Page:Mennonite Handbook of Information 1925.djvu/88

 the girl, now grown to womanhood, walked up to her, saying that she remembered hearing that hymn sung before she was taken away by the Indians. It was in this most remarkable and providential way that mother and daughter were restored to each other.

In about the year 1767 the parents of Magdalene Weland settled and established their home at a point on the banks of the upper forks of the Susquehanna river one hundred miles north of Lancaster. When the family first located here Magdalene was then but a young girl. During their stay in this locality, the family was twice driven from home and their buildings burned. Final escape was made by way of the river in a small canoe, but not until one of Magdalene's brothers had been shot dead and another wounded by the Indians. Other members of the family escaped death by lying flat down in the bottom of the canoe, from which the upper edges were splintered away and the fragments scattered over their bodies by the continued firing of the Indians from the shore.

Magdalene, with the surviving members of the family, reached Lancaster county without further harm. Here she in time was married to David Heatwole and lived for some years on the Nolt place near New Holland. In 1795 they located in Rockingham county, Virginia, where, a large family was reared. David Heatwole was the first deacon of the Mennonite Church in Virginia and Magdalene Weland Heatwole, his wife, was the great grandmother to the writer.

Other accounts of Indian outbreaks on