Transcriber’s Note: Like the original book, this eBook encloses
Bibliography references in square brackets. To avoid embiguity,
this eBook encloses footnote references in angle quotes (e.g., «15»).
THE OUTLAWS
OF
CAVE-IN-ROCK
[Illustration: 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_
[Illustration]
The Arthur H. Clark Company
Cleveland: 1924
COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY
OTTO A. ROTHERT
_All Rights Reserved_
TO MY FRIEND
YOUNG E. ALLISON
Contents
THE PURPOSE OF THIS NARRATIVE 13
THE LAIR OF THE OUTLAWS 17
PIRACY AND ROUGH LIFE ON THE RIVER 37
THE HARPES--A TERRIBLE FRONTIER STORY 55
THE HARPES--RENEWAL OF THE TERROR 83
THE HARPES--BIG HARPE’S RIDE TO DEATH 107
THE HARPES--MYSTERIES AND FATE OF SURVIVORS 139
MASON--SOLDIER, PIRATE, HIGHWAYMAN 157
MASON--ON THE NATCHEZ TRACE 179
MASON--TRAPPED AND TRIED 207
MASON AND HARPE--DOUBLE-CROSS AND DOUBLE DEATH 241
COINERS AT THE CAVE 267
THE FORD’S FERRY MYSTERY 283
PAYING THE PENALTY 307
THE CAVE IN FICTION 321
BIBLIOGRAPHY--MANUSCRIPT SOURCES 335
BIBLIOGRAPHY--PRINTED SOURCES 336
INDEX 347
Illustrations
CAVE-IN-ROCK _Frontispiece_
From an original oil painting by J. Bernhard Alberts, made
in 1916
INTERIOR OF CAVE-IN-ROCK 21
From a drawing by J. Bernhard Alberts made in 1916
INTERIOR OF CAVE-IN-ROCK ABOUT 1825 33
From the original drawing by Charles Alexander Leseuer
FACSIMILE OF NEWS ITEM REGARDING CAPTURE OF MICAJAH HARPE 123
Dated, Lexington, Kentucky, September 10, 1799, and published
in the Carolina Gazette, Charleston, S. C., October 24, 1799
MAP SHOWING CAVE-IN-ROCK AND THE NATCHEZ TRACE, 1814 193
FACSIMILE OF PASSPORT ISSUED TO SAMUEL MASON 213
Written in French and issued by the Spanish Commandant
of the District of New Madrid, March 29, 1800
GALLOWS FIELD, JEFFERSON COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI 259
From a drawing by J. Bernhard Alberts, made in 1917
IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS USED BY THE OUTLAWS 269
ENTRANCE TO THE CAVE AND LOWER END OF CAVE-IN-ROCK BLUFF 299
From an original photograph made in 1917
VIEW OF CAVE-IN-ROCK AND VICINITY, 1833 323
Reproduced from Charles Bodmer’s drawing
The Purpose of this Narrative
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 natural, safe
hiding-place for the pirates who preyed on the flatboat traffic
before the days of steamboats. It came also to serve the same
purpose for highwaymen infesting the old Natchez Trace and other
land trails north and south.
A century ago and more, its rock-ribbed walls echoed the drunken
hilarity of villains and witnessed the death struggles of many a
vanished man. Today this former haunt of criminals is as quiet as
a tomb. Nothing is left in the Cave to indicate the outrages that
were committed there in the olden days.
One state historian of our own times--Parrish, of Illinois--thus
describes it: “The gruesome spot, which in those old border days
witnessed many a scene of revelry and bloodshed, is today no more
than a curiosity, its past victims, white and black, forgotten.
Just below it, where, in 1801, there stood one lone cabin, there
is today a thrifty village.” In a sense the victims have been
forgotten; yet they survive in the true stories of such of them as
the preserved records can be made to disclose.
The story of the Harpes is more than that of mere criminals. They
were arch-criminals among criminals, apparently loving murder for
its own sake. There was a time when the whole of Kentucky and
Tennessee was terrorized at the possibility of their appearance at
any hour in any locality. Samuel Mason (or Meason) the Wilsons, and
others, measured up more nearly to the standard of true highwaymen
and pirates. If they had lived in England their careers would have
closed on Tyburn Hill or at the rope’s end on “Execution Dock.”
The stories of James Ford show that his real classification must
forever remain largely a mystery.
Any history of these outlaws would doubtless be looked upon as
wild fiction unless the statements were carefully verified by
court records and contemporary newspaper notices, and the records
of early writers who gathered the facts regarding them when
these facts were told by men and women who lived at the time the
atrocities were committed. The adage that “truth is stranger than
fiction” is exemplified fully in their careers.
The lives and exploits of these men constitute an important phase
in pioneer life because their deeds greatly affected the settlement
of the new country. Dread of them brought peaceful settlers
together in communities and helped to hasten the establishment
of law and order. Their histories are therefore a part of the
history of the country. The historian who passes them over as mere
blood-and-thunder tales misses entirely one of the high lights in
the great adventure of the settling of the Mississippi basin.
Owing to the sparse population and the great distances between
settlements in the West, the early accounts of these criminals
and their crimes were subject to change and to the effects of
terrorizing rumor. In time the deeds of one would be attributed to
another, and the circumstances of one crime confounded with others.
In the main, however, tradition preserved a generally consistent
story. Here and there men like James Hall and the editors of early
newspapers preserved accounts of them and so blazed the way to
court records and approximated the dates for private archives to
be consulted. The pages that follow contain the result of years of
patient investigation of these records and of archives that have
never been published.
Numbers in brackets inserted in the text refer to the authorities
as numbered in the bibliography.
OTTO A. ROTHERT
Louisville, Kentucky, March 17, 1923.
The Lair of the Outlaws
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 infamous, and it remains today,
through all the changing years and diversities of its use, actual
or attributed, practically unchanged, still challenging curiosity,
surprise, fear, and admiration.
The scenery above and below the Cave attracted the attention of
the earliest western travelers. Much deforestation has taken place
during the past century, but the landscapes along the banks of that
section of the Ohio stand today, as they did in the olden days,
unsurpassed by any other along the river’s course. The mouth of the
Cave is in a high bluff overlooking the Ohio, which is the central
link in a chain of majestic landscapes. It seems almost a paradox
that a spot so beautified by nature should have been made the
headquarters of outlaws, and the scene of much that was hideous in
crime.
Pioneers in the West were likely at any time to encounter
wild animals or to be forced to battle with plundering or
revenge-seeking Indians. Whether traveling overland trails or upon
navigable streams, the first-comers in the middle West were always
in danger of highway robbers or river pirates. The cruelest of all
highwaymen were the Harpes and the shrewdest of the river pirates
were the Masons.
Cave-in-Rock’s history as a rendezvous of outlaws does not begin
until about 1795. The date of the discovery by white men has not
been ascertained. The earliest record found is in _The History of
New France_, by Charlevoix, in 1744. It includes Bellin’s Map of
Louisiana presenting the general course of the Ohio, drawn from
observations made by M. de Lery. When this explorer came down the
river in 1729 he noted the location of the Cave by referring to
it as “Caverne dans le Roc.” After 1778 it is indicated on many
English and American maps. Early travelers designated it by various
names, each of which, except “House of Nature,” contained the word
“cave.” Since 1800, Cave-in-Rock has been practically the only name
applied.
The early French called the Ohio “La Belle Riviere.” In the days
of primeval forests it was one of the most beautiful streams in
the world. Evidences of its former grandeur are nowhere so well
retained as in the neighborhood of Cave-in-Rock. The last of the
giants of the forests standing on the bluffs and in the bottoms
along the river will some day disappear, but Cave-in-Rock will defy
time and its changes, and ever stand as a reminder of the days when
wilderness was king.
Cave-in-Rock is in Hardin County, Illinois, about twenty miles
below Shawneetown and twenty miles above Golconda, or about
eighty-five miles below Evansville, Indiana, and fifty miles above
Paducah, Kentucky. It is about two and one-half miles below Ford’s
Ferry and a half mile above the village of Cave-in-Rock. Its
position commands a long view up and down the Ohio River. It has a
large and dark tunnel-like opening extending into a gray limestone
bluff which is partly hidden by shrubbery and small trees. Whether
one sees it while passing in a boat or approaching it from the
shore the view invariably stirs the beholder. It has the appearance
of a large arched crypt, imbedded in solid rock. It is a “house”
built by Nature, and is as solid as Gibraltar. It is sphynx-like in
its silence, and bewilders those who enter.
The mouth is an arched opening, semi-elliptical in form, about
fifty-five feet wide at the base. The cavern extends back
horizontally one hundred and sixty feet with an almost uniform
width of forty feet. The walls and roof, which change to more or
less of an ellipse near the mouth, again change near the center
into a semi-ellipse and retain that curvature to the end. The
ceiling is horizontal throughout its length, while the floor,
beginning about seventy-five feet from the entrance, gradually
inclines upward toward the rear, and at the extreme end comes
within a few feet of the arched ceiling. At this end there is a
hole large enough to permit a man to climb out into a sinkhole
in the surface above. The upward incline of the floor in the
rear is due to a deposit of earth, washed there during the past
half-century by water coming down through the sinkhole during
heavy rains. Near the middle of the ceiling are two perpendicular
crevices with an average width of less than a foot, extending
across and beyond the Cave, and upward to within about fifteen feet
of the surface of the cliff. One of these narrow crevices has, near
the center, a chimney-like opening sufficiently large to admit a
man. It leads to a rough-walled enlargement about four feet wide
and ten feet high. This small place is known as the “upper cave,”
and has a history and fiction of its own.
In the lower part of what may be designated the lower lip of the
mouth-like opening is a large, level, wedge-shaped space about
five feet lower than the floor of the Cave. At its outer extremity
this wedge-shaped space is almost as wide as the mouth itself,
but rapidly tapers inward to a width of about four feet. It then
continues back into the mouth about twenty-five feet through the
solid rock, in the form of an excavated channel or passage about
three and one-half feet wide. This narrow channel, about five feet
deep at the beginning, inclines upward until it reaches the general
level of the floor of the Cave. The top of the rock on either side
of the excavation is level and resembles a platform. These two
platforms or stage-like floors extend inward and, like the inclined
passage, soon reach the general level of the Cave. This excavated
channel and the part of the wedge-shaped space from which it leads
may have been made by men, but whether by Indians or early whites
is not known. It may possibly be the result of erosion.
At a normal stage of the river the mouth of the Cave is, measured
in the perpendicular, about half-way between the top of the bluff
and the water’s edge. In spring the river frequently comes up to
within a few feet of the opening. When the water is extremely high
it enters; during great floods there is ample depth to row a skiff
the entire length of the Cave.
Such is Cave-in-Rock today, and such it was in pioneer times,
except that in the rear a deposit of earth had not been washed in,
and that large trees, which stood in front of the mouth and hid or
partly concealed it, have long since disappeared. It was an ideal
lair for river outlaws; it furnished shelter and gave them every
advantage over passing travelers.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF CAVE-IN-ROCK
showing entire interior of cave and entrance to small upper cave
(From a drawing by J. Bernhard Alberts, made in 1916)]
In March, 1766, John Jennings, a Philadelphia merchant, going down
the Ohio with a cargo of goods for Fort de Chartres, Illinois,
notes in his _Journal_ that he stopped for an hour near “a large
rock with a cave in it,” some twenty-five miles below the mouth
of the Wabash River. The earliest record of a homeseeking pioneer
who came to the Cave-in-Rock country and there began an overland
trip into Illinois dates back to about 1780, when Captain Nathaniel
Hull, of Massachusetts, appeared at what later became Ford’s
Ferry. “He and several other young men,” writes Governor John
Reynolds in his _Pioneer History of Illinois_, “descended the Ohio
to a point near Ford’s Ferry on that river [for a while known as
Hull’s Landing and later as Robin’s Ferry] and came across by
land to Kaskaskia.... At this day the Indians were not hostile as
afterwards, so that Hull and party escaped through the wilderness
without injury.” Nor had any white man as yet practiced piracy on
the lower Ohio.
Victor Collot, a French engineer, is one of the first writers who
stopped at the Cave and published a brief description of it. He
knew of its existence long before he arrived, for his book, _A
Journey in America_, shows that he had planned to stop at the “Big
Cave,” and did so in the summer of 1796 when he went down the river
to New Orleans.
A few months later the place was visited by Andrew Ellicott,
then on his way to Natchez for the purpose of determining the
boundary line between the United States and Spain. An entry in his
_Journal_, dated December 15, 1796, shows he “dined at the Great
Cave ... one of the greatest natural curiosities on the river.”
On April 16, 1797, Francis Baily, the English astronomer, stopped
there. His _Journal of a Tour in the Unsettled Parts of North
America_ contains a few pages on the “Big Cave.” Among other
things he says, “its entrance was on a landing-place. It had
somewhat the appearance of an immense oven. We entered it and found
the sides very damp.... We beheld a number of names cut in the
sides of the cave, which in this solitary place, and cut off as
we were from society, gave us a degree of pleasure to look over.”
Baily apparently heard of no outlaws during his short stay. This
probably was due to the fact that his visit was made at a time
when the Cave was very damp, as is frequently the case in spring.
Had he appeared later, he might not have survived to tell of his
interesting travels in America, for during the greater part of the
year 1797 the place was occupied by the notorious Mason family.
Perrin du Lac, in his _Travels through the two Louisianas_, writes
that he embarked at Pittsburgh, April 22, 1802, “in a pirogue
thirty feet long and three feet broad” and that a few weeks later
he stopped at the Cave. He says “it is considered one of the
greatest natural curiosities in North America.”
The first detailed description of Cave-in-Rock ever printed, as far
as now known, appeared in one of the earliest editions of Zadok
Cramer’s _The Ohio and Mississippi Navigator_ and was republished
in the appendix of _Journal of a Tour_, 1805, by Thaddeus M. Harris
without credit to Cramer.
Thomas Ashe, an unreliable English traveler, wrote an account of
Cave-in-Rock shortly after the Cramer or the so-called Harris
description was published, and at a time when reports of some of
the early robberies that had been committed there were still in
fresh circulation. His book entitled _Travels in America performed
in 1806_, contains a chapter of fabrications headed “Cave in the
Rock, Ohio Bank, September, 1806.”
In July, 1807, Christian Schultz, then a young man, started from
Pittsburgh down the Ohio in a flatboat. He arrived at “The Cave
in the Rock” about October 1, continued his trip to New Orleans,
and returned, via ship, to New York. In his _Travels on an Inland
Voyage,_ he devotes a few pages to the Cave, saying, among other
things:
“It is a very curious cavern.... I could not help observing
what a very convenient situation this would be for a hermit, or
for a convent of monks.... I have no doubt that it has been the
dwelling of some person or persons, as the marks of smoke and
likewise some wooden hooks affixed to the walls sufficiently prove.
Formerly, perhaps, it was inhabited by Indians; but since, with
more probability, by a gang of that banditti, headed by Mason and
others, who, a few years ago, infested this part of the country and
committed a great number of robberies and murders....”
Fortesque Cuming, an unprejudiced Englishman, wrote in his _Tour
to the Western Country_ that the Cave is “one of the finest
grottoes or caverns I have ever seen.” This interesting traveler,
in January, 1807, proceeded to Maysville, Kentucky, by boat, and
from there made horseback trips to central Kentucky and Ohio.
Returning to Pittsburgh, he started, on May 7, down the Ohio in a
flatboat for New Orleans. From old Bruinsburg, a few miles above
Natchez, he visited old Greenville. In this town about three
years before, one of the Cave-in-Rock outlaws had been convicted
under unusual circumstances and hanged and buried in an unusual
manner. When traveling by boat Cuming always carried a few skiffs
in order to get ashore more easily. On May 18, 1807, a few minutes
after passing the head of Cave-in-Rock Island, he landed at what
is known as Cave Spring, a cave-like opening a few hundred yards
above Cave-in-Rock from which a strong spring of water constantly
flows. This crevice in Cave-in-Rock bluff is about nine feet high,
three feet wide, and extends back some forty feet. Cuming at first
mistook it for the famous Cave, as has been done by more than one
traveler since his day. In his sketch pertaining to his visit to
Cave-in-Rock he writes:
“Rowing along shore [below Cave Spring] with the skiff, we were
soon undeceived as to that’s being the Rocking Cave, as a third of
a mile lower down, one of the finest grottoes or caverns I have
ever seen opened suddenly to view, resembling the choir of a large
church as we looked directly into it. We landed immediately under
it and entered it. It is natural, but it is evidently improved
by art in the cutting of an entrance three feet wide through
the rock in the very center, leaving a projection on each hand,
excavated above to the whole breadth of the cavern, the projections
resembling galleries.... It is crowned by large cedars, and black
and white oaks, some of which impend over, and several beautiful
shrubs and flowers, particularly very rich columbines, are thickly
scattered all around the entrance.... Standing on the outside, the
appearance of some of the company at the inner end of the cave was
truly picturesque, they being diminished on the eye to half their
size, and removed to three times their real distance.
“There is a perpendicular rocky bluff just opposite the lower end
of Cave Island, about two hundred yards above the Cave, where
the river narrows to less than half a mile wide, forming a fine
situation for fortification.”
Thomas Nuttall probably was the last distinguished traveler who
came down the Ohio in a flatboat and commented on the Cave. In
his _Journal of Travels into the Arkansa Territory_ he states
that he and his party left Shawneetown December 14, 1818. After
floating a short distance they came up with three other flatboats
and, lashing them together, proceeded upon an all-night journey.
He further comments: “The river is here very wide and magnificent
and chequered with many islands. The banks of Battery Rock,
Rock-in-Cave, and other places are bold and rocky with bordering
cliffs. The Occidental wilderness appears to here retain its
primeval solitude; its gloomy forests are yet unbroken by the hand
of man; they are only penetrated by the wandering hunter and the
roaming savage.”
The early western travelers already cited, and a number of
their contemporaries and followers who saw the Cave, published
descriptions or references that agree in the main, but each, in his
own way, was evidently more impressed by certain of its various
features than were some of the others who visited the place. A
few speculated upon it as an Indian temple of prehistoric times.
Some commented upon it from a geological standpoint. A number were
especially interested in the names they found carved on the walls;
some in the trees that grew around the opening. Others dwelt upon
it as a rendezvous of outlaws.
For what various purposes the Cave may have been used in
prehistoric times by Mound-builders and Indians, or even Cave
Dwellers, is a question for archaeologists and ethnologists. There
is far less physical evidence to indicate a previous presence of
robbers and counterfeiters than there is to prove that the place
was inhabited by prehistoric man. A rusty home-made dagger blade
and a part of a counterfeiter’s mold are the only relics that point
toward the outlaw occupancy. On the other hand, five well-defined
mound sites in the level fields above Cave-in-Rock bluff, and the
many flint and stone implements picked up during the past century
in and near the Cave indicate beyond doubt the former presence of
Indians and Mound-builders. In April, 1918, Robert L. Yeakey, while
spading his garden on this bluff, unearthed a carved stone image,
six inches high and four inches wide, weighing two pounds, six
ounces, representing a man in squatting position. The probability
that the image is an idol gives strength to the inference that the
Cave was used as a temple some time in the prehistoric past.
The mounds are additional evidence to this effect. These were
opened many years ago and have since been plowed over often. Each
contained, it is said, from five to ten human skeletons. The bodies
had been placed in a stone-walled sepulcher that was covered with
flags of stone a few inches thick, over which a circular mound of
earth was thrown. The fact that each of these mounds contained a
number of skeletons, apparently placed there at one time, leads
many to the conclusion that a battle, or battles, must have been
fought in or near the Cave and that all, or some, of the dead were
buried together. Scientists advance a plausible explanation of
this: “We know not if these burials indicate famine, pestilence,
war, or unholy sacrifice. We can only conjecture that they were
not graves of persons who had died a natural death.” Because of
the Cave’s temple-like form and its proximity to these old mounds,
it appears more probable that they were erected in connection with
the ceremony of “unholy sacrifice” than for any of the three other
suggested causes.
The Harris description of the Cave, written about 1803, refers
to it as “the habitation of the Great Spirit.” Some thirty years
later, Edmund Flagg, in _The Far West_, written after his visit
to “Rock-Inn-Cave,” says: “Like all other curiosities of Nature,
this cavern was, by the Indian tribes, deemed the residence of a
Manito, or spirit, evil or propitious, concerning whom many a wild
legend yet lives among their simple-hearted posterity. They never
pass the dwelling place of the divinity without discharging their
guns (an ordinary mark of respect) or making some other offering
propitiatory of his favor.”
From official records we learn that the section of the country in
which Cave-in-Rock is embraced was sold, in 1803, to the United
States by the Kaskaskia tribe. In 1818, when the sale was confirmed
by the same Indians and the three other tribes then constituting
the Illinois confederacy, it became unchallenged government
property. Thus, when the Masons, the Harpes, and other early
outlaws held forth there, it was still in the Indians’ territory.
From a geological standpoint, the Cave is evidently nothing more
than a prosaic hole in a limestone bluff. In neither the main cave
nor the crevices above are there any stalactites or stalagmites,
but an incrustation resembling such a formation occurs here
and there on the walls. In 1818, Henry R. Schoolcraft, in his
_Personal Memoirs_, says: “The cave itself is a striking object
for its large and yawning mouth, but to the geologist presents
nothing novel.” Collot, in 1796, expressed the opinion that “it is
an excavation made in the rocks by the continual beating of the
flood.” In a _Report_ published in 1866, A. H. Worthen, director
of the Geological Survey of Illinois, states that “the limestone
(St. Louis limestone) is quite cherty and the Cave has probably
been formed by the action of water percolating through crevices of
the rock and by the eroding influences of the atmosphere.” Neither
of these explanations is satisfactory. No other has been found.
Cave-in-Rock has the appearance of a section of a large cave that
was formed by an underground stream in some remote geological age,
and later disconnected, by upheavals, from the other parts of the
subterranean passage. Some of the other parts may still exist.
Sulphur Springs Cave, four miles southwest of Equality, may be one.
Bigsby Cave, eight miles north of Cave-in-Rock, may be another.
Hardin County is besprinkled with many sinkholes, the outlets
of which are unknown. The “Big Sink,” four miles north of the
Cave, covers about one hundred acres. Cave-in-Rock may have been
an outlet for some of these sinkholes until upheavals made such
drainage impossible.
In early days the virgin forests retarded, to a great extent, the
water of the heavy rains, and as a result floods were less frequent
and less severe. It is probable that when Cave-in-Rock and the
country about were covered with trees the place was damper than
now, for the water then slowly seeped down from the tree-covered
surface. Nevertheless, it was sufficiently dry to serve as a good
shelter not only for outlaws, who frequently occupied it, but also
for men and women going down the river in flatboats.
Today it is comparatively dry, except during the spring and
shortly after a heavy rain. Practically all the water running
through the Cave now comes from a narrow crevice in the rear, which
drains a small sinkhole in the surface. Through this opening, as
already stated, much soil has been deposited in the back part of
the Cave during the past fifty years. Nature has made practically
no changes in the Cave itself since its discovery by white men, but
the landscape has been affected by the removal of the large trees
that once shaded its mouth. A decrepit sycamore, an ash or two, a
few small maple trees, some scrub cedars, and some Virginia creeper
constitute the only vegetation now growing around the opening.
The travelers who visited Cave-in-Rock in flatboat days gave the
place more time and thought than did those who appeared after
the introduction of steamboats. The New Orleans, or Orleans,
which was the first steam-propelled boat to make a trip from
Pittsburgh to New Orleans, passed it in 1811. Not until fully
five years thereafter was the practicability of navigating the
Ohio by steamboats satisfactorily demonstrated. Local tradition
has it that the James Monroe, coming down in 1816, was the first
steamboat to land at the Cave. Thomas Nuttall, who appeared on
the scene two years later, was, as already stated, one of the
last distinguished men who floated down the river in a flatboat
and commented on the place. Leisure was an inseparable feature of
flatboat travel. With the coming of steamboats the lingering of
travelers along the river became a thing of the past. After 1820
comparatively few boats of any kind stopped at the Cave. Boats
became more numerous, but whether propelled by steam or oars, they
traveled not only faster but through a country rapidly increasing
in population, and passengers and crew stopping in this section
found better shelter elsewhere. But Cave-in-Rock was ever pointed
out as a place that “in days gone by” had been the den of flatboat
robbers. Counterfeiters and other outlaws, however, operated in the
neighborhood until as late as 1832.
The earliest record of a professional artist making a sketch of the
Cave dates back to May, 1819, when Major Stephen H. Long came down
the Ohio on the steamer Western Engineer, on his way to his Rocky
Mountains exploring expedition. In his notes on “Cave-Inn-Rock
or House of Nature” he gives a description of the Cave, and says
that Samuel Seymour, the official artist of the expedition,
“sketched two views of the entrance.” Edwin James’s account of this
expedition contains many of Seymour’s pictures, but none of places
east of the Mississippi. Efforts made in Washington to locate his
original sketches were without success.
Edmund Flagg, a traveler, journalist, and poet, who lived the
greater part of his life in Louisville and St. Louis, spent a short
time at the Cave in 1836, while on a steamboat trip gathering
material for his book, _The Far West_. He gives some of the history
of the outlaws of “Cave-Inn-Rock” and then describes the Cave and
the Island. He says the place furnishes “a scene of natural beauty
worthy an Inman’s pencil” and that “if I mistake not an engraving
of the spot has been published: a ferocious-looking personage,
pistol in hand, crouched at the entrance, eagerly watching a
descending boat.”
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF CAVE-IN-ROCK ABOUT 1825
A view from the rear of the lower cave, showing burned embers on
floor, notched log (on left) leading to upper cave, and flatboats
on the river
(From the original drawing by Charles Alexander Lesueur)]
Maximilian, Prince of Wied-Neuwied, writes May 19, 1833: “We
embarked on the Paragon steamboat at Shawneetown ... and after
passing Cave-in-Rock Island, a long wooded island, we glided
past Cave-in-Rock, a cavern which has been drawn by Lesueur.”
Lesueur’s drawing was made about 1825. It is an interior view
looking out over the river and conveys a good idea of the Cave’s
size and form. However, the opening to the small upper cavity and
the leaning pole for climbing into it are placed a little too far
to the left.«1»
Maximilian was accompanied by his artist, Charles Bodmer, who,
during the course of his travels in North America, made eighty-one
pictures, all of which were published in 1843 in the _Maximilian
Atlas_. Most of these drawings pertain to the life of the Indians
of the Upper Missouri, and stand today as the first and best record
of the costumes of these tribes. Among the subjects presented is
his Cave-in-Rock picture, one of the two early views of the Cave
now available. Bodmer probably drew it from memory. It shows a
landscape interesting in itself, but it is an absolutely misleading
presentation of the actual scene. From no point or angle does the
view appear as drawn by him, or even suggest such a scene. By the
ordinary working of nature no such changes could have been brought
about in many centuries. The mouth of the Cave is near the lower
end of a long bluff of almost uniform height and opposite the lower
end of Cave-in-Rock Island. A camera picture of the lower end of
this bluff, made in 1917, appears among the illustrations in this
book. Bodmer’s view places the opening in a short bluff that is
more or less cone-shaped and opposite or above the head of an
island. When high water reaches the mouth of the Cave, as is shown
by Bodmer, then Cave-in-Rock Island is submerged many feet and its
banks cannot possibly be seen. This picture occurs in a number
of books, but without any comments on its gross inaccuracy. Some
reproducers have taken the liberty of adding a setting sun in the
background.
In 1916, J. Bernhard Alberts, of Louisville, made an
impressionistic painting of the mouth of the Cave. His painting is
true to the scene as it was at the time of his visit. He also drew
a pencil sketch showing a general view of the interior with the
inner edge of the mouth in the immediate foreground, the artist’s
point of view being from just outside the mouth.
Piracy and Rough Life on the River
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 had been an officer in the
Continental army, converted the cavern into an inn as early as
1797. While he occupied the Cave, and a few years thereafter, it
was known as “Cave-Inn-Rock.” It was ideally located. Every passing
boat must reveal itself to those in the Cave who had a long, clear
view up and down the river. A lookout could detect boats long
before boatmen could perceive the Cave. The bold beauty of the
bluff made it pleasant for the boats to run in near the sharply
shelving shore, and many travelers were thus simply and easily
delivered into the hands of the banditti. As an inn, where drink
and rest could be had, it decoyed them; as a scene for shrouded
crime it was perfect.
The earliest travelers on the western rivers floated or propelled
themselves with paddles and oars in small, clumsy craft. The Indian
canoe or pirogue was heavy, but was managed with skill by those
accustomed to its use. With the growing stream of settlers and the
increasing number of settlements along the Ohio and Mississippi,
there arose a necessity for larger craft that would bear heavier
burdens. This brought the flatboat era covering the period from
1795 to 1820--that quarter of a century known as the Golden Age
of Flatboating. During that era river piracy was at its height.
The lighter boats, pirogues, skiffs, and batteaux were to the
clumsy rafts and flatboats bearing heavy cargoes what submarines
and torpedo boats have been to the heavier ships in later warfare.
Inland piracy had its advantage in using the small craft on dark
nights for sudden descents and escapes.
In the midst of this period the stately steamboat age began
its development. It was inaugurated in 1811 when the first
steam-propelled “water-walker” made its laborious and astonishing
way from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. By 1820 steamboats had become
a dependable factor in traffic, and were, to river travel, what
the railroad train was later to become to the slow stagecoach
and freight wagon. It was inevitable that under steamboat
influence flatboats of all types--arks, broadhorns, Orleans boats,
keel-boats, and flat-bottomed barges--would follow the primitive
pirogues, skiffs, and batteaux into retirement, except for
neighborhood use. River piracy waned with the conditions it preyed
upon, but not until about 1830 did it cease utterly.
In society, as in nature, everything develops with opportunity and
disappears according to necessity. In the primitive age of river
craft many travelers were captured or killed by Indians bent on
revenge or pillage. These marauders were sometimes led by white
renegades. Later, pioneers floating down the Ohio or Mississippi on
flatboats came in contact with comparatively few savages, but were
exposed to a far more daring and dangerous enemy in the form of
river pirates--white men, many of them descendants of supposedly
civilized European families. These disappeared as the population
increased. Then ensued the reign of the more diplomatic river
pirates--the professional gamblers who, for a half century, used
cards and other gaming devices as instruments with which to rob
those who ventured into their society.
Such were the types of craft and men operating upon and infesting
the rivers in the early days. The country through which these boats
moved was not the country we see today. Changes in the shapes and
channels of the rivers have been numerous, only the rock-defined
reaches preserving their original contours. Appearances in detail
have greatly changed. The wonderful unbroken forests are gone.
Where they once stood are now fields and farms or cut-over forests;
every few miles there is a town. The river channels once mysterious
and uncertain are now carefully charted.
Early voyageurs going down the river had, of course, no guides and
there were no known marks to indicate their approach to any of the
features of the river as it wound through the wild, uninhabited
country. The boatmen who came afterwards carrying maps rudely
scratched, found them unsatisfactory because of inaccuracies or
lack of detail. Not until a handbook was made available, after
some years of careful compilation of river features, could the
uninitiated navigate the large rivers with any degree of safety.«2»
The numerous charts in _The Navigator_ show the curves, islands,
sandbars, eddies, and channels, and mark the location of towns and
many other places of significance. The accompanying text contains
instructions of value to the boatman, and historical data of
interest. It is curious, however, that no section of either the
Mississippi or Ohio is designated as one where outlaws were likely
to be encountered--not even Cave-in-Rock nor the mouth of Cache
River, which were long considered the most dangerous resorts on the
Ohio. In every edition of _The Navigator_ about a page is devoted
to a description of the Cave and instructions to boatmen passing
it, but there is no reference to its grim history. Zadok Cramer
was evidently a practical man, with no eye to the speculative. It
was not until 1814 that he added a few lines bearing on the Cave’s
“economic” history:
“This cavern sometimes serves as a temporary abode for those
wanting shelter, in case of shipwreck, or other accident, which
happen on the river near it. Families have been known to reside
here tolerably comfortable from the northern blasts of winter. The
mouth of this cave was formerly sheltered, and nearly hid by some
trees growing in front of it, but the rude axe has leveled them
to the earth and the cavern is exposed to the open view of the
passenger. Emigrants from the states, twenty-seven years ago used
to land here and wagon their goods across the Illinois country, it
not being more than one hundred and twenty miles from this place to
Kaskaskia on the Mississippi.”
The Cave, of course, had more than criminal uses. How on one
occasion it served as a “temporary abode for those wanting shelter”
is recorded in _The American Pioneer_, published in 1842. In this
magazine Dr. Samuel P. Hildreth, under the title of “History of a
Voyage from Marietta to New Orleans in 1805,” gives an interesting
account of the schooner Nonpareil and her voyage south, based on
data furnished him by members of her crew. The boat was built at
Marietta and started down the river April 21, 1805. She was a
sea-going vessel intended to run on the lakes near New Orleans. The
captain doubtless steered his course by a copy of _The Navigator_.
We quote from Hildreth’s account of what the crew found in 1805 at
the well-known lair of outlaws:
“As the Nonpareil approached near the mouth of this dreaded cave,
a little after twilight, they were startled at seeing the bright
blaze of a fire at its entrance. Knowing of its former fame as the
den of a band of robbers, they could not entirely suppress the
suspicion it awoke in their minds of its being again occupied for
the same purpose. Nevertheless, as they had previously determined
not to pass this noted spot without making it a visit, they
anchored the schooner a little distance from the shore and landed
in the skiff. Being well armed with pistols they marched boldly
up to the cavern where, instead of being greeted with the rough
language and scowling visages of a band of robbers, they found the
cave occupied by smiling females and sportive children. A part of
the women were busily occupied with their spinning wheels, while
others prepared the evening meal. Their suspicions were not,
however, fully removed by all these appearances of domestic peace,
still thinking that the men must be secreted in some hidden corner
of the cave ready to fall on them unawares. On a little further
conversation they found the present occupants of the dreaded cave
consisted of four young emigrant families from Kentucky going to
settle in Illinois. The females were yet in the bloom of life.
Their husbands had bought or taken up lands a few miles back from
the river, and after moving their families and household goods to
this spot had returned to their former residences to bring out
their cattle, in the meantime leaving their wives and children in
the occupancy of the cave till their return.
“Having brought, with their spinning wheels and looms, an abundance
of flax, the women spent the weary days of their husbands’ absence
in the useful employment of spinning. A large fire in the mouth of
the cave gave cheerfulness to the gloomy spot and enabled them,
at night, to proceed with their labors, while its bright rays
were reflected upon the looms, beds, and household utensils which
lay piled up along the side of the cave. By day the sun afforded
them light, the mouth of the cave being capacious and elevated,
while the roof sheltered them from the rain. They were in daily
expectation of the arrival of their husbands, when they would move
out on to their farms in company.
“A little conversation soon dissipated all suspicions of harm from
the minds of their visitors ... and, borrowing from them a torch,
they explored the hidden recesses of the cave. At this time no
vestige of its former occupants remained but a few scattered barrel
staves, and the traces of their fires against the blackened sides
of the rock. The walls, even at that early day, were thickly scored
with the names of former visitors, to which they hastily added
their own, and thousands have no doubt been added since. Bidding a
warm farewell to this singular and solitary community, they entered
their boat, greatly wondering at the courage and confidence of
these lonely females. Their surprise, however, in a manner subsided
when they reflected that they were the daughters of Kentucky and
from the land of Daniel Boone.”
The Nonpareil experienced no trouble with river pirates, but was
wrecked during a storm on the Mississippi and never reached her
proposed destination. So, in one form or another, every flatboat
and other early river craft suffered more or less trouble. History
records many robberies and other misfortunes, but its pages also
show that, notwithstanding the numerous trials and tribulations,
early river life, rough as it was, was more of a romance than
a tragedy. Going down the Ohio and Mississippi proved, in many
instances, “easy sailing” compared to the flatboatman’s overland
trip north over the Natchez Trace and other wilderness roads
infested with highwaymen.
The usual plan of the river robbers was to station one or two of
their men and women at some prominent place on shore to hail a
passing boat. These decoys pleaded to be taken aboard, claiming
they were alone in the wilderness and wished to go to some
settlement further down the river, or that they desired to purchase
certain necessities which they lacked. If the boat was thus enticed
ashore, the crew saw their cargo unloaded, and plundered, or beheld
their craft continue its course down the river in the hands of the
enemy, themselves held as hostages or murdered.
Boat wreckers were another common source of great danger. Under one
pretext or another they managed to get aboard the boat and scuttle
it near a place where their confederates were prepared to make
an attack. Or, like Colonel Fluger, they waited until they found
a boat tied along the bank and then bored holes in the bottom or
dug out the caulking. When the ill-fated boat began to sink, the
fellow-wreckers rushed to the rescue and appropriated the goods
for their own use, killing part or all the crew if necessary.
Then, as now, a number of dangerous channels existed in the Ohio
and Mississippi. They were designated as such in _The Navigator_.
Near the head of some of them lived reliable settlers who made
it a business to pilot boats through for pay. Pirates frequently
succeeded in passing themselves off as trustworthy local pilots.
Boats turned over to such men for safe steering were usually
grounded and immediately thereafter delivered into the hands of
outlaws in waiting.
One of the dangerous channels, against which voyageurs were warned
by _The Navigator_, ran from the head of Walker’s Bar (a bar
beginning about two miles below Cave-in-Rock) down to Tower Rock,
and from there extended to the foot of Hurricane Island, a total
distance of about eight miles. The author of the river guide,
after devoting considerable space to directions for navigating
this channel and avoiding the Hurricane Bars, adds a suggestion:
“Just below the Cave, on the right bank, there is a person who is
sometimes employed to pilot boats through this serpentine channel,
and it is better for a stranger to pay a dollar or two for this
purpose, than run the risk of grounding on either one or the other
of these bars in low water. When the water is high there is no
occasion for a director.”
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.