Mary Campbell Cave, also known as Old Maid's Kitchen, is a small secondary

rock shelter A rock shelter (also rockhouse, crepuscular cave, bluff shelter, or abri) is a shallow cave-like opening at the base of a bluff or cliff. In contrast to solutional caves (karst), which are often many miles long or wide, rock shelters are alm ...

Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio Cuyahoga Falls ( or ) is a city in Summit County, Ohio, United States. The population was 51,114 at the 2020 census. The second-largest city in Summit County, it is located directly north of Akron and is a suburb in the Akron metropolitan ar ...

. The cliff and cave roof are

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

of the Sharon Formation, while the cave wall is shale of the Meadville formation. The cavity in the cliff was formed when water passing through the porous sandstone eroded the shale, leaving a ground-level cavity beneath the cliff. The cave is currently part of the Gorge Park, administered by Summit County Metroparks, and is accessible by Gorge Trail. It is located on the north wall of the gorge overlooking the

Cuyahoga River The Cuyahoga River (see ) is a river located in Northeast Ohio that bisects the City of Cleveland and feeds into Lake Erie. As Cleveland emerged as a major manufacturing center, the river became heavily affected by industrial pollution, so mu ...

. Elevation of floor is approximately

AMSL Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level v ...

. The cave is notable as the temporary home of Mary Campbell.Cherry, Peter Peterson: ''The Portage Path'', page 85. The Western Reserve Company, 1911. A small plaque in the center of the cave gives visitors the story of her capture by Native Americans and reads:

"In Memory of Mary Campbell Who in 1759 at the age of twelve years was kidnapped from her home in Western Pennsylvania by Delaware Indians. In the same year these Indians were forced to migrate to this section where they erected their village at the big falls of the Cuyahoga. As a result Mary Campbell was the first white child on the Western Reserve and this tablet marks the cave where she and the Indian women temporarily lived. Later, in 1764, she was returned to her home. Erected by the Mary Campbell Society Children of the American Revolution of Cuyahoga Falls, 1934"

The approximately 40 meter wide cavity extends from a few to around fifteen meters into the cliff, and is tall enough to accommodate standing for much of the cavity's floor area. It affords good protection from precipitation in calm conditions, but the cavity would have had to be walled to provide protection from wind. Mary Campbell Memorial

Notes

West,Martin, Ed. ''Bouquet’s Expedition Against The Ohio Indians'' by William Smith. Kent (OH): The Kent State University Press, 2017. West, Benjamin. Artwork. ''The Indians Delivering Up the English Captives to Colonel Bouquet Near His Camp at The Forks of Muskingum in North America in November 1764'', 1766.

References

Caves of Ohio Rock shelters in the United States Landforms of Summit County, Ohio Tourist attractions in Summit County, Ohio Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio {{SummitCountyOH-geo-stub