Hooked on History: Pennsylvania boy's captivity came to end in Coshocton in 1764

In the autumn of 1764, John McCullough's eight-year sojourn with the Delaware Indian nation came to an end when he and about 200 other captives were handed over to the British army in Coshocton.

"We were immediately put under a guard; a few days later, we were sent under a strong guard to Pittsburgh," he later recalled. "On our way two of the prisoners made their escape, to wit; one Rhoda Boyd and Elizabeth Studibaker, and went back to the Indians. I never heard whether they were ever brought back or not."

McCullough was born in the state of Delaware in 1748. When he was 5 years old, his family moved to the Conococheague settlement in Franklin County, Pennsylvania. The McCulloughs were living there in 1755 when the French and Indian War broke out. The French and their Indian allies sent out raiding parties to attack the back country British settlements in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia.

As the raids got worse, people like the McCulloughs abandoned their farms and took refuge in local forts. On July 26, 1756, the family returned to their farm to pull flax. Other members of the group they were with were ready to return to the fort, so John, then age 8, and his brother James, 5, went to tell their parents.

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As the two brothers got within sight of their house, five Indians and a Frenchman sprang out of a thicket and took them captive. They were taken to the French fort at the forks of the Ohio River, Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh). There, John and James were separated. John was adopted into a Delaware family, and James was taken by a French army officer. James was never seen again.

Adopted into a Delaware Indian family

John was taken to a Delaware settlement in northwestern Pennsylvania, where he spent a year living with an adopted Indian uncle.

"In the beginning of winter, he used to raise me up by day light every morning, and make me sit down in the creek up to my chin in the cold water, in order to make me hardy as he said, whilst he would sit on the bank smoking his pipe, until he thought I had been long enough in the water, he then bid me to dive," McCullough wrote in his 1806 memoir, "A Narrative of the Captivity of John McCullough, Esq., written by himself."

During his time with the Delaware, McCullough had many adventures. He nearly drowned one time and became seriously ill more than once.

Later, he lived in another Delaware village with his adopted mother, who he had never met, along with two older brothers. While he was living there, he met Andrew Wilkins, a trader, who asked where McCullough was from. When Wilkins returned to his home in Pennsylvania, he told McCullough's parents where he was. This was the first time his parents had heard anything about his whereabouts. By this time, the British had defeated the French and captured Fort Duquesne.

The next summer, McCullough's father, James, traveled west to see his son.

"I was shy in speaking to him, even by an interpreter, as I had at that time forgotten my mother tongue," McCullough wrote. Many young children who were taken captive became thoroughly assimilated in Indian culture and forgot how to speak English.

Sold back to his father

The following fall, James McCullough and Andrew Wilkin traveled to Fort Venango on French Creek in northwestern Pennsylvania. Wilkins sent a special messenger to Mahoning, the village where John McCullough was now living with his Indian family, close to the present-day Ohio line.

The messenger invited McCullough's Indian brother to bring him to Fort Venango, where James McCullough would purchase John from his Indian brother. John accompanied his brother to Fort Venango, unaware of what was going to happen. When John was told that he would have to go back with his father to Pennsylvania, he wept bitterly, he recalled.

On the trip back, James McCullough kept his son bound to prevent him from escaping. But John succeeded in loosening his bonds and escaped, returning to his Indian family at Mahoning.

By this time, the French had been defeated by the British and had surrendered their colonial possessions in North America. The British treated the Indian tribes living in the Great Lakes region with a heavy hand, which led the Indians to unite in a rebellion known as Pontiac's Conspiracy.

In 1763, McCullough and his Indian family left the village of Mahoning and lived in various villages in Ohio, including along the Cuyahoga River, the Walhonding River and the Scioto River. In 1764, he was living about 10 miles from the forks of the Muskingum River.

Historian Russell Booth, in his book, "The Tuscarawas Valley in Indian Days," speculates that McCullough lived in the Delaware village of Newcomerstown.

Bouquet's expedition to Coshocton

In 1764, Col. Henry Bouquet, a Swiss mercenary working for the British, led an expedition from Pittsburgh to Coshocton to recover captives taken prisoner by the Indians during the French and Indian War and Pontiac's Conspiracy. All of the prisoners were brought to Coshocton, where they were handed over to Bouquet. John McCullough was among them.

He doesn't write about his feelings when he was turned over. But for many captives, it was a wrenching experience.

Dr. William Smith, who chronicled Bouquet's expedition, wrote, "Among the children who had been carried off young and had long lived with the Indians, it is not to be expected that any marks of joy would appear on being restored to their parents or relatives." The children parted from their former captors with tears.

McCullough stayed a few days in Pittsburgh. There, he met a man named John Martin, who had come after members of his family who had been taken captive. Martin got permission from the military to taken McCullough back to his family.

"I got home about the middle of Dec. 1764, being absent (as I heard my parents say) eight years, four months and sixteen days," he wrote in his narrative.

Jon Baker is a reporter for The Times-Reporter and can be reached at jon.baker@timesreporter.com.

This article originally appeared on The Times-Reporter: History: Pennsylvania boy's captivity came to end in Coshocton in 1764