APPENDIX
APPENDIX A.—Preface.
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.