years. Most of their time was spent with a few stray Creek and
Cherokee Indians who at the time were ostracized by their tribes
and were committing atrocities against their own people as well
as against the whites. The Harpes joined the savages in their
outrages, and not only encouraged them in their bloody deeds, but
gave them many demonstrations showing to what extent barbarity
could be practiced. Asleep or awake they were armed with tomahawks
and knives and never took a step from camp without a gun. They were
always prepared to shed blood for the satisfaction of shedding it,
or to resist arrest should any attempt be made to capture them.
They lived like man-eating animals. The women as well as the men
wore leather hunting shirts and moccasins made from the untanned
skin of animals they killed. They never wore hats except in the
coldest weather and then used the kind they “whanged” together with
deer skin thongs. [121]
Some time during 1797 the four left middle Tennessee for the new
settlement of Knoxville. While wandering toward the eastern part
of the state they met a young Methodist preacher named William
Lambuth, who was traveling through the wilderness alone. They
robbed him and among his belongings found a Bible. In turning the
leaves, looking for bank bills, Big Harpe discovered on the front
page, written in plain letters the names “William Lambuth” and
“George Washington.” Pointing to the name of the General, Harpe
remarked: “That is a brave and good man, but a mighty rebel against
the King.” The articles found in Lambuth’s possession convinced
the Harpes that he was a preacher, whereupon they returned to him
not only his Bible but also the gun, the little money, and the
horse they had taken. Then abruptly turning from him and shouting,
“We are the Harpes,” they quickly disappeared. This is probably
the only instance in the lives of the Harpes, after the beginning
of their murderous career, when they had anyone, old or young, in
their power, and showed less than a fiendish barbarity. [121]
Obeying the principle that birds of a feather flock together,
the Harpes, it seems, were attracted toward the new settlement
of Knoxville. In March, 1798, James Weir, on his way from South
Carolina to Kentucky, spent a few days in the town. Writing of his
short stay there he says:
“In the infant town of Knox the houses are irregular and
interspersed. It was County Court day when I came. The town was
confused with a promiscuous throng of every denomination. Some
talked, some sang, and mostly all did profanely swear. I stood
aghast, my soul shrank back to hear the horrid oaths and dreadful
indignities offered to the Supreme Governor of the Universe, who
with one frown is able to shake them into non-existence. There was
what I never did see before, viz., on Sunday, dancing, singing,
and playing of cards, etc.... It was said by a gentleman of the
neighborhood that ‘the Devil is grown so old that it renders him
incapable of traveling and that he has taken up in Knoxville and
there hopes to spend the remaining part of his days in tranquility,
as he believes he is among his friends,’ but as it is not a good
principle to criticise the conduct of others, I shall decline it
with this general reflection, that there are some men of good
principles in all places, but often more bad ones to counterbalance
them.” [109]
The Harpes doubtless felt they could better gratify their thirst
for blood in the vicinity of a settlement like Knoxville than in
a wide wilderness where subjects for their cruelty were too few.
They found a small tract of cleared land on Beaver Creek, about
eight miles west of Knoxville. Upon this they built a log cabin for
themselves, and a pen for their horses, and, in order to conceal
their motives, cultivated a few acres of ground. Under this feint
of honest occupation they experienced no difficulty in gaining the
confidence of their neighbors. In fact, so easily had they made a
favorable impression that within a few weeks after their arrival
Little Harpe married Sarah or Sally Rice, a daughter of John Rice,
a preacher living about four miles north of the Harpe hut.
In the meantime the two brothers made trips to the seat of justice,
for then, as now, the occasion and the desire “to go to town” to
see “what’s going on” was a common one among the people who lived
in the country. Swapping horses was then, and still is to a great
extent, one of the features of a day at the small court house
towns. So when, on one of their first trips to Knoxville, the
Harpes brought with them a fine three-year-old mare and offered
to run her in a race, no suspicion was aroused. The horse was
apparently superior to any other in town that day and no owner
could be induced to venture his quarter nag against her. A Mr.
Aycoff, recognizing the mare as an unusually good one, bought her
and became so attached to the animal that he kept her almost a
quarter of a century. It is interesting to note that twenty years
after he purchased her, a gentleman from Georgia, visiting near
Knoxville, recognized her as the filly that had been stolen from
him many years before. [12G]
The Harpes rapidly increased the number of their trips to town, but
it was soon noticed that with each succeeding visit their supply
of pork and mutton increased. They sold this meat to John Miller,
one of the most respected merchants of Knoxville, through whom
the Harpe hams soon became well known. But the reputation of the
two brothers for drinking and gambling, and the disturbances they
raised in the village were sufficient to arouse suspicion in the
community. By this and other evidence John Miller was convinced
that the Harpes were hog thieves, and suspected that their
dishonesty and meanness had no limit. [12G]
Soon after the arrival of the Harpes in east Tennessee a number of
houses and stables near Knoxville were set on fire and many of them
burned to the ground. As no motive for such destruction of property
could be discovered, the citizens attributed it to downright
rascality. So strong had become suspicion against the Harpes that
when Edward Tiel, who lived a mile from Knoxville, discovered that
several of his best horses had been stolen, he enlisted a number
of neighbors and immediately proceeded to the home of the Harpes.
The investigators found that the cabin had been deserted recently,
but noticed indications that horses had been tied to some near-by
trees. Tiel and his men took up the trail and followed it across
Clinch River into the Cumberland Mountains. There they captured
the two Harpes who were alone at the time. The stolen horses were
recovered, but when the captors and their prisoners reached a point
about five miles northeast of Knoxville, the horse thieves made
their escape. [21]
Tiel and his men tried to effect their recapture but, failing
in the attempt, returned to Knoxville. That same night the two
Harpes appeared at Hughes’ “rowdy groggery,” a few miles west of
Knoxville, where they had gone to exercise their brutality before
leaving Tennessee. Hughes, his wife’s two brothers, named Metcalfe,
and a man named Johnson, living in Jefferson County, were present
when the Harpes, who knew the men, rushed in. Johnson was last
seen alive there. A few days later his body was discovered in the
Holstein River. It had been ripped open, filled with stones, and
thrown into the water. Notwithstanding this excess of caution the
stones became loosened and the corpse rose to the surface. When
the body was discovered Hughes and the Metcalfes came forth with a
declaration that the Harpes had committed the crime. Suspicion fell
upon the accusers and as the two Harpes were nowhere to be found,
the three men were arrested and put in jail. They were acquitted on
trial, due to lack of evidence. The Metcalfes immediately fled the
country. A party of “regulators” followed Hughes to his groggery,
gave him a whipping, pulled down his house and drove him out of the
country. [12G]
The killing of Johnson, as far as is known, seems to have been
the first of the murders committed by the Harpes. Up to this time
they had apparently confined their operations to stealing hogs and
horses, and setting fire to houses. They now began a career of
ruthless murder which was so bold that it not only terrified the
citizens of Tennessee and Kentucky, but also alarmed settlers in
many other sections of the Middle West.
The Harpes evidently had arranged to meet their three women
associates at some definite point if they should for any reason
find it necessary to separate. Shortly after the killing of Johnson
the five met in western Virginia, near Cumberland Gap, and there,
in December, 1798, they entered Kentucky--the “dark and bloody
ground,” to be made even darker by the deeds they were to commit
during the next twelve months.
They traveled the Wilderness Road more or less closely, leaving
it only when they felt their safety demanded a detour. Their
first victim in Kentucky was a peddler named Peyton, whom they
encountered near the Cumberland River in what is now Knox County.
They killed him and took his horse and some of his goods, but the
details of this deed are not known. [21]
The outlaws continued along this trail toward Crab Orchard and
Stanford, in Lincoln County, and overtook two Marylanders named
Paca and Bates. Night came on and it was proposed that the party
camp on the first suitable spot. This was agreed upon, but the
Harpes managed not to find a desirable place until it grew dark.
Suddenly, as if by accident, the brothers changed positions, Big
Harpe getting behind Bates and Little Harpe behind Paca, the women
walking about thirty feet in the rear. The Harpes fired and the
two unfortunate Marylanders fell. Bates died instantly. A few
minutes later Paca, who was badly crippled and knocked speechless,
attempted to rise. Big Harpe rushed up to the struggling man,
“splitting open his head with a hatchet or tomahawk he carried in
his belt.” The Harpes, being in need of some clothing, appropriated
only such garments as were immediately useful. They took, however,
all the gold and silver and Continental coin found in possession of
their victims. [121]
The villains continued along the Wilderness Road and one night in
December, 1798, arrived at a public house kept by John Farris in
what is now Rockcastle County, not many miles from Crab Orchard.
With them came Stephen Langford, of Virginia, who was on his way
to Crab Orchard to visit a kinsman and to consider making that
locality his home. Langford probably had not met the Harpes until
that morning. The story of what took place after they met was
related about a quarter of a century later by Judge James Hall,
who, in his day, ranked among the best living authors in America,
and whose statements were then, and have been ever since, cited
as high authority. His story of their encounter with Langford was
first published in August, 1825, in _The Port Folio_. After making
some slight revisions in his “Story of the Harpes” he republished
the sketch in 1828 in his _Letters from the West_, from which book
his account of the Langford tragedy is here quoted:
“In the autumn of the year 1799, a young gentleman, named Langford,
of a respectable family in Mecklenburgh County, Virginia, set out
from this state for Kentucky, with the intention of passing through
the Wilderness, as it was then called, by the route generally known
as Boone’s Trace. On reaching the vicinity of the Wilderness, a
mountainous and uninhabited tract, which at that time separated the
settled parts of Kentucky from those of Virginia, he stopped to
breakfast at a public house near Big Rockcastle River. Travelers
of this description--any other indeed than hardy wood men--were
unwilling to pass singly through this lonely region; and they
generally waited on its confines for others, and traveled through
in parties. Mr. Langford, either not dreading danger, or not
choosing to delay, determined to proceed alone. While breakfast was
preparing, the Harpes and their women came up. Their appearance
denoted poverty, with but little regard to cleanliness; two very
indifferent horses, with some bags swung across them, and a rifle
gun or two, comprised nearly their whole equipage. Squalid and
miserable, they seemed objects of pity, rather than of fear, and
their ferocious glances were attributed more to hunger than to
guilty passion. They were entire strangers in that neighborhood,
and, like Mr. Langford, were about to cross the Wilderness. When
breakfast was served, the landlord, as was customary at such
places in those times, invited all the persons who were assembled
in the common, perhaps the only room of his little inn, to sit
down; but the Harpes declined, alleging their want of money as the
reason. Langford, who was of a lively, generous disposition, on
hearing this, invited them to partake of the meal at his expense;
they accepted the invitation, and ate voraciously. When they had
thus refreshed themselves, and were about to renew their journey,
Mr. Langford called for the bill, and in the act of discharging
it imprudently displayed a handful of silver. They then set out
together.
“A few days after, some men who were conducting a drove of cattle
to Virginia, by the same road which had been traveled by Mr.
Langford and the Harpes, had arrived within a few miles of Big
Rockcastle River, when their cattle took fright, and, quitting the
road, rushed down a hill into the woods. In collecting them, the
drovers discovered the dead body of a man concealed behind a log,
and covered with brush and leaves. It was now evident that the
cattle had been alarmed by the smell of blood in the road, and, as
the body exhibited marks of violence, it was at once suspected that
a murder had been perpetrated but recently. The corpse was taken to
the same house where the Harpes had breakfasted, and recognized to
be that of Mr. Langford, whose name was marked upon several parts
of his dress. Suspicion fell upon the Harpes, who were pursued and
apprehended near Crab Orchard. They were taken to Stanford....”
The killing of the two Marylanders and the peddler was not known
until many weeks thereafter. The report of the murder of Langford
spread like wildfire. _The Kentucky Gazette_, January 2, 1799, in a
characteristically brief paragraph gave sufficient details of the
discovery of the body on December 14 to impress its readers with
the seriousness of an act of barbarity that might be repeated by
the Harpes at any time. “We also learn,” says this paragraph, “that
Mr. Ballenger is in pursuit of them, with a determined resolution
never to quit the chase until he has secured them.”
Captain Joseph Ballenger, the organizer and leader of the pursuing
party, was a prominent merchant of Stanford, Lincoln County. He and
his men trailed the Harpes and their women to the neighborhood of
what was then Carpenter’s Station, a settlement near the present
town of Hustonville and about eight miles southwest of Stanford.
There Ballenger discovered them sitting on a log, evidently
confident that no one could detect their whereabouts. [12F] The
pursuers rushed on them so suddenly that resistance or escape was
impossible.«5»
The five prisoners were taken to Stanford, placed in jail and,
about ten days later, tried before the Court of Quarter Sessions.
Hall’s story of the frontier tragedy, based on personal accounts
that had survived for a quarter of a century, has already been
given. It is brief and is correct as far as it goes, but while
Hall was hearing it from the lips of men who had it from those
concerned with the vengeance of the law, there lay in the custody
of the records of the backwoods court of Lincoln County, the grim
details of that crime of base ingratitude and cruelty in solitude
which so shook the Wilderness. They had lain there forgotten
more than a century when they were found and examined in 1918.
Yellowed with age, written with the goose-quill pen of that period
in a penmanship characteristic of the pioneers, a jumble of half
narrative, half legal style, much of which, however, is in use in
courts today, these records of a terrible episode in history are
eloquent with interest.
The piling up of item on item of court forms, of testimony
laboriously written out and signed, of official jail accounts for
the handling of the criminals, tells in its own way every detail
of a crime committed in fancied obscurity yet which by a series of
fortunate circumstances, was to blaze into a notoriety that set
all the West on fire with fear and horror. One who holds these
long-forgotten records in his hands and curiously searches them
could, with patience and without the aid of imagination, build up
the story of frontier life and the people who lived it. The story
would show that the power of observation exercised by some of the
pioneers was equal to any ascribed to a Sherlock Holmes. It would
be a story of chance incidents woven into chains of circumstances
that were to reveal crime with unerring certainty--a story of
the capture of the criminals, of their life in jail, and of the
destiny by which each of the three women involved was to have
her only child born to her in that frontier jail, the branded
fruit of awful parentage. The mute entries in pounds, shillings,
and pence for every item, set down on these yellow pages without
malice or comment, tell their part of the story as implacably and
dispassionately as fate itself.«6»
These records show that all the Harpes gave their name as
“Roberts,” except Betsey Harpe, the supplementary wife of
Big Harpe, whose name is given as “Elizabeth Walker.” Five
witnesses appeared against them, two of whom--John Farris and his
daughter-in-law, Jane Farris--lived in the house near Rockcastle
River where Thomas Langford, or Lankford, was last seen alive. The
fugitives were captured December 25, 1798. On January 4, 1799, they
appeared before the three judges of the Lincoln County Court of
Quarter Sessions, as it is so recorded, by Willis Green, the clerk,
on the twenty-second page of the Record Book marked “September
1798–March 1802:”
“At a court called and held at Lincoln Courthouse on Friday the 4th
day of January 1799 for the examination of Micajah Roberts, Wiley
Roberts, Susanna Roberts, Sally Roberts, and Elizabeth Walker for
the murder of Thomas Langford.
“Present Hugh Logan, William Montgomery, and Nathan Huston,
Esquires, [the three judges who presided].
“The said [naming the five prisoners] were lead to the bar in
custody of the Sheriff and charged with feloniously and of their
malice aforethought murdering and robbing a certain Thomas Langford
on Wednesday the 12th day of December 1798 on the road leading from
Kentucky to Virginia through the Wilderness, and denied the fact,
sundry evidences were therefore examined and the prisoners heard in
their defense.”
Five witnesses appeared on behalf of the Commonwealth. The
statement of each is written on loose leaves and signed in the
presence of Thomas Montgomery, the official notary, and all were
therefore in a form to be turned over to a higher court should it
become necessary to do so. The affidavit of Captain Ballenger, who
lead the pursuing party, is here quoted in full:
“Joseph Ballenger of lawful age, and sworn, deposeth and saith
that at about the 19th or 20th day of December 1798 he heard that
a murder had been committed in the Wilderness on the body of a
certain Thomas Langford, as supposed; that he, at the request of
James Blain the Attorney General of this Commonwealth with others
(including Thomas Welsh) went in pursuit of some persons suspected
of being the murderers who had passed through Lincoln County; that
they went to the house of John Blain in Lincoln County where they
heard that persons similar to those they were in pursuit of had
left Brush Creek, a branch of Green River, and passed over to the
Rolling Fork of Salt River; that they pursued them and overtook
five persons, the same who this day on their examinations were
called Micajah Roberts, Wiley Roberts, Susanna Roberts, Sally
Roberts, and Elizabeth Walker; that after taking them into custody
they proceeded to search them and found in their possession a
pocket book with the name of Thomas Langford, a great coat, a grey
coating cloth, a short coat--in the pocket of it were broken pieces
of glass--a mixed colored long coat, a pair of breeches, a shaving
glass, a whip, a pair of wrappers, and a horse, this day proved to
be the property of Thomas Langford said to be the person murdered
in the Wilderness, and that they found also a Free Mason’s apron
and many other things in their possession said to be the property
of Thomas Langford. Further saith not.”
David Irby, in his sworn statement, explained that: “he and
Thomas Langford set out from Pittsylvania County in Virginia for
Kentucky, they traveled five days journey together and sometimes
one paid their traveling expense and sometimes the other, all of
which Thomas Langford marked down in his pocket book. Before they
crossed Inglish’s Ferry [Ingle’s Ferry in what is now Montgomery
Country, Virginia] they got a half bushel of oats which the
deponent paid for and also their ferryage at Inglish’s Ferry in
Wythe County (Virginia) the deponent purchased a cheese which
Thomas Langford set down in his pocket book, he says that the
pocket book now before the examining court is the said pocket book
which Thomas Langford had when they traveled together in Tennessee
State. [The trail from Virginia to Cumberland Gap extended into
northeastern Tennessee before reaching Kentucky]. The deponent and
Thomas Langford separated when they agreed to meet at Frankfort
in Kentucky; the deponent heard in Kentucky that the said Thomas
Langford was murdered on his way to Kentucky, he set out towards
the place where the crime was committed and went to the place where
the person who was killed was buried and he, the deponent, and John
Farris unburied and raised the decedent and found him to be Thomas
Langford.”
What Irby saw and heard he further declared convinced him that the
murdered man was no other than his recent traveling companion.
John Farris Sr. swore that on Tuesday night, December 12, 1798: “a
man came to his house on the Wilderness Road who called himself
Thomas Langford and who, after he had told him his name, he
recollected to have been acquainted with in Pittsylvania County,
Virginia, in the youth of Thomas Langford.”
He said his guest remained all night and started the next morning
for the settlements. In the meantime, Farris had: “an opportunity
of viewing his clothing and actually did very curiously examine
the outward clothing of the said Thomas Langford.” A few days
later he heard that “a man was killed on the Wilderness Road, and
on inquiring into the circumstances he was induced to believe
that the person murdered was Thomas Langford ... but not being
fully satisfied that the person found dead was Thomas Langford,
he went to the coroner of Lincoln County, obtained from him an
order--the said coroner having before that time held an inquest on
the body--and in pursuance of the said order, in company with David
Irby and Abraham Anthony who buried the said Thomas Langford as
he supposed, raised him and inspected him ... and that the whole
visage of the person, by him and others raised, answered his idea
of Thomas Langford, but he knew him more particularly by the loss
of a tooth in the front part of his jaw.”
His daughter-in-law, Jane Farris, wife of William Farris, also
identified various things found in the possession of the outlaws
as the property of the murdered man. She evidently observed the
actions of the travelers closely, for she states: “Thomas Langford
had on leggins at her house and as part of the list of one of
them was torn Susan Roberts sewed it to the leggin with white
thread.” She adds that the five prisoners and their victim came
to the house together and “All appeared very cheerful with each
other, Langford seemed to be somewhat intoxicated, he had a small
glass bottle which was filled with whiskey at their house which
Micajah Roberts and Wiley Roberts paid for.” The six left the
Farris house together, but shortly before leaving “there was some
misunderstanding between Thomas Langford and Micajah and Wiley
Roberts ... and Mr. Langford said to Mrs. Farris, in the presence
of all, that he would not offend her for all in his saddle bags
which was worth five hundred pounds.”
The statement made by Thomas Welsh, who was in the pursuing party,
is practically the same as Captain Ballenger’s. He, however, adds
“there was none of the alteration in the great coat at the time of
the finding ... and must have been made by the criminals since they
were taken into custody, they having, for several days after they
were taken in custody, the possession of the great coat.”