Part 10

It is a vivid, splendid sketch full-length; a portraiture in full keeping with the idea of a super-criminal and his crimes. In all points except one it is sustained as to its faithfulness by the scattered fragments of description that have come down to us from others speaking independently. The disputed point is the color of his hair. Instead of the “fiery redness” that Hall has set down every other witness makes it black. The fact quite well agreed upon that Little Harpe’s hair was red, suggests that in this particular Hall’s memory confounded the two. In Governor Garrard’s proclamation offering a reward for their capture, Big Harpe is described as being “about six feet high, of robust make,” “built very straight,” “full fleshed in the face,” “ill-looking downcast countenance,” “his hair black and short but comes very much down his forehead.” Trabue says “the big man is pale, dark, swarthy, has bushy hair.” Breazeale says he was a “very large, brawny-limbed, big-boned man” and “of a most vicious, savage and ferocious countenance,” while Stewart [12F] reports him as “among the tallest class of men, say six feet two to six feet four inches” and with “sunken black eyes, a downcast, sour look; dark hair and high cheek bones.” As to the hair being short or long, Draper, as already stated, recorded in one of his unpublished note books the pungent and grim picture of Big Harpe’s wife being compelled, after his death, to carry his decapitated head some distance “by the hair.” There were evidently times when the hair of both Harpes was, by force of circumstances, long and times when it was short during that terrible year they scoured the wilderness. But Big Harpe’s hair was probably black or dark and may have been curly.

Little Harpe seems to have passed comparatively unobserved in the presence of his gigantic elder. Governor Garrard’s proclamation does not even mention Little Harpe’s height, but says he “is very meager in his face, has short black hair, but not quite so curly as his brother’s, he looks older, though really younger.” His countenance was also “downcast.” Hall says he “was smaller in size, but having the same suspicious exterior, his countenance equally fierce and sinister.” Breazeale passes his appearance over, while Stewart, who probably got his account of Little Harpe from the latter’s wife while she was in his custody, merely says he was “somewhat under common size, had light hair, blue eyes and a handsome look.” It may be thought that the wife formulated that description to lead his pursuers astray. But the Frankfort _Guardian of Freedom_, of February 29, 1804, four years after Big Harpe’s death, contained an extract “from a letter from a gentleman in the Mississippi territory,” written January 8, 1804, in which is noted the arrest and trial of two outlaws in Greenville, Mississippi, one of whom, although he gave another name, “was proved to be the villain who was known by the name of Little or Red-headed Harpe and who committed so many acts of cruelty in Kentucky.” Red hair was the particular mark of Little Harpe.

Curiosity as to the three women must be satisfied with even a less personal account and description. Hall in his _Harpe’s Head_, merely says of them: “Two of them were coarse, sunburnt, and wretchedly attired and the other somewhat more delicate and better dressed.” Major Stewart, who had them in personal charge for some time and saved them from being lynched, says that Susan, Big Harpe’s first wife, was “rather tall, rawboned, dark hair and eyes, and rather ugly,” and was about twenty-five years old. Betsey, the “supplementary” wife, he described as “rather handsome, light hair and blue eyes and a perfect contrast with her sister.” Sally, the wife of Little Harpe, he records was “really pretty and delicate,” about twenty years old, but he gives no word of description. It is to be assumed that when Major Stewart saw them they had been restored to cleanliness and decent attire. [12F]

One is tempted to pause and reflect upon these three women, all young and once innocent as other girls, who had so swiftly ridden the “hurricane of all horrors” with two such men, had borne them children as nomads do traveling the desert. One had had her child snatched from her arm by Big Harpe and seen its brains dashed out against a tree. Yet apparently not one of the three attempted to escape her fate, although frequently separated and having opportunity to do so. The normal man accustomed to normal women wonders what they looked like and in what respect the horrors of their experience had affected them. In the absence of all description that curiosity cannot be gratified.

The two wives of Big Harpe, if they were really sisters, and daughters of “old Mr. Roberts” mentioned but once in the pitiable record, had a brother of whom the Reverend Jacob Young, in his _Autobiography of a Pioneer_, has drawn a portrait scarcely less vivid than that which Hall drew of his ferocious brother-in-law, Big Harpe. It is a curious sensation to gaze even upon this brother of two such women. The wandering preacher tells how, in 1802, he entered a cabin in Russell County, Kentucky, where he had an appointment to conduct religious services. While singing to a small audience that came barefooted and bareheaded, a man of remarkable size, who was even more poorly clad than the others, walked into the room. Then follow the preacher’s words:

“Had I not been used to seeing rough men on the frontier of Kentucky I should have been frightened. I looked him fully in the eyes and scanned him closely. His hair appeared as though it had never been combed, and made me think of old Nebuchadnezzar and his head ‘like eagles’ feathers.’ He wore no hat; his collar was open and his breast bare; there was neither shoe nor moccasin on his feet. I finished my hymn, kneeled down and prayed and took my text to preach. The man looked for no seat, but stood erect gazing on the preacher. Before I was half through I saw the tears roll down his rough cheeks. I closed and told them that on that day four weeks I would be there again. I rode away, but could not forget the big man. I was sure he had distinguished himself some way, which made me anxious to find out his history. I soon found out that he was brother-in-law to the infamous robber Micajah Harpe, a character so well known in the history of Kentucky. No doubt they had been together in many a bloody affray. On my next round he joined the church, and soon afterward became a Christian. He could neither read nor write. I procured him a spelling book. His wife taught him to read, and he soon learned to write. On my fourth round I appointed him class leader. He trimmed off his hair, bought a new hat, clothed himself pretty well, and became a respectable man. I heard of him several years afterward, and he was still holding on his heavenly way.”«19»

But what was the ultimate fate of the Harpe women, whether hard, commonplace or tinged with compensatory romance? Draper in one of his note books gives these last glimpses of them:

“Betsey Roberts [the supplementary wife] was married to John Hufstetter. They lived on Colonel Anthony Butler’s plantation [near Russellville] as a tenant, and Mrs. Hufstetter became ‘chicken raiser’ to Mrs. Butler. Many years ago they moved to Red River, in Tennessee, and thence elsewhere, probably Duck River.... Her child grew up and was known as Joe Roberts, and the last known of him he was enlisted in the army.

“Susan Harpe, as she was called, also lived in a cabin on Colonel Butler’s plantation, six miles south of Russellville, and being industrious made a living chiefly by weaving. Her daughter, ‘Lovey,’ grew up to womanhood--very pretty, common size, round features, handsome form, black hair, rather dark skin and a dark and sometimes bad, devilish eye. Her temper was bad at school--always pouting and angry--no one associating with her. Yet it is thought had Lovey Harpe, with her beautiful form and naturally pretty appearance, been properly brought up, under the circumstances she would not only have been a belle, but really a fine woman. But, soured from neglect and obloquy, it is no wonder she threw herself away. And both herself and her mother were finally driven from the neighborhood for their bad character--went to Christian County on the waters of Pond River, where Colonel Butler had a mill--there old Susan died, and poor Lovey, destitute and forsaken, went down the Mississippi to Pearl, where, by this time, Colonel Butler had removed--and with his family went to Texas....«20»

“When Sally Harpe was tried, her father, Parson Rice, was present, a man of fine, irreproachable character, and took his prodigal daughter home near Knoxville. It was said, and doubtless truly, that Sally was thought a fine girl until she married Wiley Harpe. In 1820 Major Stewart was at Ford’s Ferry on the Ohio (a few miles above Cave-in-Rock) and saw Parson Rice, his family, Sally and her [second] husband moving to Illinois. He did not recognize them, but thought he knew them, particularly Sally, who eyed him closely and, after a little, went to one side, sat down and with her face in her hands, had a weeping spell, doubtlessly recounting her Harpe adventures, prompted by the presence of one of the few persons who had treated her with civility and kindness in her wayward career. After he left them, Major Stewart recollected hearing the old gentleman called Rice and the identity flashed upon his mind. Sally Harpe’s daughter had then grown to womanhood and was a fine looking young lady.” [12F] The girl referred to by Stewart as Sally Harpe’s daughter was, in all probability, not a daughter of Harpe.

And so vanished from the scene, swallowed up in the events of the rapidly developing country, all the principals in this terrible epic of pioneer days.

But Little Harpe’s career was not finished. He continued the life of an outlaw and after a few years, as we shall see, received his deserts at the hands of frontier justice.

Mason--Soldier, Pirate, Highwayman

In the pioneer history of the Ohio and Mississippi valley, Samuel Mason stands as one of the shrewdest and most resourceful of outlaws. The Harpes were more widely known and were more terrible characters; their notoriety was due to their great brutality. Mason robbed along the roads and rivers solely for the purpose of getting money; the Harpes killed men, women, and children simply to gratify a lust for cruelty. The two Harpes were the worst and most abnormal of their kind, while Mason was one of the shrewdest and therefore one of the most “successful” of bandits.

These three offer the criminologist a field for study of one of the phases of pioneer life--a life that has long been of interest from a historical standpoint. Samuel Mason will be cited in history and criminology as a striking example of a lawless man receiving his just reward. In the meantime, genealogists will probably continue to exclude this “black sheep” from his family. An attempt was made long ago to tear his “branch” from the family tree so that his name and those of his children would not mar the beauty of a stem honored with the names of famous men and women. It was without doubt the frontier life that Samuel Mason entered, and not the family from which he sprang that made him what he was.

Mason was a most striking and interesting figure. He had excellent birth; he had been a fighting soldier on the western frontier in the American Revolution, acquitting himself with courage. It is not clear how such a man in time of peace developed into a highwayman and after years of outlawry came to such a terrible death. A portion of his history is missing and probably will always remain a mystery, but his criminal exploits will lack the proper contrast unless his origin and his early services as a patriot are presented.

He was born in Virginia about the year 1750. Thirty-five years after his death Draper recorded in one of his note books that “Mason was connected by ties of consanguinity with the distinguished Mason family of Virginia, and grew up bad from his boyhood.” [12H] This has been assumed in some quarters to connect him closely with George Mason, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, but there is no proof of it. He was a captain in the American Revolution. Two of his brothers, Thomas and Joseph, were among the useful, honest pioneers in the West. They started with George Rogers Clark on his expedition to Vincennes, but “when Clark reached Louisville he scattered some of his men among the neighboring stations of Beargrass [near Louisville].... Of this party were ... Thomas and Joseph Mason, brothers of Captain Samuel Mason.” [12C] Another brother, Isaac Mason, married Catherine Harrison, sister of Benjamin and William Harrison, and as early as 1770 moved from Virginia to Pennsylvania where he became one of the wealthiest and most influential citizens of Fayette County. [76] These three Mason brothers, like Samuel Mason himself, were, each in a different way, products of their environment and their times. Pioneer times, like most other periods, produced a variety of characters and Samuel Mason rapidly developed into a product quite distinct from most men of his day.

It is not often that the lineage of a highwayman can be traced back to a position so honorably distinguished as that of an officer in the American Revolution, yet such was Samuel Mason. After fighting for the freedom of his country he drifted down the Ohio to western Kentucky and the Cave-in-Rock country and there began a wild and free career unrestrained by either human or divine law.

Before taking up Mason’s military history it may be well to recall a few facts pertaining to the American Revolution: The first battle in that war was fought at Lexington, Massachusetts, April 19, 1775; the surrender of Cornwallis took place at Yorktown, Virginia, October 19, 1781. While these and other battles between were being fought in the colonies along the Atlantic coast, the frontiersmen west of the Alleghenies were engaged in the same war with the British and their Indian allies. On June 24, 1778, George Rogers Clark left Louisville with about one hundred and fifty men and floated down the Ohio, passing Cave-in-Rock, and at Fort Massac, near the mouth of the Cumberland, began his march through Illinois; he captured Vincennes August 1 and thus saved the west for the American colonies. Between Vincennes and the Old Settlements lay a vast country held, after many hard fights, by the settlers who occupied it.

It was in this frontier defense of the upper Ohio River region that Samuel Mason took part. A complete history of his career as a Revolutionary soldier cannot, at this late day, be compiled; but, from the few statements regarding him that appear in printed history and from a few old documents still extant, sufficient evidence can be gathered to show that Mason was not only a soldier, but that he took a very active part in the struggle.

When and where he enlisted is not known. He probably did so in Ohio County, Virginia (now West Virginia). In the _List of the Revolutionary Soldiers of Virginia_, issued in 1912 by the Virginia State Library, his name appears as a captain of the Ohio County Militia. The earliest record of his military life is one showing that in May, 1777, he pursued some Indians who had robbed and killed a family about fifty miles below Pittsburgh. Mason started from one of the forts above Fort Henry, now Wheeling, West Virginia, and “at the head of ten militia gallantly followed the murderers.” Although he killed only one Indian he frightened and scattered the others so badly that the expedition was regarded a success. “This brave young man,” says the report written a few days later, “will no doubt meet a reward adequate to his merit.” [131]

About two months later we find him at Grave Creek Fort, twelve miles below Fort Henry. He started on another Indian pursuit July 15. On the 17th he wrote an account of this chase and forwarded it from Fort Henry to General Edward Hand, whose headquarters were at Pittsburgh. The original letter is in the Draper Collection. More than a dozen documents signed by Mason are preserved in the Draper Collection; all are signed Samuel Mason, except one letter, dated August 12, 1777, which is signed Samuel Meason.«21» The letter of July 17, 1777, like other documents just referred to, shows that Samuel Mason was at least sufficiently familiar with the “three Rs” to attempt to report in his own handwriting some of the operations of the militia under him. In it he describes how a number of men, led first by Lieutenant Samuel Tomlinson and then by himself, had gone in pursuit of Indians and returned after two futile scouting expeditions. The suggestion made in this letter that he and his company be transferred to Fort Henry was carried out. [12J]

Fort Henry was a comparatively old place when this letter was written. The three Zane brothers and a small party of emigrants had settled there in 1769. The fort was built in 1774 and was at first called Fincastle. In 1776 the name was changed to Fort Henry in honor of Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia. Up to the latter part of August, 1777, it was not garrisoned by regular soldiery, but its defense, like that of some of the other frontier forts, was left to those who might seek shelter within its walls. By 1777 it had become a flourishing settlement with about thirty houses around it. Scouts were employed to watch for Indians and a warning from the men on guard made it possible for all the inhabitants of the place to retire to the fort on a moment’s notice.

General Hand, expecting an Indian attack on the fort, ordered Captain Mason and his men to proceed there immediately and help defend it. Captain Mason arrived August 12, and sent a report the same day to General Hand that he would “urge and push” the work and expected to be fully prepared in a few days to resist the enemy. [12J] By the middle of the month there were less than one hundred militia stationed at the fort. After all preparations had been completed the men became impatient, for there was nothing to indicate the approach of Indians.

On the night of August 31 Captain Joseph Ogle, who with twelve other men had been watching the path leading to Fort Henry, came in and reported that no signs of the enemy had been discovered. That same night, however, four hundred Indians, led by a few whites, succeeded in placing themselves in ambush near the fort. They lay in two lines concealed by a corn field. Between these lines, along a road leading through the corn field, were stationed six Indians who could be seen by any one entering the road from the fort, and who were placed in that position for the purpose of decoying some of the whites within the line. The next morning--September 1--two men going out after some horses walked along the road and passed some of the concealed Indians, unaware of their presence. They had proceeded but a few steps when, to their great surprise, they discovered the six Indians standing not far ahead. The two men turned and ran for the fort. One of them was shot, but the other was permitted to escape that he might give the alarm.

Mason, hearing there were only six Indians near the fort, proceeded with fourteen men to attack them. He soon discovered that he had been trapped by several hundred and that retreat was impossible. All of his men were massacred. Captain Ogle and twelve scouts, ignorant of the strength of the enemy, rushed from the fort expecting to rescue their comrades, but most of them were killed in the attempt. Of the twenty-eight soldiers who took part in this bloody battle only five escaped, among them Captains Mason and Ogle. Mason, after being severely wounded, concealed himself behind a fallen tree until the Indians withdrew. [140]

Mason’s venture from the fort, it seems, was a daring deed performed without consideration of its various possible consequences. Dr. Joseph Doddridge, in one of his manuscripts written about 1820, says that the garrison was too hasty in concluding that the warning sent by General Hand was a false alarm, and further comments that Mason’s act was another instance of the “folly and rashness of our militia of early times.” [130]

In the light of a knowledge of Mason’s later life, this act of bravery, foolish though it may have been, suggests that he then may have had in him the daring necessary for an outlaw, whose self-assurance of success was too great to give the possibility of failure serious consideration.

Captain Mason remained at Fort Henry until the autumn of 1779. His presence there is shown by a score of receipts now in the Draper Collection, one of which reads: “Fort Henry 27th April 1778 Received fourteen Flints of Zephaniah Blackford for the Use of my Company Given my hand. Samuel Mason Capt.” [12N] He was on Brodhead’s Allegheny campaign in August and September, 1779. [130] After this expedition he retired from active service at Fort Henry and was succeeded by Captain Benjamin Briggs. Mason was, however, militia captain in Ohio County, Virginia, as late as May, 1781, as his attendance at the Courts Martial proves. [76]

Such is, in brief, a glimpse of Mason’s military career as gleaned from scattered records. In 1845 Draper filed among his manuscripts a letter which states that “Capt. Mason resided where Daniel Steenrod’s house now is, two miles east of Wheeling, and kept a tavern there in 1780.” [12M] Another of his notes is to the effect that Mason lived on Wheeling Creek at the Narrows, and that in the spring of 1782 Indians stole some of his negroes. He and a man named Peter Stalnaker went in pursuit. The Indians, seeing the two men coming, concealed themselves behind a large rock a little above the Narrows and from that position they shot and killed Stalnaker. Mason fled and escaped unhurt. [12A]

Captain Samuel Murphy, whom Draper interviewed in 1846, gave the historian a number of facts pertaining to the siege of Wheeling and in his comments on Mason said: “Mason, many years before [i.e. before he was wounded at Wheeling] had stolen horses from Colonel Hite [in Frederick County, Virginia] was pursued and overtaken, and Mason wounded and the horses recovered. Mason’s brother, Colonel Isaac Mason, was a very respectable man. When Mason subsequently turned robber, he would give the up-country people a sufficient sum of money to take them home.” [12B] In _The Casket Magazine_ of July, 1834, William Darby writes: “Well would it have been for Captain Samuel Mason if he had fallen with his gallant companions on the field at Wheeling.” Mason evidently did not remain around Wheeling longer than a year or two after the close of the Revolution. Why or when he drifted to east Tennessee is not known.

What character of man Mason was when he reached the prime of life can be gathered from an unpublished paragraph written by Draper about 1840, after an interview with Colonel G. W. Sevier: “He first took possession, without leave or license, of some unoccupied cabins belonging to General John Sevier in Washington County, east Tennessee, with several worthless louts around him; one was named Barrow. Mason and his party were not known to work and were soon charged with stealing from negro cabins on Sabbath days when their occupants were attending church; and articles thus stolen were found in their possession. General Sevier gave notice to Mason, who had by sufferance remained on his place, that he and his party must leave the country within a specified time. Knowing the character of General Sevier, that he was a man not to be trifled with, Mason and his friends wisely took themselves off.” [12H]