Part 3

The outlaws at Cave-in-Rock turned to their advantage the suggestion published in _The Navigator_. About ten miles above the Cave, near Battery Rock, or on what has long since been called the Jonathan Brown Old Place, the robbers stationed a man who offered to pilot, for a small sum, single boats or small fleets through this “serpentine channel.” He explained that the person referred to by _The Navigator_ as living “just below the Cave” was out on a visit and would not return for a week or more. In the event the first man failed, another, standing ready a few miles further down at Ford’s Ferry, offered his services. The pilot who succeeded in being employed grounded the boat in front of the Cave if, by the time he reached the place, he judged the cargo was worth the risk and the crew could be overpowered. If more time was required, he guided the boat to the head of Hurricane Island. There it was either wrecked or taken safely through the channel, the procedure depending on whether or not he judged a profitable robbery possible. Boatmen who declined to take a pilot aboard at Battery Rock or Ford’s Ferry were likely, if the water was comparatively low, to inquire for a director “just below the Cave.” The man procured there, whether a member of the Cave band or not, invariably guided the boat safely through. Thus by helping to maintain one reputable and reliable place near the Cave for procuring the services of a pilot, the robbers experienced little trouble in trapping the boats they selected for that purpose.

Although most of the prospective victims were given little consideration until after they had come within ten or twenty miles of the Cave, in a number of instances the river pirates began setting a trap for a boat long before it arrived at Shawneetown.

The fact that the victims were piloted to the Cave by certain members of a band, or enticed into the place by some other means for the sole purpose of robbery, is recorded by many early writers; none of them, however, gives any details. All authors who touch on the Cave’s history publish statements based on what other men and women heard other people had experienced while in the hands of the outlaws. Only one instance has been found in which the victim himself (Dr. Charles H. Webb) recited to an author the details of how he was decoyed to the Cave and how he escaped from the men then occupying the place. The old flatboat robbers and flatboat wreckers left no first-hand accounts of the methods they employed.

The year 1788 roughly marks the beginning of the big inflow of settlers into the region west of the Alleghenies, also the beginning of counterfeiting and other outlawry at Cave-in-Rock. Many travelers and home-seekers followed the trails and went into the interior afoot, on horseback, or in wagons; others took the river to some river point and either settled there, or proceeded overland to an inland section. Thus, by “long lines of wagons” and “great fleets of boats” the middle West became settled. In the meantime many a small party traveled alone over the trails or drifted down the river in a single boat or in a small fleet, into the new and sparsely populated country, and became easy prey for highway robbers or river pirates who were likely to appear at any time and in any disguise.«3»

The earliest connection of the Cave with the name of any outlaw who became famous was in 1797, when Samuel Mason, of Revolutionary fame and hideous fate, seems to have occupied it as a main trap for his carefully worked out scheme of river piracy on a large scale. He erected a great rude sign on the river bank near the mouth of the Cave, proclaiming to every passerby that his “Liquor Vault and House for Entertainment” was open to the public. Many captains and their crews and many flatboat passengers were lured to it. After Mason and his family left for the South, most of the succeeding bands, during their necessarily short stay, operated a gambling and drinking place on the same principle.

It was a common practice among outlaws frequently to change not only their headquarters but their names. While at Cave-in-Rock Mason was also known as “Wilson.” Thomas Ashe, who wrote about it, probably did not know that the Wilson he described was Samuel Mason. Among the various men who appeared after the departure of Samuel Mason, alias “Wilson,” was one Jim Wilson. Whether Jim Wilson was his real name is not known. However, between Samuel Mason as “Wilson” and a later man known as “Jim Wilson” there has been more or less confusion for almost a century, especially in tradition. In 1897 William Courtney Watts wrote a historical romance, _Chronicles of a Kentucky Settlement_, in which he presents James Ford, of Ford’s Ferry notoriety, as “James Wilson.” James Ford was in no way connected with Mason or with Wilson, but his presentation under the fictitious name of “James Wilson” had added to the already existing confusion.

After James Ford’s death, which occurred in 1833--and many years before Watts applied the name of “James Wilson” to him--a writer published a sketch of the career of one Jim Wilson at the Cave. This sketch is here recapitulated, not as a story that can be verified in all its details by history, but as a semi-historical tale which may convey a better idea of the methods, life, and fate of the Cave’s outlaws than formal history. Only one who will make a study of the Cave’s past--from the available authenticated records down to some of its absurd traditions--will recognize this story as a picture in which facts fairly divide the scene with fiction, and painted in colors that bring joy to the hearts of readers of dime novels. When and by whom it was written or first published has not been ascertained. It apparently was not written before 1836, for the author, in his introduction, attempts a description of the Cave as it appeared that year. The writer evidently had read Thomas Ashe’s account published in 1808, and was also familiar with some of the Cave’s printed history and oral traditions. The story was probably first published in an old magazine or newspaper. In 1893 it appeared, anonymously and without credit, in the _Crittenden Press_, of Marion, Kentucky. From that weekly it was copied by many newspapers in the lower Ohio Valley, and is now preserved, under various titles, in many a scrap book.

This old story is interesting because it was written when stories of the Cave were still fresh. Inaccuracies and confusions of names and dates may have crept in, but it remains the first concise and inherently reasonable account of how the Cave was first occupied as a den by river criminals. In the presentation of the usual method of the Cave’s renegades, it matters very little whether the first of those desperate captains of crime bore the name of Wilson, Mason, or Harpe. In this case it seems clearly the story of Samuel Mason about 1797. The names they assumed might vary with every flatboat or raft that passed. An alias is ever the shield of the criminal. The story describes not only a method actually employed by the Cave’s outlaws for many years, but also a method by which the career of more than one of these river pirates was, as we shall see later, so tragically terminated. The story runs, as follows:

“About the year 1809, one Jim Wilson, a flatboatman, while passing down the Ohio, was overtaken by a terrific storm. He steered his boat under the shelter of a cliff. On landing he observed the opening of the cave. He was attracted by the commodious rooms with dry ceilings and sanded floors, and resolved that on his return to Pittsburgh he would bring his family hither.

“In the following spring Wilson’s boat again landed at the foot of the cliff. This time he was not alone, but with him came his wife, five children, two slaves, and William Hall, the great counterfeiter. His boat was loaded with provisions, stores, liquors, and arms, which he had stolen from the government warehouse at Fort Pitt on the night before his departure. The great cave was soon transformed into a dwelling and tavern large enough to accommodate several travelers.

“Wilson’s object for landing and establishing himself in so remote and romantic headquarters will be seen hereafter. A sign was planted at the water’s edge bearing these words: ‘Wilson’s Liquor Vault and House for Entertainment.’ This novel sign had a magnetic effect upon the boatmen who were almost daily passing en route to southern markets, with flatboats loaded with produce. The boat crews were generally jovial fellows, fond of rum, rest, and merriment, and hardly a boat passed without stopping. Many were the guests at Wilson’s Tavern; thieves and gamblers stopped off here and in a few months the place became infamous for its licentiousness and blasphemy.

“Wilson had been for many years a deep-dyed criminal and only came here that he might vary his crimes, and have a wider field for operation. Out of his guests he soon formed a band of the most noted robbers, murderers, and counterfeiters that, for two years, had no parallel in modern history. Their headquarters were at the Cave, but they had many stations along the Ohio above and below, which were maintained for the purpose of preventing suspicion being cast upon the genial landlord at the Cave. The principal station was at Hurricane Island, where forty-five men were stationed all the time.

“Each boat that landed at the Cave was captured and such of the crew as would not join Wilson’s Gang were allowed to drift on to Hurricane Island where they were again captured and the remainder of the crew foully murdered and their bodies cast into the Ohio. With new pilots and crews the boats and cargoes were taken to New Orleans, and converted into cash which was conveyed to the Cave through the wilderness of Kentucky and Tennessee.

“Many boats loaded with valuable cargoes left port on the upper Ohio and its tributaries, under the guidance of experienced and trustworthy officers. The officers and crews never returned. No returns for sales were ever received. It soon became a mystery that so many honorable men never came back to pay over the proceeds, and to tell the perils of their voyage. It was many months before any serious suspicions were created. After that it was found that the cargoes were disposed of by entirely different crews from those entrusted with them. There was but limited postal or other communication in those days--letters of special importance were carried by messengers who often fell into the hands of Wilson’s men. Thereby they kept posted and, by changing the communication to suit their purposes, and forwarding them by different carriers, often thwarted the attempt of justice, and kept their whereabouts enveloped in mystery for many months. ‘But it is a long lane that hath no turn.’ It was finally ascertained that no tidings could be had of any boat after it had passed certain points on the Ohio near Wilson’s Tavern.

“A meeting of the Pittsburgh shippers was called and it was determined to ferret out the mystery. This would be a shrewd piece of detective work which would be attended by many dangers. A large reward was offered for information as to the exact location of the robber band. John Waller, a determined and ambitious man of Maysville, Kentucky, resolved to secure the reward or perish in the attempt. He was furnished with a cargo contributed by various shippers along the Ohio, and with five trusted companions he set out early in the spring of 1810. They floated with the current many days. At last one evening they came in sight of the Cave, and were attracted by the novel sign and also the presence of several females on the bank, who made gestures for them to land. They held a hasty consultation and resolved to land; a few sweeps of the steering oar brought them to the foot of the cliff.”

That which follows this clear description of ordinary circumstances is evidently a mixture of fact and fiction that represents the imaginative style of the day. It is quite plain that the author himself had not personally visited the Cave, but had relied upon the fictions of Thomas Ashe or the reflections from Ashe’s account that had gained circulation and belief. He accepts the mythical “upper cave” and has the Cave divided off into rooms and a “council chamber,” no relics of which have ever been reported by any matter-of-fact observer from that time to this. The leader, “Jim Wilson,” he converts into a semi-savage with matted and tangled hair and beard, who is yet a shrewd trader and an orator of no mean power for his day. On the occasion of the initiation of new recruits Jim Wilson delivers a romantic and argumentative speech that is equal to the best fiction of the times.

The story narrates graphically how Waller and his men were overawed and compelled, under fear, to agree to join the robber band; how they were received into it with melodramatic ceremonies and then were oath-bound, but not fully trusted; how they made their escape--the savage and astute robbers being, of course, fooled for the exigencies of the event; how the Waller force combined with its waiting reinforcements, returned, captured Jim Wilson and then went to Hurricane Island and destroyed that part of the band; and how eventually “Jim Wilson’s head was severed, his body buried ... the head identified and delivered to the proper authorities at Pittsburgh ... and the captors received the merited reward.” This last point is plainly an echo of Mason’s fate.

This story of the activities of the early renegades of civilization, and of the river pirates who occupied the Cave bears upon its face the stamp of truth that fits neatly into practically all traditions from about 1795 to about 1820.

Before Mason became famous, however, greater scoundrels than he were to attract public attention, and hold it for some years. The story of the Harpes--“Big” and “Little” Harpe--is one that may freeze the blood as read now in the light of old records and personal accounts that seem to bring the reader into the very presence of these two brutes. In the security of law and order in these days the facts seem remote, but when the sparse settlement of the West in 1799 is realized, and the further fact that wilderness hospitality opened doors to all travelers and admitted these monsters freely with good people, it is possible then to conceive the horror their deeds and presence aroused.

The Harpes--A Terrible Frontier Story

The career of the two Harpes«4» in Tennessee, southern Illinois, and Kentucky, particularly Kentucky, at the close of the eighteenth century has rarely been equalled in the history of crime, either in peace or war. Its beginning was so sudden, its motives wrapped in such mystery, its race so swift, and its circumstances so terrible and unbelievably brutal as to justify Collins, the distinguished historian of Kentucky, in referring to the brothers as “the most brutal monsters of the human race.”

At that time, 1798–99, Kentucky had a pioneer population of about two hundred thousand, which was largely centered in the new trading and agricultural towns in the eastern part and in the rich bluegrass country. The remainder of the state, except along the water courses, was well nigh a wilderness. In the southern and western portions buffalo grazed, and bear were plentiful. East Tennessee, where the scourge of crime began, was even more sparsely settled. This pioneer population was vigorous, rude, and accustomed even to Indian atrocities. Among the settlers were many who, as fugitives from justice, had deliberately sought seclusion from the eastern states because of criminal offenses. The Ohio River was infested with inland pirates, and the early rivermen themselves were a rough and violent type. Isolation led well-meaning pioneers to be generous and confiding to those whom they had tested, but to a great degree might was right, and strangers looked askance at each other and were prepared for the worst.

Yet such a rude and hardy people as these were gripped with horror at the atrocities of the Harpes, at their often unmeaning and unprovoked murders. It is difficult in these days of well ordered government to realize the mysterious terror and excitement that began near Knoxville in 1798 and swept through the wilderness to the borders of the Mississippi, and across the Ohio into Illinois like some sudden, creeping fire that breaks out in underbrush, and grows steadily in intensity and rage until it sweeps forests before it. All this was, in a measure, realized in the breasts of human beings as the hideous crimes of the Harpes increased.

Aside from the wars and the recorded importances of political development, the episode of the Harpes is the most astounding event in the early life of the Middle West. It engaged the memory of men for forty years, and the pens of numerous historians, and writers of memoir have been occupied with it ever since. In the main the story has been well preserved, but in the details there has been the variation that grows with repetition. The most dignified historians have not disdained to seek the minute details attaching to the persons and actions of these two men from the moment they began their criminal career to the thrilling blood-chase in which the older brother was captured and killed, and the younger escaped into exile and to an even more dramatic and terrible death.

To this day the story of “The Harpes” and “Harpe’s Head” is told about firesides in the Cave-in-Rock country, in southern and western Kentucky and in eastern Tennessee. It has been perpetuated in folk ballads and written by scores of pens. [93]

It is the purpose here to bring together the many threads of the tale as they have been verified and corrected by original records sought from Wisconsin to New Orleans, and from Knoxville to Cave-in-Rock and the Mississippi River.

Judge James Hall, while living in Illinois, wrote a brief account of one of the crimes committed by these outlaws, and in April, 1824, published it in _The Port Folio_ of Philadelphia. In his introductory remarks he comments: “Neither avarice nor want nor any of the usual inducements to the commission of crime, seemed to govern their conduct. A savage thirst for blood--a deep-rooted enmity against human nature, could alone be discovered in their actions.... Plunder was not their object; they took only what would have been freely given them, and no more than what was necessary to supply the immediate wants of nature; they destroyed without having suffered injury, and without the prospect of benefit.... Mounted on fine horses they plunged into the forest, eluded pursuit by frequently changing their course, and appeared unexpectedly to perpetrate new horrors, at points distant from those where they were supposed to lurk.”

Judge Hall, up to that time, had done little more than describe one of their last crimes, yet _The Cincinnati Literary Gazette_, May 28, 1825, came out with a statement admitting that there may have been two outlaws by the name of Harpe, but added: “We have no hesitation in asserting that their history, as published in _The Port Folio_, is unworthy of belief.... The horrible details concerning these men ... such disgusting sketches of human depravity and barbarism manifest either a vitiated taste or a total disregard of the morals of the community.”

As far as is now known, at least two papers published in the month following came to the defense of Judge Hall’s account. _The Illinois Gazette_, of Shawneetown, among other things, declared: “The depravity and bloodshed which marked their existence ... are circumstances too strongly impressed upon the recollections of our early settlers to be contradicted at this date.”

_The Columbian_, of Henderson, Kentucky, in a half column article devoted to the same subject, asserts: “The account published in _The Port Folio_ is correct in every essential point.... However it may be regretted that such monsters as the Harpes ever should have existed to disgrace humanity, yet it is an uncontrovertible fact.” [56]

In the August, 1825, issue of _The Port Folio_ Judge Hall published an account of another murder committed by the Harpes--the killing of Thomas Langford, who was among their first victims in Kentucky. In the same number he devotes a few pages to a verification of the statements he published then and a few months previous. And before half had been told about the Harpes, _The Cincinnati Literary Gazette_ was convinced of its error in doubting and disputing the veracity of Judge Hall. Judge Hall wrote several pages justifying the publication of the weird and wonderful facts of the career of the Harpes. His arguments published in 1825 in his own defense hold good today and may be equally well applied to the story of the Harpes here given, which, as far as is known, is the first attempt to compile a complete history of these notorious outlaws:

“If it is intended to be objected, that these ‘horrid details,’ even if true, are not proper for publication--I reply, that whatever tends to develop the history or character of a people, is a legitimate subject of public discussion. History to be of any value must be true. It must disclose not only the truth but the whole truth. In vain would the historian seek this in the frail monuments vaguely preserved in the uncertain legend of tradition. He must resort to national records and to the testimony of writers contemporary with the events which he attempts to describe, and if the latter abstain from the narration of ‘disgusting sketches of human depravity and barbarism,’ history must be curtailed of her most fruitful source of incident, and men and nations stripped of their boldest peculiarity. It is perhaps forgotten that ‘depravity and barbarism’ constitute almost the sole basis of history, tragedy, and the epic song; that kings and courts are nothing without them; that they revel amid ‘the pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious war;’ and stand forth in bold relief in every department of civil subordination. It is to be deplored that such is the fact; but while crime and folly continue to predominate in the affairs of men, they will be found to swell the pages of those who attempt to exhibit correct pictures of human nature.

“In describing the American backwoodsmen, a class of men peculiar to our country, I have thought it proper to introduce among other authentic anecdotes the story of the Harpes. My object was to display as well the extraordinary sufferings to which the earliest emigrants to the western country were exposed, as the courage with which they met and repelled those hardships.”

The Harpes were believed to be brothers. They were natives of North Carolina. Micajah, known as Big Harpe, was born about 1768, and Wiley, known as Little Harpe, was born about 1770. Their father was said to have been a Tory who fought under the British flag at King’s Mountain and took part in a number of other battles against the colonists. Before the close of the Revolution and immediately thereafter many of the Tories living in the south Atlantic colonies fled toward the Mississippi. Those who still sympathized with the King of England and continued to live in the “Old States” were, in most sections, ostracized by their neighbors. It was to this class that the parents of the Harpes belonged; and it was, therefore, in an environment of hatred for and by neighbors that the two sons grew up.