Part 13

To this the Governor General replied on February 28, saying among other things that “It is truly impossible to determine whether the delinquents are Spaniards or Americans” and that he had given his officers “the most positive orders ... to take the most efficacious means of discovering and apprehending the criminal or criminals that can be adopted ... and I assure your Excellency that if the criminals are taken they will be punished in such a manner as to serve as an example to others.” He complained that the people of “the States and Western Settlements ... having the freedom and use of the navigation of the Mississippi” came down into the Spanish territory in great numbers, among whom are “vagabonds ... who have fled from, or who do not, or can not return to, the United States.” [113]

Each governor was willing to arrest highway robbers and river pirates on his own side of the Mississippi, but neither could suggest to the other that if it became necessary for any pursuing party to cross the river into foreign territory, such pursuers might continue the chase without a special permit. Samuel Mason evidently understood and foresaw this condition of international affairs. He had purposely avoided committing crimes on the Spanish side, and now that his notoriety would, in all probability, result in his being hunted along the Natchez Trace, he moved to the Mississippi, there to confine his operations to the river and its American bank, on the very border of a comparatively safe and easily reached land of refuge.

The Baker robbery was in a sense nothing more than another link in Mason’s long chain of crimes. Colonel Baker was not daunted by the loss of his money and his failure to capture Mason, for the following spring he started down the river again in a flatboat loaded with merchandise. He supplied himself with guns, not only to protect his boat, but also to better prepare himself for his return home over the dangerous Trace. Some time in April, 1802, when his boat reached a point below Vicksburg, then known as Walnut Hills and Nogales, he came in contact with Mason and some of his men. Colonel Baker wrote a statement giving the details of this attack and forwarded it to Governor Claiborne of Mississippi. Colonel Baker’s written statement cannot be found. Its effect, however, is shown by the fact that upon receipt of it Governor Claiborne, who was aware that outlaws had long infested the frontier, more fully realized the necessity for action. The governor sent out three official letters from the capital of Mississippi Territory, each dated, “Town of Washington, April 27, 1802.” [113]

The first was written to Colonel Daniel Burnett, at Fort Gibson, who was in command of the militia in Claiborne County. It is here quoted in full from Dunbar Rowland’s _Official Letter Books of W. C. C. Claiborne_:

TOWN OF WASHINGTON, APRIL 27, 1802--

“Sir,--I have received information that a set of pirates and robbers who alternately infest the Mississippi River and the road leading from this district to Tennessee, rendezvous at or near the Walnut Hills, in the County of Claiborne:--a certain Samuel Mason and a man by the name of Harp, are said to be the leaders of this banditti:--they lately attempted in a hostile manner to board the boat of Colo[nel] Joshua Baker, between the mouth of Yazou River, and the Walnut Hills, but were prevented by Colo[nel] Baker’s making a shew of arms, and manifesting a great share of firmness. These men must be arrested; the honor of our country, the interest of society, and the feelings of humanity, proclaim that it is time to stop their career; The crimes of Harp, are many and great, and in point of baseness, Mason is nearly as celebrated:--While these sons of rapine and murder are permitted to rove at large, we may expect daily to hear of _outrages_ upon the lives and properties of our fellow citizens.

“The militia of your regiment not being organized, I presume it would not be in your power, to execute (strictly) a military order, I shall therefore only request, that you will immediately endeavor to procure fifteen or twenty men as volunteers, and place yourself, or some confidential character at their head.

“This little force will then proceed to the Walnut Hills, and after making the due examination and enquiry at that place, they will examine the woods in the neighborhood of the Mississippi as high up as Yazou; If you should fall in with Mason and his party you will use all the means in your power to arrest them, or any of them, and I desire, that the person or persons arrested, may immediately be conveyed under a strong guard to Natchez.

“I hope that the honor of taking these lawless men, will be conferred upon the citizens of your neighborhood; should they succeed, I promise them a very generous reward.

“I have written to Lieutenant Rennick upon this subject, and it is probable, he will give you all the aid in his power.

“With great respect & esteem.

“I am sir, your Hble--Servt: “WILLIAM C. C. CLAIBORNE

“P. S. For your information, I have enclosed you the statement made by Colo[nel] Baker to me, of the late attempt made to rob him.

“W. C. C. C.

“COLO[NEL] DANIEL BURNETT--”

Another letter was sent to Lieutenant Seymour Rennick, who was in command of a detachment of United States troops at Grindstone Ford on the Natchez Trace. In it the governor referred to the attack made on Colonel Baker’s boat and stated that “a certain Samuel Mason and a certain Wiley Harp ... have been in the habit of committing with impunity murders and robberies.... I think it is probable they may be found at or near the Walnut Hills; at that place the wife of John Mason resides.” He suggested to this officer that the federal government furnish Colonel Burnett with a sergeant and twelve men.

The third letter was addressed “To the Officer commanding the United States Troops near the mouth of Bear Creek on the Tennessee River.” In it Governor Claiborne writes that: “I have received information that the road from this territory to Tennessee is infested by a daring set of robbers, among them are a certain Samuel Mason and a certain Wiley Harp ... I hope, Sir, that if you should receive information of any mischief being done or attempted in the wilderness you will immediately order out a party of men, and make the necessary exertions to arrest the offenders.”

The lower Mississippi valley was now aroused. Mason had become a terror in a frontier country that was more or less accustomed to lawlessness and bloodshed. His robberies were current history and the whereabouts of Wiley Harpe was a discussed but unsolved question. A little more than two years before Governor Claiborne began to move toward the arrest of Mason, the news that Big Harpe had been captured and beheaded in Kentucky near Cave-in-Rock (Mason’s one-time headquarters) had rapidly spread throughout the country. With the report also had come the warning that Little, or Wiley Harpe, had escaped and fled south. Up to this time--April, 1802--there was nothing to point out the actual or probable whereabouts of the missing Harpe. No mention of any murders committed by him appeared in the current newspapers. Indications and hopes were that he had left the country for good or had been killed. Governor Claiborne probably had heard from others besides Colonel Baker that Wiley Harpe was one of Mason’s men. Even though he was not convinced of Harpe’s presence on the Mississippi, he knew that by linking the names of these two notorious outlaws together, the public would more fully realize the desperate character of Mason and therefore take a more active interest in his capture.

As indicated in his letter to Colonel Burnett, the governor of Mississippi Territory promised “a very generous reward” for the capture of Samuel Mason and Wiley Harpe. Monette says the governor “offered a liberal reward for the robber Mason, dead or alive, and the proclamation was widely distributed.” J. F. H. Claiborne, in his _History of Mississippi_, states that the proclamation was issued and a reward of two thousand dollars was offered for the capture of Mason and Harpe. No two historians make precisely the same statements regarding the reward. It is more than likely that a printed proclamation was issued, although an effort to find a copy or reprint has been futile. The proclamation in all probability gave, among other things, the facts embraced in the following statement quoted from a letter written two years later by Governor Claiborne to James Madison, who was then Secretary of State at Washington: “A reward of four hundred dollars for apprehending them was offered by the Secretary of War, and five hundred dollars by myself, in my character as Governor of the Territory.”

The extermination of Mason and his band was a matter of serious importance to the law abiding and peace loving citizens of the Territory. And now that a reward of at least nine hundred dollars had been offered and the militia directed to search for the outlaws, the prospects of capture appeared very encouraging. It was known that Mason and Harpe had lived in Kentucky and at Cave-in-Rock, and it was therefore apparently presumed that they were old and constant associates. The two outlaws, however, may never have met in Kentucky nor at the Cave. Whether or not Mason the robber and Harpe the brute were in the same band, both, nevertheless, deserved the severest punishment that could be inflicted by a pioneer people.

A number of highway robbers and river pirates had been arrested during the time Mason was working in Mississippi, but Samuel Mason and Wiley Harpe, the most notorious of them all, had evaded arrest. Where were they likely to be found? As a matter of fact outlaws camped at any place they found convenient and well adapted for their work, but never remained long at any one spot. It was known that Samuel Mason had, at one time, lived about twenty miles northeast of Natchez, near what is now Fayette. [81] Shortly after the Baker highway robbery had taken place it was discovered that at the time of the robbery Mason’s headquarters was near Rocky Springs, a stopping place on the old Natchez Trace some forty miles northeast of Natchez and twenty miles south of Vicksburg.«23»

Draper in a brief note [12H] says Mason spent much time at Palmyra and on Stack Island. Palmyra then, as now, was a very small settlement on the Mississippi, about twenty miles below Vicksburg. Stack Island, also known as Crow’s Nest or Island No. 94, was washed away shortly after Mason’s day, and in time most of its traditions disappeared. It was on Stack Island, near the mouth of Lake Providence, about fifty-five miles below Vicksburg, that we first hear of Mason--after organized bands began to search for him.

Claiborne, the historian, states that: “After the Governor’s proclamation had been issued Mason and his gang were closely hunted by the whites and Indians and, having made some narrow escapes, they quit the country and crossed the Mississippi to somewhere about Lake Providence [Louisiana] in the then Spanish territory.” Whether at Lake Providence (which is on the Spanish side of the Mississippi but practically on the river) or on the nearby Stack Island in the river, Mason was in a position to flee easily into that part of the great Spanish wilderness which today is northern Louisiana and the state of Arkansas. There he could not only conceal himself more effectually, but also live with some confidence that the Spanish authorities would not attempt to capture him.

At Stack Island Mason laid his hand upon fate. The band robbed a traveler and found among his effects a copy of Governor Claiborne’s proclamation. [26] Monette says that Mason read it aloud and “indulged in much merriment on the occasion.” The statement in the proclamation that Wiley (or Little) Harpe, the Kentucky desperado, was a member of his gang convinced Mason that the authorities were in great fear of the prowess of his band and were driven to arouse the public to terror and activity by conjuring with the dreadful name of Harpe. Mason was feeling good, notwithstanding the hue and cry raised by the promise of rewards for his capture dead or alive. He was perfectly confident of his ability to escape any American militiamen or Mississippi posse. He could afford to laugh at the additional incitement to his capture contained in the declaration that he had joined forces with Harpe.

Nobody can say positively that Little Harpe was at that date a member of the band. It is more than probable that Mason would not knowingly have permitted Harpe to join him. The reputation of the Harpes for brutality was sufficient to condemn them in the estimation of even such outcasts as Mason and his men. Somewhere in that southwest wilderness, however, Little Harpe was concealing himself from the fate that pursued him. He was hiding under assumed names, not daring to reveal his own even to the most abandoned persons he met for fear of capture. Hunted like a wild animal, it was necessary to lose his identity beyond the most remote chance of discovery.

The question is _was_ Harpe with Mason when the latter read his name aloud and made merriment about it? Was the headsman of fate stalking there at Mason’s elbow, compelled to keep silence and join in the laughter in that hour of grim jocularity? It was not until April, 1802, that John Setton appears of record as one of Mason’s band, was captured with him, tried with him, and escaped with him. It was not until almost two years later, under most dramatic circumstances, that Setton was to be identified as Little Harpe--as the man who brought fate home to Mason and himself and immediately met the pitiless fate he had so long and well deserved. All this will be shown later, but it is one of the mysteries of history whether that day at Stack Island Mason laughed himself out of the fear of Governor Claiborne and committed himself into the hands of fate in the person of Little Harpe. There is a further doubt whether Mason ever did actually discover that John Setton was Little Harpe.«24»

In May, 1802, we find Mason’s band at the mouth of White River, about one hundred and fifty miles above Stack Island. _The Palladium_ on August 12, 1802, in a news item dated Cincinnati, North West Territory, July 31, says:

“A letter dated, Natchez, June 11, from a gentleman who lately descended the river, contains the following interesting intelligence: ‘We were attacked by robbers near the mouth of White River and a breeze springing up, prevented us from being boarded by two pirogues, having in each six men well armed. They hailed us from the shore, telling us they wished to purchase some rifles, and on our refusing to land, they commenced the pursuit. They originally consisted of three companies, and were commanded by a person named Mason, who has left the camp at White River, and scours the road through the wilderness. About two weeks ago they attacked a merchant boat and took possession of her, after having killed one of the people on board.’”

Other robberies in 1802 and in the summer and fall of 1803 were reported, but by whom they were committed is not stated in the current newspapers. The one just cited, however, was without doubt some of Mason’s work. It occurred about one hundred and fifty miles above Stack Island and three hundred miles above Natchez, and some three hundred miles below New Madrid, which was then the principal town in the Spanish territory of upper Louisiana. New Madrid is now the county seat of New Madrid County, Missouri. The New Madrid country was six hundred miles from Natchez, out of the Mississippi territory and in a field where Mason felt he could carry on his usual activities, unhindered by the men who were pursuing him for the nine hundred dollars reward. Mason went up the river and had taken steps toward establishing himself a few miles below the town of New Madrid, in a small settlement known as Little Prairie, when in January, 1803, he was trapped and captured. He was arrested, not by the American officials he so much feared, but by the Spanish authorities who suspected that he was guilty of many of the crimes that had been committed on their side of the Mississippi River. The curious story of that frontier pursuit and trial is now to be told from the French records for the first time.

Mason--Trapped and Tried

The official record of the arrest of the Masons at Little Prairie and their trial at New Madrid is still in existence. The whereabouts of this old document has been noted by a few historians who briefly state that “There is in the Mississippi Department of Archives and History a record in French of the trial of Mason for robbery, by the military authorities of New Madrid, dated January, 1803.” But no writer has heretofore penetrated into this manuscript to discover what the trial revealed or how it ended. It was found among the papers belonging to J. F. H. Claiborne, the historian, and is now preserved in Jackson.«25»

The document covers one hundred and eighty-two pages. Many of the leaves are badly faded. Although the penmanship is far from good, every word, with few exceptions, can be deciphered. It is filled with interesting facts and equally interesting perjury. From the beginning of legislation down through the pioneer days humanity has ever been the same, and facts and fabrications have been paraded together before officials who are to pass judgment on the evidence presented. The Mason trial is no exception to this old practice in courts, but is rather an exaggerated instance of the tendency, as common in the “good old days” as in our own times.

The manuscript gives a complete history not only of the proceedings during the trial, but also of the arrests that preceded it. It begins with the day New Madrid officials were notified that the Masons were seen at Little Prairie, thirty miles down the river. A clerk then, and every day thereafter, carefully noted what action had been taken by the pursuers and what evidence had been gathered against the suspects, and continued the record through all the other proceedings.

The commandant at New Madrid, by whom the pursuit was ordered and before whom the captives were tried, evidently did not understand English, which was the only language spoken by nearly all the persons who appeared before him. Questions and answers were transmitted through an official interpreter.

There were fifteen witnesses. Eight made declarations regarding their knowledge of Mason and his family; the other seven were the prisoners themselves, who testified in their own behalf. Every witness took “an oath on the cross of his sword” to speak the truth. In a few instances “and by the Holy Scriptures” was added. As a witness was being heard the substance of his statements was recorded in French and after he finished, his testimony was read to him, transposed into English, and he, “maintaining it contained the truth to which nothing could be added or unsaid,” signed it as did the presiding officials. Four of these signatures are here reproduced in facsimile.

In the official document many statements and legal phrases are often repeated; they add to its length but throw no new light on the subject. In the following more or less paraphrased condensation the number of words is greatly reduced but the substance of the original is, in the main, retained.

The first entry in the old record is dated January 11, 1803. It shows that one Pierre Dapron, a citizen of New Madrid, appeared in court and made a declaration before three officials: the Commandant, Don Henri Peyroux de la Coudreniere, “Captain of the Army, Civil and Military Commander of the District of New Madrid;” Don Pierre Antoine LaForge, “Commissioner of Police and Officer of the Militia,” and Don Joseph Charpentier, “Interpreter for His Majesty in the English Language.” Dapron explained to these officials that he had returned from Little Prairie and considered it his duty to declare that Ignace Belan had informed him that on his way to New Orleans with a cargo of salt pork he had seen four persons at Little Prairie whom he suspected of being members of the Mason band and although they did not attempt to rob his boat, he felt their presence should be reported.

George Ruddell, a citizen of Little Prairie, appeared before the court the same day and “told us by means of the interpreter that a party of eight men and one woman,” well armed and mounted, had arrived in town about two weeks before and had taken possession of an empty house belonging to an American citizen, Lesieur, who had not been consulted by them nor had they shown any passports. In the meantime, they rented a ten-acre tract from John Ruddell and bought a cow and sundry provisions. Among other things that aroused the suspicion of the neighborhood was the careful manner in which the house was guarded by the occupants. Ruddell expressed the opinion that if this was not the Mason band, then it was probably a part, explaining that “since the Governor of Natchez had the militia on the lookout for these robbers, the original crowd may have separated into smaller groups.” He was inclined to think that although the man called “father” was not the exact size of Samuel Mason, whom he had seen some years before, he nevertheless felt confident that “father” Mason was among the members of this gang. He concluded his declaration by stating that he was acting in behalf of the citizens of Little Prairie who suggested that these suspects be arrested and their effects examined.

The next day, “in view of the above cited declarations,” the Commandant ordered four persons, Joseph Charpentier, LaForge, George Ruddell, and Don Robert McCoy, “Captain of the Militia,” to proceed to Little Prairie--a distance of about thirty miles--and there meet a division of regulars commanded by Corporal Felipo Canot, who had been ordered to the scene. Upon their arrival at the place further investigation convinced the officers that the new suspects were Samuel Mason and some of his followers, and that about half the number had left the Lesieur house and moved over to a house owned by Francois Langlois. Realizing that the pursuing party would soon be scented by the suspects, it was decided to invade the two houses early in the morning.