Part 11

We next hear of him in western Kentucky. It is likely that one of his purposes in going to that section of the country was to take up the land granted to him for services rendered as a Virginia soldier in the Revolution. When he moved west is not known. Finley says he settled on Red River, south of Russellville, in 1781. His youngest son, as we shall see later, was born in western Kentucky about 1787, showing that the Masons had arrived some time during or before that year. In 1790 a petition was circulated by the settlers in Lincoln County, Kentucky, who were living on the Virginia military grants between Green and Cumberland Rivers, asking the General Assembly of Virginia to establish a county south of Green River. As a result, two years later, all western Kentucky was formed into a new county called Logan. This petition was signed by one hundred and fifteen men, among them Samuel Mason and one named Thomas Mason, who may have been the eldest son of, or one of the brothers of, Captain Samuel Mason. Inasmuch as its signers, as far as is known, were “respectable citizens,” it is likely that Mason was considered such when he signed, either because he tried to be one or because he succeeded in passing as such.

The petition recites: “That your Petitioners find themselves sensibly aggrieved by their distance from Courts of Justice, it being near two hundred miles from this settlement to Lincoln Court House, by which, when business renders our attendance indispensably necessary, we are frequently exposed to much danger in traveling through an uninhabited country, being subject to fines and other inconveniences, when from high waters, enemies near our frontiers, or other causes, it is impossible to attend.” [106] Mason possibly did not then dream that in the near future he himself would become one of the worst “enemies near our frontiers” and be regarded as one of the great dangers to which men were exposed “in traveling through an uninhabited country.”

Mason’s domestic life in the wilderness of the lower Ohio evidently was, in the beginning, up to the standard of the average early settler. But in the wild woods, far away from companionship and influence of law-abiding citizens, the best of men were subject to deterioration. Men of education, illiterates, and all other pioneers were alike exposed to this strong influence of frontier life. Many men who, by their inborn nature or by their own choice disregarded law and order, necessarily became, by one route or another, outcasts. Mason fell and fell fast, and became not only an outcast, but a notorious outlaw. The only argument that can be presented in his defense is that he was, to some extent, a peculiar product of his times--only more “highly developed” than contemporaneous outlaws who were products of the same influences and environment. It should be added in justice to Mason that, unlike the Harpes, he was out for booty and that he personally never shed blood unless it became absolutely necessary for his own safety.

To what extent Mason had fallen by 1794 can be gathered from an entry quoted from Benjamin Van Cleve’s diary, made in July of that year on his return to Cincinnati from Fort Massac. Van Cleve, with Major Thomas Doyle and a number of other men, left Fort Washington, now Cincinnati, on March 16, 1794, with ten boats to repair Fort Massac and to supply the place with provisions. They arrived at the fort June 12, and three weeks later some of the men, including Van Cleve, started on their return up the river. On July 8 they landed at Red Banks, now Henderson. Here are the entries taken from _The American Pioneer_, published in 1843:

“July 8. [1794] Came to Red Banks.

“July 9. The weather unpleasant, and the company of soldiers disagreeable. We [four men] determined to quit the boat and travel the residue of the way by land. Made preparations to set off in the morning. This place is a refuge, not for the oppressed, but for all the horse thieves, rogues, and outlaws that have been able to effect their escape from justice in the neighboring states. Neither law nor gospel has been able to reach here as yet. A commission of the peace had been sent by Kentucky to one Mason; and an effort had been made by the southwest territory (Tennessee) to introduce law as it was unknown as yet to which it belonged; but the inhabitants drove the persons away and insisted on doing without. I inquired how they managed to marry, and was told that the parties agreed to take each other for husband and wife before their friends. I was shown two cabins, with about the width of a street between them, where two men a short time ago had exchanged wives. An infair was given today by Mason to a fellow named Kuykendall who had run away from Carolina on account of crimes, and had run off with Mason’s daughter to Diamond Island station, a few weeks ago. The father had forbid him the house and threatened to take his life, but had become reconciled, and had sent for them to come home. The parents and friends were highly diverted at the recital of the young couple’s ingenuity in the courtship, and laughed heartily when the woman told it. She said she had come down stairs after all the family had retired, having her petticoat around her shoulders, and returned with him through her parents’ room, with the petticoat around both; and in the morning she brought him down in the same manner before daylight. This Kuykendall, I was told, always carried in his waistcoat pockets ‘devil’s claws,’ instruments, or rather weapons, that he could slip his fingers in, and with which he could take off the whole side of a man’s face at one claw. We left them holding their frolic.

“I afterwards heard that Kuykendall was killed by some of the party at the close of the ball.

“July 10. Left Red Banks.”

Ministers and certain others, in pioneer days as at present were licensed to solemnize marriages according to the laws established by the state. But a compliance with the church law was, in the eyes of the Masons, a useless form. They disregarded all laws, as it suited them. In that section of Kentucky the execution of the laws was in the hands of Captain John Dunn, a Revolutionary soldier who was one of the first settlers at Henderson and who, in 1792, was appointed its first constable. Starling in his _History of Henderson County, Kentucky_, says that Captain Dunn was “the only recognized officer of the law in all this territory” up to September, 1796, when he was authorized to “raise three men to act as patrol at the Red Banks.” This increase in patrol became necessary not only because the number of settlers was gradually growing larger, but also because the wild conduct of such men as Mason made it imperative.

That the presence or absence of the patrol was a matter of equal indifference to the Masons is shown by some notes Draper received from Mrs. William Anthony, daughter of Captain John Dunn. [12K] In her letter she writes that Mason and his family were among the original settlers of Henderson County and that with Samuel Mason were “a brother-in-law named Duff, and perhaps a son-in-law.” Whether or not this Duff to whom she so briefly refers was the counterfeiter Duff is not known. She states that about 1795 Samuel Mason requested Captain Dunn to sign “some instruments of writing.” Captain Dunn declined to sign the paper, saying he would have nothing to do with any such “rascal” as he was. This refusal aroused Mason and a few days later he and four of his men “fell upon Captain Dunn in Henderson, drew their concealed weapons and beat him entirely senseless and until they thought he was certainly dead, and then threw his body over a fence close by. But Captain Dunn unexpectedly recovered.” Their hatred of Dunn then grew greater than ever.

Shortly after Captain Dunn experienced this narrow escape from death Hugh Knox, afterwards Judge Knox, of Henderson, “incurring the displeasure of the Masons, was badly beaten by them. Others fared no better.” One day the Masons stole a negro woman and her two children belonging to Knox and took them to “their then quarters at the mouth of Highland Creek.” Knox raised a party, including Captain Dunn, and managed to regain the three negroes. Dunn’s participation in this rescue aroused the Masons against him to an even greater degree. One day Thomas Mason, the oldest son of Samuel Mason, came to Red Banks with his rifle and threatened to kill Dunn. Mrs. Dunn, hearing of the threat, begged Thomas Durbin, Dunn’s cousin, who had just arrived with a flatboat going down the river, to try to pacify young Mason and take the gun from him. Durbin being a stranger, it was thought he would succeed. But Durbin had little more than begun talking to Thomas Mason and made known the object of his interview, when Mason, without any comment, shot him dead, and fled.

Mrs. Anthony in the same letter to Draper writes: “Late in December, 1797, early on a cold morning, Captain Dunn, accompanied by Thomas Smith, started on horseback for Knob Lick, carrying out corn meal and intending to bring back salt. As they were coming near the ford on Canoe Creek, three miles below Henderson, Captain Dunn remarked that many a time, in former years, he dreaded the crossing of that creek on account of the Masons, as it was so well fitted to waylay the unwary, but now that the Masons had gone so far below [to Cave-in-Rock] he no longer apprehended danger from them. The words were scarcely uttered--they were about midway the small stream--when the crack of a rifle told too plainly that villainy yet lurked there. Captain Dunn fell from his horse into the partly frozen stream. Thomas Smith got but a glimpse of the person who did the deed; he could not, in the confusion of the moment, define his features. The wretch darted off and Smith conveyed Dunn home, where he died in a few hours. When asked if he knew the person who shot him he answered that ‘it was that bad man.’ This allusion was probably to Henry Havard, a young man who was a friend and supposed accomplice of the Masons.” Thus ended the life of the first constable of Red Banks, and with this killing the work of the Masons in Henderson County ended. And with his departure from there, Mason’s life went from bad to worse.«22»

About the time Mason and his gang left Henderson County there appeared in Red Banks and on Diamond Island a man named May. Mrs. Anthony calls him Isaac May, some refer to the same man as Samuel May, but he is best known as James May. He later played a very important part in Mason’s history. Writing of this outlaw’s early career, Mrs. Anthony says: “May loitered about Henderson and had a lame sister with him--at least she passed as such and thereby excited some remarks. At length May stole some horses and he and his sister made off and were pursued and overtaken at Vincennes. May was brought back to Henderson, and the very first night after they got him there he managed to break away and make his escape, which he effected by making an extraordinary leap. He joined Mason’s gang....” He joined Mason in the South and there performed another extraordinary act of which, as is shown later, Mrs. Anthony has more or less to say.

During the greater part of 1797 the Masons were established at Cave-in-Rock. Their headquarters while in and near Henderson seems to have been changed from time to time. For a while they had a camp at the mouth of Highland Creek, as stated by Mrs. Anthony, but most of their time previous to 1797 was spent not far from what now is the town of Hitesville, in Union County, Kentucky. A small stream, tributary to Highland Creek, on or near which the Masons lived, still bears the name of Mason’s Creek. About twenty miles south of this old camp is “Harpe’s Head,” where two years later the head of Big Harpe was placed on the end of a pole. About ten miles northeast of the Mason Creek country is Diamond Island, where many early pioneers going down the Ohio in flatboats became the victims of the Masons.

Fortesque Cuming stopped at Diamond Island May 16, 1808, about ten years after Mason had left it. Commenting on the place, Cuming says, in his _Tour to the Western Country_: “Nothing can be more beautifully situated than this fine island.... It is owned by a Mr. Alvis, a Scotchman, of great property in South Carolina, who bought it about two years ago [1806] of one Wells, the original locator. Alvis has a negro quarter, and near one hundred and fifty acres of land cleared on the Kentucky shore opposite the Island. This used to be the principal haunt of banditti, from twenty to thirty in number, amongst which the names of Harper [sic] five Masons, and Corkendale [Kuykendall] were most conspicuous. They attacked and plundered the passing boats, and frequently murdered the crews and passengers. At length the government of Kentucky sent a detachment of militia against them. They were surprised, and Harper, one of the Masons, and three or four more were shot, one in the arms of his wife, who escaped unhurt though her husband received eleven balls. The rest dispersed and again recruiting, became, under Mason, the father, the terror of the road through the wilderness between Nashville in Tennessee and the Mississippi Territory.”

Cuming’s account is fairly accurate, but if by “Harper” he refers to Big Harpe or Little Harpe, he is mistaken. The “detachment of militia” that ran out this band of Diamond Island outlaws could more properly be called a “regiment” of local regulators, for there is nothing on record to show that any state militia was ever sent to the island. In pioneer days regulators, as a rule, relied upon their own “military strength” and exercised it without formal orders from “official headquarters.”

Diamond Island is about fourteen miles below Henderson. It is some three miles long and a half-mile wide, and more or less diamond shaped. In Mason’s day it was covered with gigantic trees and luxurious vines and presented so wonderful a scene that it attracted early travelers who passed it. In pioneer days it was, according to comments written by many travelers, the most beautiful island in the Ohio. Zadok Cramer in _The Navigator_, published in 1806, says it is a “large and noble looking island.” J. Addison Richards in his _Romance of American Landscape_ refers to it as “the crown-jewel in this cluster of the Ohio brilliants.” Thomas Ashe, whose trip down the Ohio was “performed in 1806,” goes so far as to say it is “by far the finest in the river, and perhaps the most beautiful in the world!” About a generation after Mason and other outlaws abandoned it as a trap for victims, Edmund Flagg visited the Island and found that “it is said to be haunted.” In 1917 it was, according to one man’s idea, “sure ha’nted.” This once luxuriant forest island is now a cornfield, celebrated for its wonderfully fertile soil and for its “Diamond Island Canned Corn.” All that is left of its former splendor is its size. Its heavy fringe of cottonwood and willow still attracts attention and helps repicture the Island as it was in the olden days. The gnarled roots along the bank and the driftwood piled here and there on the beach seem to hold dumb the secrets of Mason and his men and the tragedies enacted there more than a century ago.

Robbery and its booty were uppermost in Mason’s mind and were the object of his every act. Nevertheless, in selecting Cave-in-Rock, seventy miles down the Ohio River, as his next headquarters he chanced to choose a place, judging from the present appearance of the landscape, that was far more picturesque than Diamond Island. All the primeval beauty of the Island has long ago disappeared, and some of the wild charm of Cave-in-Rock and its surroundings has vanished with the original forest. Flatboat pirates have come and gone; the Ohio still flows on as majestically and as mysteriously as ever, but all its flood of waters will never wash away the legends of tragedies connected with the two places.

Mason made Cave-in-Rock his headquarters during the greater part of 1797. River pirates were numerous in the old flatboat days--especially before 1811 when the first steamboat was run from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. Travelers were warned by those who had made trips down the river and knew the usual methods followed by river pirates; but with all their intended precautions and in spite of all the instructions received many of the inexperienced became easy prey for the robbers. The Cave had often been used by travelers as a temporary stopping place and had become a well known shelter. But the fact that it had also served as a temporary abode for outlaws seems not to have been widely circulated before this time. Mason recognized in it a hiding place that offered him the shelter of a good house and also one that was very convenient and reasonably safe. Besides, it was peculiarly fitted for his purpose, for its partially concealed entrance commanded a wide view both up and down the river.

He also recognized the necessity of enticing his intended victims into the Cave in an innocent manner or by some unusual method. Mason’s reputation as an outlaw was beginning to spread. He overcame the obstacle of publicity by changing his name to “Wilson.” In order to lull any suspicion he concluded to convert the Cave into an inn and he and his family therefore fitted it up for the purpose of accommodating guests. On the river bank where it could be seen by those going down the stream he raised a large sign: “Wilson’s Liquor Vault and House for Entertainment.” And thus it came about that Cave-in-the-Rock was transformed into Cave-Inn-Rock and finally to Cave-in-Rock.

Daniel Blowe, in 1820, briefly recorded that “Mason’s gang of robbers made Cave-in-Rock their principal rendezvous in 1797, where they frequently plundered or murdered the crews of boats descending the Ohio.” Most historians who touched on the subject after Blowe’s time publish, with equal brevity, the same statement. Henry Howe, in his _Historical Collections of the Great West_, published in 1852, says: “Sometimes Mason plundered the descending boats but more frequently preferred to wait and plunder the owners of their money as they returned.” Comparatively few men returned north by river and it is therefore likely that not many single boats or small flotillas going south floated by unmolested. In this connection Judge James Hall comments that the boats that were permitted to pass the Cave and Hurricane Island, six miles below, were pointed out by Mason, who on such occasions would jokingly remark: “These people are taking produce to market for me.” [61]

Mason discovered that many of his men who went south with captured boats never returned to report, and he realized that sooner or later an attempt would be made to capture him if he continued his work at the Cave. He therefore decided to go south. For these and probably other reasons he, as stated by Monette, “deserted the Cave in the Rock on the Ohio and began to infest the great Natchez Trace where the rich proceeds of the river trade were the tempting prize.”

By what means and under what circumstances Mason and his family moved south is not known. After leaving Henderson County he remained longer at Cave-in-Rock than at any other one place. His name is inseparably associated with Cave-in-Rock, both in history and tradition, but neither history nor tradition has preserved an account giving the details of any definite robbery committed by him while there. It is likely that he left the Cave in ample time to avoid being driven out by a body of men who had been organized by the merchants of Pittsburgh for the purpose of trying to exterminate him and all other river pirates. No record of Mason’s whereabouts during 1798 and 1799 can now be found. During these two years many robberies occurred along the Mississippi River and along various trails on the American side of the river from Kentucky to New Orleans, but the guilty men were seldom captured. A number of these robberies, on both river and land, were doubtless perpetrated by Mason under one or more assumed names.

According to Audubon, the ornithologist, the Masons made their headquarters for a while on Wolf Island, in the Mississippi, twenty-five miles below the mouth of the Ohio. About 1815, or a number of years after Mason’s career was closed, Audubon gathered the following about the famous outlaw’s stay on this island:

“The name of Mason is still familiar to many of the navigators of the Lower Ohio and Mississippi. By dint of industry in bad deeds, he became a notorious horse-stealer, formed a line of worthless associates from the eastern part of Virginia (a state greatly celebrated for its fine breed of horses) to New Orleans, and had a settlement on Wolf Island, not far from the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi, from which he issued to stop the flatboats, and rifle them of such provisions and other articles as he and his party needed. His depredations became the talk of the whole western country; and to pass Wolf Island was not less to be dreaded than to anchor under the walls of Algiers. The horses, the negroes, and the cargoes, his gang carried off and sold.”

In March, 1800, Mason appeared in New Madrid, Missouri, then Spanish territory, and applied for a passport. This was issued to him, as appears later, on the recommendation of a man whom he had met casually at Red Banks (Henderson, Kentucky) and who was unaware of the real character of the person he introduced. The passport not only permitted Mason to settle on Spanish territory with the privilege of purchasing land, but it also served as a document designating him as a desirable citizen. When he applied for this permit, he may have resolved to open up a farm and lead a respectable life. If so, the resolution to reform was of short duration, for he made no attempt to select a site for a permanent home. In the meantime he carefully preserved the passport, knowing it might some day serve, in its way, as a letter of recommendation. It would also serve as evidence that he had taken an initial step toward becoming a Spanish subject. Should he confine his land operations to the American side, and his river piracy to the waters of the Mississippi, and make none but American citizens his victims, the chances were he might some day find a safe and convenient retreat in the Spanish domain west of the river.

During 1800 and the three years that followed, Mason moved over the country with remarkable activity. A report of a robbery committed by him on the Natchez Trace, says Monette, was soon followed by an account of another perpetrated on the Mississippi many miles away, and vice versa. Men going down the Mississippi, as those going down the Ohio, encountered many troubles incidental to the running of boats. They were always exposed to river pirates of whom Mason was one. Among other hardships to which they were subjected was the unrestrained authority of the Spanish, who were then in possession of the land west of the Mississippi and who practically controlled the navigation of that river.

Mason On the Natchez Trace

Much has been written about the old Natchez Trace, the narrow Indian trail leading from Natchez, Mississippi, to Nashville, Tennessee, at which place travelers took other trails leading to Illinois, Kentucky, and Virginia. In the flatboat days many merchants who had disposed of the goods they brought down the Ohio and Mississippi returned north with the proceeds of their sales by this overland route; others took the ocean route by way of Philadelphia, back to their homes. Many of these pioneer merchants refer to their experience in this wilderness and many early western travelers who rode over this old trail describe it in their books. We shall, however, confine our glimpse of the early days on this historic trace to the facts concerning Mason.