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By far the best book I have read this year Follow The River by James Alexander Thom will certainly make my top ten list for 2013. It is the true story of Mary Draper Ingles who was captured during an Indian raid in the mid 1700s and escaped to walk hundreds of miles of wilderness in order to get home. Starting this book on Sunday I expected to be reading it for several weeks but instead finished in early Friday morning. I could not put it down. The story captured my full attention from the first page to the very last. The legend of Mary Draper Ingles can be found in detail all over the net. Below is a map of the route she walked home.
She escaped in the fall and the weather became colder and colder as she traveled. She had no way to hunt live game or fish. At one point she even ate earth worms. The woman she escaped with and was traveling with got so hungry she even tried to kill Mary for food. By the time she arrived at her destination there was snow on the ground and she had no shoes. In fact she no longer had clothes or even a blanket. Today the descendants of Mary Draper Ingles have rebuilt the cabin that the family lived in after she got home. The original one that was raided was burnt and was located at what is now Virginia Tech. The rebuilt home was twenty miles away from the original one. Please click on the title, the author's name above, and the other two links in the body of this blog to learn more. And enjoy the following video that features a descendant of this remarkable woman.
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