently placed it in the water; knowing that
if he killed it the children would cry out. They paddled hastily along
the shore screened by the willows. The dog for a moment swam after them,
then turned and swam back to the rock.
As they circled a bend some distance below, a man stepped out on the
rock and stooped and helped Jerry out of the river. It was Richard
Cameron.
School had been out some time; even the older boys and girls who were
kept an hour longer than the little ones, had all gone home; yet the
master sat by the window thinking of his dead wife. Glancing towards the
grove of cedars on the mountain he barely made out the two small
children on John Calvin Rock and beside them he saw three men whom he
supposed were the returned hunters.
When he reached home he learned that the two children were lost and that
a searching party had been sent out into the mountains.
Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Fairfax becoming uneasy at the long absence of
the children climbed to the rock and not finding them, sent Ruth
Crawford, the servant, to the settlement asking for help. They then
called Richard Cameron and after he had gotten his rifle the three,
followed by Jerry, began the search.
It was not long before Jerry picked up the trail which Richard followed
a weary way to the river landing. On the way, in the moist earth at the
spring he had found a few tracks of the Indians and the foot prints of
the children; searching the willows he had found where the canoe had
been cached.
Realizing that the children were prisoners and that unaided he could not
effect their rescue, he hastened back towards the settlement.
Several hours travel back the trail, he came upon the hunters who had
been joined by Mr. Clark and who, having spent the day in search for the
children, were making camp for the night.
He told what he had learned; and after piecing this with the
schoolmaster's story and what they had discovered, they were satisfied
the children were captives of the three Indians they had seen two days
before and who now were making for the Ohio River country.
Resting several hours, they traveled that night to the mouth of Meadow
Creek and in the morning followed down the river bank; finding on every
portage around the rapids traces of the Indians and the children. At the
Indian lead mines they found a canoe and in that paddled down the river
to Point Pleasant.
Here they found the station of Caleb Smith in ashes; saw a large war
party of Indians and felt assured that from its leader they could get
definite information of the children. Richard Cameron offered to walk to
the camp and surrender as a prisoner to be with the children; but Mr.
Campbell would not hear of it believing that he would be tortured to
death, as it was evident the Indians were on the war path. The whole
Indian country was in arms and the Ohio, about the mouth of the Kanawha,
literally swarmed with war canoes.
For two weeks they sought the children and each day were exposed to the
gravest danger. Even if found, they recognized, that their rescue was
next to impossible; and, disappointed, they decided to return home,
feeling satisfied the children were alive and in no immediate danger,
and hoping when the present trouble blew over to return and rescue them.
The morning after their return to the Campbell plantation, Mr. Fairfax
and his wife left for home. Then he went to Williamsburg, where he made
application for assistance to Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, hoping
through his influence with the Indians to procure the release of the
children; as Dunmore was said to be on intimate terms with the tribes of
the Kanawha and Scioto country and was then engaged in buying pelts from
them; from which trade he derived a considerable private revenue.
The Governor gave him very little satisfaction, saying: "I would be glad
to do it if we had the time, but as you know, my whole time is taken up
by pending political troubles."
Governor Dunmore was extremely unpopular. It was charged that through
Connelley and other agents he was then inciting the Mingoes, who had
always been allies of the British to attack the frontier settlements and
thus keep the attention of the western portion of the colony from the
political troubles that exercised and oppressed the people of Tidewater,
Virginia.
Revolution was in the air, England was determined to collect direct
impost duties from the colonies and insist upon an enforcement of the
recently enacted law that any colonist charged with treason or inciting
rebellion should be transported to England for trial. British troops
were quartered in Boston and the Port Bill had been passed, closing
Boston Harbor. Nevertheless, in the Valley and throughout Virginia, the
first of June, 1774, was observed as a day of fasting and prayer because
all recognized that war was impending with the mother country.
In the meanwhile Mr. Campbell began organizing the settlers, looking to
a forcible rescue of the children. This activity was reported to the
Governor, by him construed as treasonable conduct and his arrest was
ordered.
Mrs. Campbell was not greatly depressed by the abduction of her little
son. She felt that he would be restored to her unharmed.