Part 22

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HOUGH, EMERSON. Story of the Outlaw (New York, 1907). 36–73. [69]

HOWARD, H. R. History of Virgil A. Stewart and His Adventure in Capturing and Exposing the Great Western Land Pirate [John A. Murrell] (Philadelphia, 1836). [70]

HOWE, HENRY. Historical Collections of the Great West (Cincinnati, 1852). 181–185. [71]

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PURCELL, MARTHA GRASSHAM. The Sister of the Sage of Monticello Sleeps in Kentucky’s Soil. D. A. R. Souvenir, Lexington, Kentucky, October, 1908. [97]

PURCELL, MARTHA GRASSHAM. Stories of Old Kentucky (Cincinnati, 1915). 153–155. [98]

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SPALDING, MARTIN J. Sketches of the Early Catholic Missions in Kentucky (Louisville, 1844). 175, 176. [122]

SPEED, THOMAS. Wilderness Road. Filson Club Publications No. 2 (Louisville, 1886). 17–51. [123]

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LIBRARIES used in the preparation of this book.

_Chicago_: J. Christian Bay’s Private, Chicago Historical Society, John Crerar, Newberry, and University of Chicago. _Cincinnati_: Cincinnati Public, Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, and Young Men’s Mercantile. _Frankfort_: Kentucky State Historical Society, and State Library. _Jackson_: Mississippi Department of Archives and History. _Lexington_, Kentucky: Lexington Public. _Louisville_: Young E. Allison’s Private, Filson Club, Louisville Free Public, and R. C. Ballard Thruston’s Private. _Madison_: Wisconsin State Historical Society. _New Harmony_, Indiana: Workingmen’s Institute. _New Orleans_: Gaspar Cusach’s Private, Howard Memorial, Louisiana Historical Society, State Museum, and Thomas P. Thompson’s Private. _St. Louis_: Missouri Historical Society. _Springfield_: Illinois State Historical Society. _Washington_: Library of Congress.

FOOTNOTES

«1» Charles Alexander Lesueur (1778–1857) French naturalist and artist, was a member of Robert Dale Owen’s communal colony at New Harmony, Indiana, forty miles northeast of the cave. His drawing of Cave-in-Rock has never been published except in a doctoral thesis by Mme. Adrien Loir entitled, _Charles Alexandre Lesueur, artiste et savant Français en Amérique de 1816 a 1839_; issued in 1920 by Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, Le Havre. In this thesis are reproduced forty of Lesueur’s drawings.

«2» The first, and in a sense the only standard guide book of this kind ever published, was Zadok Cramer’s _The Ohio and Mississippi Navigator_. It made its appearance about 1801 and was followed by a number of revised and enlarged editions until 1824, when the last edition was printed. It was practically the only printed guide for flatboats.

«3» Conflict with pirates, cut-throats, and counterfeiters was only one of the perils to which the boatmen were exposed on their long and trying trips into the western wilds. Floating ice, heavy winds and rains, treacherous currents, hidden bars, and large snags were among the natural dangers that constantly engaged the attention of the steersman. Many boats, managed by careless or inexperienced men, were overturned, the craft and cargo damaged or lost, and, as was frequently the case, some or all on board drowned. Poorly constructed boats were put out of commission after meeting with only a few minor obstacles.

«4» Prior to about 1824 Harpe was spelled Harp.

«5» After killing Langford the Harpes probably continued to travel along the Wilderness Road until they reached Crab Orchard, from which place radiated, besides the Wilderness Road to Cumberland Gap, at least four other routes: the Louisville route, the Frankfort and Cincinnati route, passing Logan’s Fort (or Stanford) Danville, and Harrodsburg, the Maysville route, and the Tennessee route. Crab Orchard, being a converging point of roads, many travelers going east waited there until a crowd of a dozen or more was organized, thus assuring each a greater safety in making the trip through the Wilderness. Settlers passing through the Wilderness going west usually left home in a crowd sufficiently large to protect itself. [123] Langford, as is shown later, met the five Harpes in the Wilderness and, notwithstanding their appearance, he doubtless felt that they would at least serve as protection in the event of danger. The Harpes, after killing Langford, probably passed through Crab Orchard and continued northwest via the Frankfort road, toward Stanford and in or near Stanford turned west for the purpose of misleading anyone who might pursue them as that course threw them toward both Tennessee and western Kentucky.

«6» In 1799 Stanford was a frontier settlement of less than 200 persons, including slaves. In 1780, when Lincoln County was formed, Logan’s Fort or St. Asaph’s became the seat of justice. In 1787 (on land presented by Colonel Benjamin Logan, a site about half a mile east of the fort, where the brick court house now stands) the county erected a log court house thirty feet long and twenty feet wide, with a small jury room on each side, the structure forming a T. Near it stood a log jail of two rooms, each twelve feet square.[28] In these log buildings the Harpes were tried and confined.

«7» A perusal of the accounts kept by Joseph Welsh, the sheriff of Lincoln County, reveals many interesting facts. John Gower against the Commonwealth of Kentucky runs: “For making a pair of handcuffs for Wiley Roberts 9s. And putting on and taking off when committed and before trial 2s. 6d. To putting on and taking off the handcuffs after trial and before removal to the District jail 2s. 6d.,” making a total of 14s. For this same service on Micajah Roberts, Gower received, respectively 2s. 6d., 1s. 3d., and 1s. 3d., a total of only 5s.

The sheriff received the following sums: “For summoning a court for the examination” of the five prisoners, £1. 5s. “For summoning twelve witnesses vs. Micajah Roberts and others, at 1s. 3d. each, 15s.” “For imprisoning, 2s. 6d., keeping in jail 10 days at 1s. a day, 10s., Removing to District jail, 7s. 6d., total 20s.,” making a total of £5.

Another bill presented by the sheriff was for eight men guarding the five prisoners in the Lincoln County jail for fourteen days at 4s. 6d. each per day, making a total of £25. 4s. The last bill shows he paid seven of the guards “for one day and traveling twenty miles in removing the above prisoners to the District jail and returning at 2d. per mile, 6s. 4d. [sic]” making a total of £2. 4s. 4d.

The total of all these accounts is a little more than £35. or what would today be about $175.00.

«8» Danville, in 1799, with a population of a little over 200, was one of the most important towns in Kentucky. In 1784 the court authorized the building of “a log house large enough for a court room in one end, and two jury rooms in the other end on the same floor ... and a prison of hewed or sawed logs at least nine inches thick.” [82] The buildings were still in use when the Harpes were taken there to await trial.

«9» The account of the Danville jailer shows that the two men had been confined 71 days, Sally and Betsey 102 days, and Susanna 103 days, for which a charge of 1s. per day for each was made; 449 days £22. 9s. In the same record is a memorandum to the effect that the three infants had been in jail 69, 43, and 9 days, or a total of 121 days. The jailer evidently intended to make a charge for this item, but there are no figures to indicate the contemplated amount. Four men for guarding the jail 103 days received a total of £6. 6s. An item shows: “April 12, 21¾ cords wood from the 5th of January until this day for the use of guards, court, and prisoners @ 6 [sic] cutting the wood for the above, 2s. 6d., £2. 14s. 4d.” The total of the three items is £31. 9s. 4d. The seven Danville items previously noted amount to £5. 7s. 11d. This makes the Danville expense a grand total of £36. 17s. 3d., or what would today be about $185.00. This, with the $175.00 Stanford account makes a grand total of the now known expense items a sum that would today be about $360.00.

«10» A special act of the Kentucky legislature was passed and approved December 18, 1800, for the relief of the widow of John Tully, extending the statutory time of payment for lands taken up by him on the south side of Green River under a settlement act and exempting her in the interval from paying interest. The extension was given until December 1, 1810. The preamble of the act recites its enactment because “Tully ... having obtained a certificate for a settlement of two hundred acres of land ... having settled on said land, was assassinated by the murderers called Harpes, and consequently left his wife, Christiana Tully, a desolate widow with eight small children.” This is a notable instance of pioneer liberality and sympathy for a widow in distress, particularly in spite of the fact that, according to Colonel Trabue, Tully not only knew the Harpes, but also, less than a year before they murdered him, had carried messages to them from the Harpe women when the outlaws were making for Cave-in-Rock.

«11» Tradition says Major William Love’s charred corpse was buried near the site of the Stegall house. His widow survived him many years and is buried at Piney Fork Camp Ground, about six miles east of Marion, Kentucky. On the marble slab at the head of her grave is the inscription: “My name was Esther Love, daughter of Wm. & Nancy Calhoun of Abbeville, South Carolina, born Sept. 30, 1765, died Mar. 2, 1844. My husband Wm. Love was killed by the Harpes Aug. 1799. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.”

«12» Draper in his “Sketch of the Harpes” places Big Harpe’s head “in the forks of a tree,” but in a later note [12G] he has it “placed or rather stuck on the sharpened end of the limb of a tree.” Breazeale has it “upon the top of a lofty pole, or in the fork of a tree.” Collins, in one version, says the men “stuck it upon a pole where the road crosses the creek,” and in another, that “a tall young tree, growing by the side of the trail or road, was selected and trimmed of its lateral branches to its top, and then made sharp. On this point the head was fastened. The skull and jaw-bones remained there for many years--after all else had been decomposed and mingled with the dust.” In his sketch on Webster County, Kentucky, Collins states that “Big Harpe’s head was stuck upon a pole” near an oak tree which was still standing, and that the letters H.H. for Harpe’s Head, carved upon it in 1799, were still legible in 1874.

Robert Triplett, in his anonymous autobiography, _Roland Trevor_, publishes an absurd story to the effect that the two Harpes had stolen the daughter of a pioneer living near Henderson. The father pursued Big Harpe, wounded him, and shortly thereafter captured him. This confused and confusing writer says: “Harpe lay near a tree. The father lifted him, and set him up against it, and then went a little way to a branch, from which, in the brim of his hat, he carried Harpe some water, and while he was drinking reloaded his rifle, and shot him. Then with his knife he cut off his head and stuck it on a pole at the fork of the road between Henderson and Madisonville, which place, from that circumstance, was called, and is to this day, ‘Harpe’s Head.’”

Another absurd story of the Harpes appears in _History of Great American Crimes_, by Frank Triplett who with a few facts and a vivid imagination succeeds in covering some twenty pages on the Harpes. According to his account, Leiper and Stegall organized a pursuing party, and when the wounded outlaw was overtaken one end of a rope was adjusted around Big Harpe’s neck and the other thrown over a limb of a large tree under which the wounded man lay. “Appalled by the blasphemies of Harpe, the word was given, and, with a strong pull, his body was run up some six or eight feet from the ground, and whirling round and round in the rapidly gathering twilight, it quivered convulsively for some moments; there was a fierce death struggle and the soul of the most demoniac murderer that ever cursed our continent had gone out into the limitless realms of eternity. When satisfied that Harpe was dead, the corpse was lowered to the ground, the head cut off and fixed in the fork of the tree which had served his executioners as a gallows.”