Cave-in-Rock (From an original oil painting by J. Bernhard Alberts, made in 1916) THE OUTLAWS OF CAVE-IN-ROCK Historical Accounts of the Famous Highwaymen and River Pirates who operated in Pioneer Days upon the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and over the old Natchez Trace by Otto A. Rothert Secretary, The Filson Club The Arthur H. Clark Company Cleveland: 1924 COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY OTTO A. ROTHERT All Rights Reserved TO MY FRIEND YOUNG E. ALLISON All Rights Reserved TO MY FRIEND YOUNG E. ALLISON...

This book is intended to give the authentic story of the famous Cave-in-Rock of the lower Ohio River, as collected from historic and romantic sources, and to present verified accounts of the most notorious of those highwaymen and river pirates who in the early days of the middle West and South filled the Mississippi basin with the alarm and terror of their crimes and exploits. All the criminals herein treated made their headquarters at one time or another in this famous cavern. It became a natur

Nature has set her own seal of wonder and immortality upon some of her works. The cavern of Cave-in-Rock, on the northern bank of the lower Ohio River, bears such a seal. Lacking the adventitious aids of immensity, depth, and remoteness, it was regarded with religious interest in the vague traditions of the aborigines, and has excited the curiosity, aroused the imagination and stirred the fear of white men since they first discovered it. The Cave has been at once noted and notorious, famous and

It is not clear when Cave-in-Rock first became the headquarters of the criminals who flourished on the Ohio, and preyed upon primitive commerce and travel between Pittsburgh and the Lower Mississippi. Shortly after the Revolution was under way, renegades from eastern communities, corrupt stragglers from the American army, and villains who had had their brutal training in western wilds, began to seek in the Ohio valley refuge from the more orderly and well settled communities. Samuel Mason, who h

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.” A

What had happened to the Harpes and their women was a natural outcome of the frontier outlook upon life. The three mothers had gained the sympathy of the court and the community in their apparent distress and helplessness. It was believed that they had obtained a happy release from their barbarous masters. It is probable that many of the persons who now helped in the hunt for the escaped Harpes did so not because they were highway murderers and should therefore be shot or hanged, but because the

Rumor had it that the Harpes had left the neighborhood of Russellville, going south, and were probably making their way to west Tennessee. In the meantime, however, two small families had wandered into Henderson County, Kentucky, and were living in a rented cabin on a small farm on Canoe Creek, some eight miles south of Red Banks or Henderson. About twenty miles southwest of this point, near the headwaters of Highland Creek, were Robertson’s Lick and, west of it, Highland Lick. A few miles east

Big Harpe was dead, Little Harpe had vanished into the wilderness and the women had again been spared through public sympathy with their apparent helplessness and misfortunes. What was to become of them and of Little Harpe and of the seven determined men who had run down the gigantic monster? How were these men rewarded for their heroism? The records, hunted down with the utmost patience, constitute a new story in which mystery, tragedy, suspicion and pathos all enter to bring about poetic justi

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

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 m

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

Out of the mass of perjury and counter-accusations brought out at this examination only one thing was clear—that is that Mason and his gang, as far as testimony and confession went, were not guilty of any crime on the Spanish side of the Mississippi. Whatever crimes they may have committed it was essential to their present safety to locate them on the American or eastern side of the river. The Spanish authorities had no power to punish them for violations of law on American territory, but the Sp

The Cave had been used for religious purposes, as a haven in time of distress, as an inn and as a decoy house for murder and robbery. Through the widely scattered references to it in early books of travel and in magazines and newspapers we find also occasional indications that it had been, at different times and for short periods, the workshop and headquarters of counterfeiters. There are, indeed, few details concerning its occupation by bandits and criminals of any description; this is the veil

After Mason left Cave-in-Rock other outlaws still continued to use the cavern as a temporary stopping place or headquarters. An outlaw’s stay at any place is of necessity short. Mason, in 1797, had lived there longer than any other. Those who followed him were more or less migratory. Residents in the vicinity were in no way implicated in the various acts that made the Cave so notoriously dangerous, until the mysterious Ford’s Ferry band began its robberies. Since 1834, when that organization cea

After the death of his two sons James Ford was, in a sense, obliged to stand alone and face, as best he could, any and all reflections upon his reputation. According to one tradition, some of the law-abiding citizens continued to regard him as an innocent victim of treacherous associates. It appears that among the members of the Ford’s Ferry crowd there were only a few whom he dared trust. Henry C. Shouse was one of them and he, with two others, as is shown later, played an important part in the

Historical novels, with some exceptions, present the past in a more interesting manner than do the formal histories which are intended as chronicles of actual facts. It has been said, on the one hand, that “truth is stranger than fiction,” and on the other that “fiction is often more truthful than fact.” Fiction is undoubtedly more truthful in the presentation of the manners and social life of the period portrayed than is formal history. The history of Cave-in-Rock and the careers of the outlaws

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 F