Page vii.
Sarah Campbell, of Windsor, who was lost in the woods on the 11th of August, 1848, returned to her home on the 31st, having been absent twenty-one days. A friend has sent us a circumstantial account of her wanderings, of the efforts made in her behalf, and her return home, from which we condense the following statements:—
It appears that on the 11th of August, in company with two friends, she went fishing on the north branch of Windsor-brook; and that on attempting to return she became separated from her companions, who returned to her mother’s, the Widow Campbell, expecting to find her at home. Several of her neighbours searched for her during the night, without success. The search was continued during Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, by some fifty or sixty individuals, and although her tracks, and those of a dog which accompanied her, were discovered, no tidings of the girl were obtained. A general sympathy for the afflicted widow and her lost daughter was excited, and notwithstanding the busy season of the year, great numbers from Windsor and the neighbouring townships of Brompton, Shipton, Melbourne, Durham, Oxford, Sherbrooke, Lennoxville, Stoke, and Dudswell, turned out with provisions and implements for camping in the woods, in search of the girl, which was kept up without intermission for about fourteen days, when it was generally given up, under the impression that she must have died, either from starvation, or the inclemency of the weather, it having rained almost incessantly for nearly a week of the time. On the 3lst her brother returned home from Massachusetts, and with two or three others renewed the search, but returned the second day, and learned to their great joy that the lost one had found her way home the evening previous.
On hearing of her return, our correspondent made a visit to Widow Campbell, to hear from her daughter the story of her wanderings. She was found, as might be supposed, in a very weak and exhausted condition, but quite rational, as it seems she had been during the whole period of her absence. From her story the following particulars were gathered:—
When first lost she went directly from home down “Open Brooke,” to a meadow, about a mile distant from where she had left her companions, which she mistook for what is called the “Oxias opening,” a mile distant in the opposite direction. On Sabbath morning, knowing that she was lost, and having heard that lost persons might be guided by the sun, she undertook to follow the sun during the day. In the morning she directed her steps towards the East, crossed the north Branch, mistaking it for “Open Brooke,” and travelled, frequently running, in a south-east direction (her way home was due north) seven or eight miles till she came to the great Hay-meadow in Windsor. There she spent Sabbath night, and on Monday morning directed her course to, and thence down, the South Branch in the great Meadow.
After this, she appears to have spent her time, except while she was searching for food for herself and dog, in walking and running over the meadow, and up and down the south branch, in search of her home, occasionally wandering upon the highlands, and far down towards the junction of the two main streams, never being more than seven or eight miles from home.
For several days, by attempting to follow the sun, she travelled in a circle, finding herself at night near the place where she left in the morning. Although she often came across the tracks of large parties of men, and their recently-erected camps, and knew that multitudes of people were in search of her, she saw no living person, and heard no sound of trumpet, or other noise, except the report of a gun, as she lay by a brook, early on Thursday morning, the sixth day of her being lost. Thinking the gun to have been fired not more than half a mile distant, she said she “screamed and run” to the place from whence she supposed the noise came, but found nothing. Early in the day, however, she came to the camp where this gun was fired, but not until after its occupants had left to renew their search for her. This camp was about four miles from the great meadow, where she spent the Sabbath previous. There she found a fire, dried her clothes, and found a partridge’s gizzard, which she cooked and ate, and laid down and slept, remaining about twenty-four hours.
In her travels she came across several other camps, some of which she visited several times, particularly one where she found names cut upon trees, and another in which was a piece of white paper. Except three or four nights spent in these camps, she slept upon the ground, sometimes making a bed of moss, and endeavouring to shelter herself from the drenching rains with spruce boughs. For the two first weeks she suffered much from the cold, shivering all night, and sleeping but little. The last week she said she had got “toughened,” and did not shiver. When first lost she had a large trout, which was the only food she ate, except choke-berries, the first week, and part of this she gave to her dog, which remained with her for a week, day and night. The cherries, which she ate greedily, swallowing the stones, she found injured her health; and for the last two weeks she lived upon cranberries and wood sorrel. While the dog remained with her, she constantly shared her food with him, but said she was glad when he left her, as it was much trouble to find him food.
On Thursday of last week she followed the south towards the junction with the north branch, where it appeared she had been before, but could not ford the stream; and in the afternoon of Friday crossed the north, a little above its junction with the south branch, and following down the stream, she found herself in the clearing, near Moor’s Mill. Thence directing her steps towards home, she reached Mr. McDale’s, about a mile from her mother’s, at six o’clock, having walked five miles in two hours, and probably ten miles during the day. Here she remained till the next day, when she was carried home, and was received by friends almost as one raised from the dead. Her feet and ankles were very much swollen and lacerated; but strange to say, her calico gown was kept whole, with the exception of two small rents.
Respecting her feelings during her fast in the wilderness, she says she was never frightened, though sometimes, when the sun disappeared, she felt disheartened, expecting to perish; but when she found, by not discovering any new tracks, that the people had given over searching for her, she was greatly discouraged. On the morning of Friday, she was strongly inclined to give up, and lie down and die; but the hope of seeing her mother stimulated her to make one more effort to reach home, which proved successful. When visited, she was in a state of feverish excitement and general derangement of the system, and greatly emaciated, with a feeble voice, but perfectly sane and collected.
It is somewhat remarkable that a young girl (aged seventeen), thinly clad, could have survived twenty-one days, exposed as she was to such severe storms, with no other food but wild berries. It is also very strange that she should have been so frequently on the tracks of those in search of her, sleeping in the camps, and endeavouring to follow their tracks home, and not have heard any of their numerous trumpets, or been seen by any of the hundreds of persons who were in search for her.
A more dismal result than the deprivations endured by Sarah Campbell, is the frightful existence of a human creature, called in the American papers, the “Wild Man of the far West.” From time to time, these details approach the terrific, of wild men who have grown up from childhood in a state of destitution in the interminable forests, especially of this one, who, for nearly a quarter of a century, has occasionally been seen, and then either forgotten, or supposed to be the mere creation of the beholder’s brain. But it appears that he was, in March, 1850, encountered by Mr. Hamilton, of Greene County, Arkansas, when hunting. The wild man was, likewise, chasing his prey. A herd of cattle fled past Mr. Hamilton and his party, in an agony of terror, pursued by a giant, bearing a dreadful semblance to humanity. His face and shoulders were enveloped with long streaming hair, his body was entirely hirsute, his progression was by great jumps of twelve or thirteen feet at a leap. The creature turned and gazed earnestly on the hunters, and fled into the depths of the forest, where he was lost to view. His foot-prints were thirteen inches long. Mr. Hamilton published the description of the savage man in the Memphis Inquirer. Afterwards several planters deposed to having, at times, for many years, seen this appearance. All persons generally agreed that it was a child that had been lost in the woods, at the earthquake in 1811, now grown to meridian strength, in a solitary state. Thus the possibility of an European child living, even unassisted, in the wilderness, is familiar to the inhabitants of the vast American continent. Although we doubt that any human creature would progress by leaps, instead of the paces familiar to the human instinct. It is probable that the wild man of the Arkansas is, in reality, some species of the oran-outang, or chimpanzee.