Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 21, 1995 TAG: 9504210074
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: B. LYNN WILLIAMS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: EGGLESTON LENGTH: Long
Saturday night, the nation will have the opportunity to see Mary Draper Ingles' incredible story when ABC broadcasts "Follow the River," a movie based on the novel of the same name, at 9 p.m. Written by James Alexander Thom, ``Follow the River'' chronicles the heroic saga of Ingles, whose 41-day trek following the rivers home to Virginia defied the odds.
Sheryl Lee, who played Laura Palmer in the quirky television series "Twin Peaks," has the plum role of Ingles. Academy Award-winning actress Ellen Burstyn will portray the old German woman who accompanied Ingles along her journey home.
For those unfamiliar with the story, Mary Ingles resided with her husband, William, in the Draper's Meadows settlement near what is now Blacksburg.
On a sweltering summer day in July 1755, Shawnee braves swooped down on the unsuspecting settlers, killing most of them outright and capturing Mary Ingles, her two young sons, Thomas and George, her sister-in-law Betty Robinson Draper, and a neighbor, Henry Leonard.
In what came to be known as the Draper's Meadows Massacre, Casper Barrier, Eleanor Draper (Ingles' mother), James Patton and the infant of Betty Draper died at the hands of the Shawnee while the captives watched in horror. Four others whose names are not known also perished. Settler James Cull recovered from his wounds; he was the only one to survive.
Absent that day was William Preston, Patton's nephew and later the master of Smithfield, who had gone to Philip Lybrook's home to request help with the grain harvest. In one of the dreadful day's ironies, Preston and Lybrook chose to return to the settlement by another route, escaping a run-in with the Shawnee.
Lybrook's wife however, encountered the war party with their prisoners in tow, when they knocked on her door and handed her a bag. They instructed her to look inside where ``she would find an acquaintance.''
Opening the sack, Lybrook discovered a grisly sight - the decapitated head of a neighbor she recognized as Philip Barger, an old man who lived nearby.
And so Ingles, a 23-year-old wisp of a woman with a tomboy past, made her unwilling way to the Ohio River, paying rapt attention to landmarks along the rivers. Later, when the opportunity to escape came at Big Bone Lick, Ky., Ingles' recollections of the rivers took her home to Virginia.
After an arduous journey of approximately 850 miles following the Ohio, the Licking, the Little Sandy, the Guyandot, the Kanawha, the Coal, the Bluestone, and the New rivers, Ingles plodded wearily toward Draper's Meadows. When she escaped from her captors, an old German woman whose name has been lost to history, joined her.
The two women remained friends for most of the trip - until the elderly lady, crazed from starvation, tried to kill Ingles to eat her. Near the Bluestone River, the two women parted company as Ingles fled for her life.
Just when she was on the verge of collapse from near-starvation, malnutrition and exposure, Adam Harman and his sons found the emaciated woman he recognized as Ingles in his cornfield, on Nov. 5, 1755.
Harman was at his claim near the Gunpowder Springs, (now called Eggleston) where he had built a shelter for overnight stays while hunting or harvesting his corn crop.
Connell, 70, is Harman's great-great-great-great-great grandson.
He first heard the dramatic story of the courageous pioneer woman in 1982 when cousins gave him a family genealogy and "History of the Middle New River Settlements" by David Johnston. Next, Connell discovered Thom's "Follow the River." And he was hooked.
After hearing the family tale (as much a part of Harman lore as the Ingles family's) he decided to acquire the site of the cornfield, known as ``Clover Nook'' where his ancestor had discovered Ingles.
Since then Connell has become possibly the strongest advocate of Ingles' ordeal. He makes no bones about why he settled in Giles County. ``Mary Ingles is the only reason I came,'' Connell says.
He has so fallen under Ingles' spell, that for years he urged media contacts to make a movie about this extraordinary woman.
The ABC movie, however, will be a bittersweet moment.
While overjoyed that Ingles' story will receive national attention, he is saddened that movie-makers filmed the project near Highlands, N.C., not at the actual historic sites in Giles and Montgomery counties.
``I've been writing, [and] calling people in Richmond for years and years, starting back during the '80's,'' Connell said.
After he talked to first lady Susan Allen, he got some action. But he learned that it was too late - the movie was already being made in North Carolina.
Rita McClenny, director of the Virginia Film Office, wrote Connell to explain why Virginia was bypassed for the location of the film.
According to McClenny, the movie's director ``has a close working relationship with the director of 'Last of the Mohicans,'" which was filmed in the Tar Heel state. That relationship weighed heavily in the decision of where to film.
When Connell talks about Mary Ingles his eyes sparkle, his voice gets husky, and a tear drops now and again. It isn't hard to believe his affection for this woman.
He considers his cornfield to be ``hallowed ground'' and never tires of discussing the amazing Mary. As testament to his regard, his log home looks down on the little patch of ground where his ancestors assisted the exhausted woman.
Because of his interest in Ingles he learned of ``The Long Way Home,'' an outdoor drama near Radford where her story is retold every summer. Connell also has met some descendants of the Ingles family.
One of these, Jennifer Jeffries of Radford, performs the role of her famous ancestor at Connell's annual re-enactment in November. She too, is eager to see how Sheryl Lee depicts her great-great-great-great-great grandmother in "Follow the River."
Connell hopes the movie will educate people about the nature of Ingles' feat.
``Men think they're tough, but there isn't a man I know of who could do what that woman did,''said the Giles County resident.
Connell believes that his years of trying to publicize Ingles' accomplishment pay off when bus loads of school kids come to visit Clover Nook and are so awed by the place and its significance, they fall silent.
When that happens, ``I feel like I've done something worthwhile. I don't want them to be as old as I was when I found out about this thing and what the pioneers did for us,'' Connell said.
Saturday evening, he will be sitting in front of his TV to watch the movie. He's can't wait for people to see why he has a soft spot for Mary Draper Ingles.
by CNB