women, by some means, sent a message to, or received one from,
“old man Roberts,” the father-in-law of Big Harpe, who then lived
in Russell County, Kentucky. At any rate, as already stated, they
started down Green River shortly after leaving Danville. They
paddled their way down that river until they reached its mouth,
a distance of more than two hundred miles. After stopping in the
neighborhood of Henderson, they continued down the Ohio about
ninety miles to Cave-in-Rock. It was in this section of the Ohio
Valley that they expected, sooner or later, to meet the Harpes.
Tradition has it that shortly after the three women arrived at
Cave-in-Rock two of them proceeded up the river, one to Diamond
Island and the other to a neighborhood south of Henderson, while
the third remained at the Cave; and in this manner they watchfully
awaited the arrival of the Harpes. The two women who had been
loitering near Henderson and Diamond Island, posing under assumed
names as widows, either had left their watching places voluntarily
or were forced to flee from them with their husbands. At any rate,
they finally arrived at Cave-in-Rock and there, in a very short
time, the two Harpes and their three women and three children were
once more united.
As a result of Captain Young’s raid through Henderson County,
Cave-in-Rock became somewhat crowded with outlaws. Realizing that
their number was too great to maneuver with any secrecy and safety,
many left the place voluntarily, some continuing down the river,
others working their way inland, and a few remaining “to pursue
their nefarious avocation.” [124]
The Harpes, however, were driven from the Cave. This aggregation
of outlaws was doubtless a depraved conglomeration of evil doers,
but in the Harpes they found two human brutes beyond even their
toleration.
There is a tradition to the effect that the Harpes had been at the
Cave only a few days when they brazenly related the performance
of an act which, to their surprise, was not cheered by their
companions. A flatboat had come down the river and its passengers,
not realizing they were near the famous rendezvous of outlaws,
landed about a quarter of a mile above the Cave at the foot of
a small bluff, later known as Cedar Point. Among the travelers
on board were a young man and his sweetheart who, while their
companions were making some repairs to the boat, strolled to the
top of the cliff and there sat down upon a rock. The view from
that point is still beautiful and was probably even more so in
primeval days. While the two lovers were sitting on the edge of the
cliff with their backs to the wild woods behind them, leisurely
considering the landscape, or the life before them, the two Harpes
quietly approached from the forest and, without a word of warning,
pushed the lovers off the cliff. They fell on a sandy beach forty
feet below and, to the surprise of all, escaped unhurt. The Harpes
returned to the Cave, and, as already stated, boasted, but without
the expected effect, of the prank they had played.
Shortly after this, two families, carrying a supply of tools and
provisions, were floating down the Ohio in a flatboat, intending to
settle in Smithland, but when they came near Cave-in-Rock they were
captured and robbed by the outlaws. The two or three passengers who
were not killed in the battle preceding the robbery, were brought
ashore. The Harpes, seeing an opportunity to give their fellow
criminals an exhibition of brutality, stripped one of the captives,
tied him to a blindfolded horse and led the animal to the top of
the bluff over the Cave. By wild shouts and other means the horse
was frightened and at the same time forced to run toward the edge
of the cliff, and before long the blindfolded animal with the naked
man tied on its back ran off the bluff and fell a distance of more
than one hundred feet to the rough and rocky shore below. Then the
Harpes pointed to the mangled remains of man and horse as evidence
of another triumph over law and order. Their fellow cave dwellers
probably had never seen such a sight before and evidently did not
care to witness one again. It is likely that only sympathy for
their women and babies saved the Harpes from death at the hands of
the other outlaws. All the Harpes left the Cave at once.
It is probable that their hasty departure took place some time in
May, 1799. Neither history nor tradition tells in what direction
they fled. The people of Kentucky doubtless concluded that since
they had driven these outlaws across the Ohio into Illinois, they
would continue their flight north or proceed by flatboat to some
section along the lower Mississippi.
About the middle of July east Tennessee was shocked to hear of the
cruel murder of a farmer named Bradbury, who was killed along the
road in Roane County, about twenty-five miles west of Knoxville
on what has since been known as Bradbury’s Ridge. [21] The Harpes
were not suspected of the crime, for the impression prevailed that
they had fled permanently and, although their whereabouts was
unknown, it not only seemed quite improbable but almost impossible
that they had returned in so short a time. It soon developed,
however, that they actually had made their appearance again, for
a few days later--July 22, 1799--they murdered a young son of
Chesley Coffey, on Black Oak Ridge, about eight miles northwest of
Knoxville. One version has it that the boy was hunting strayed cows
and while in the woods was slain by the Harpes, who took his gun
and the shoes he wore, and left his body lying under a tree. [12G]
Another account is that “Young Coffey was riding along the road one
evening to get a fiddle. These terrible men smeared a tree with his
brains, making out that his horse had run against the tree.” [63]
Two days later they killed a man named William Ballard, who lived
within a few miles of Knoxville. “They cut him open and, putting
stones in his body, sank it in the river.” [63] It was believed by
the neighbors that the Harpes mistook Ballard for Hugh Dunlap, who
had been active in endeavoring to arrest them the year before. [21]
The Harpes continued their course northward. They crossed Emery
River, near what is now Harriman Junction, and, while their women
were resting for a few days in some secluded spot, the two men
skirmished alone in Morgan County. On July 29, on the spur of a
mountain since known as Brassel’s Knob, they met James and Robert
Brassel. James Brassel was afoot and carried a gun; Robert was on
horseback and unarmed. The Harpes, who were riding good horses,
pretended to be in a hurry, but seeming to have a desire to comply
with the custom of civilized travelers, slowed up and saluted the
men with the question: “What’s the news?” The Brassels related
in detail an account of the murder of William Ballard and young
Coffey. The Harpes replied that they had not only heard of these
tragedies, but that they were now in pursuit of the men who had
committed the crimes. They further asserted that they were going to
wait for the rest of the pursuing party which was coming on behind,
and requested the Brassels to join them when the reinforcements
arrived. To this the two innocent brothers willingly agreed. They
had no more than done so when Big Harpe, accusing them of being the
Harpe brothers, seized James Brassel’s gun, threw it on the ground
and immediately began tying his hands and feet. Robert, suspecting
that he and his brother had fallen into the hands of the dreaded
Harpes themselves, jumped from his horse and attempted to obtain
his brother’s gun in an effort to rescue him. In this he failed
and, realizing that his only hope of escape was flight, he ran
into the woods, leaving his horse behind. He was pursued by Little
Harpe, whom he succeeded in outrunning, and, although shot at, he
was unhurt.
Robert continued his flight about ten miles when he met a Mr. Dale,
who, with two or three other men and Mrs. Dale, was traveling
toward Knoxville. He persuaded them to return with him to the place
where he had left his brother. The men had only one gun among
them for their protection; nevertheless they tried to help the
bewildered man. When they reached the spot in the woods a short
distance from the road where Robert had left his brother, they were
horrified to find that James was not only dead, but that his body
had been “much beaten and his throat cut.” His gun was broken to
pieces. The tracks indicated that the two Harpes had gone toward
Knoxville, from which direction they were coming when they overtook
the Brassel brothers. After the pursuers had followed the tracks a
few miles, they were much surprised to find themselves running upon
the Harpes coming back. At the time the two Brassels were attacked
by the Harpes the outlaws were alone and had with them nothing
but their guns. But now, on their return, they were accompanied
by their women and children, heavily loaded with clothing and
provisions, apparently prepared for a long journey and for battle
and siege.
When this fierce procession of men and women on horseback came
in sight, one of Dale’s men suggested that if the approaching
cavalcade showed no signs of fight, no effort to arrest them should
be made. This immediately met with the approval of the majority.
No attempt to fight was made. The murderers, in the words of
Colonel Trabue, “looked very awful at them” and then passed on. The
pursuers, too, continued their journey for a while in silence, lest
any words they should utter might be overheard and mistaken by the
Harpes as a threat. Robert Brassel complained bitterly of the lack
of courage displayed by the men he had relied upon to help capture
or kill the murderers of his brother. [63]
Thus, uninterrupted, the two Harpes and their wives, with their
stolen horses and other plunder, and with an ever-increasing desire
to shed blood, continued their expedition to Kentucky. Somewhere
near the Tennessee-Kentucky line, either in what is now Pickett
County, Tennessee, or Clinton County, Kentucky, they killed John
Tully, who lived in that section of Cumberland County which in 1835
became a part of Clinton County.
In the meantime citizens of east Tennessee were alarmed. They now
fully realized that the Harpes had actually returned and were
likely to appear any day in any neighborhood. Every man carried his
gun, his dirk, or carving knife, and made every preparation to slay
the monsters.
Robert Brassel resumed his pursuit of the Harpes and was soon
joined by William Wood and others. When they arrived near the farm
of John Tully they met Nathaniel Stockton and a number of neighbors
looking for Tully, who they supposed was lost in the woods. The
search continued and “near the road they found Mr. Tully, killed,
and hidden under a log.” [63] The company buried him and some of
the men agreed they would pursue the murderers.«10»
Immediately after it was discovered that Tully had been murdered,
William Wood and Nathaniel Stockton started afoot to Colonel Daniel
Trabue’s farm, a distance of forty miles. They suspected that
because Colonel Trabue had been active in the pursuit of the Harpes
after his son had been murdered, the monsters were on their way
to his home and store and might be captured there. They related
to the Colonel the details of the crimes the Harpes had recently
committed and he, before they had finished, decided to forward the
news to the governor of Kentucky. In order to impress the governor
with the fact that the report was not another wild rumor, Colonel
Trabue, who was a justice of the peace in Green County, prepared a
written statement, giving a brief account of the recent acts of the
Harpes, as related to him by Nathaniel Stockton and William Wood,
and forwarded it to him in the form of an affidavit. [63]
This sworn statement, consisting of about five hundred words,
was published in the _Kentucky Gazette_ on August 15, 1799. From
it some of the details of the three crimes just related were
taken. It begins with the declaration: “About the middle of July
there was a man killed by the name of Hardin, about three miles
below Knoxville: he was ripped open and stones put in his belly,
and he was thrown into Holston River.” After briefly noting the
circumstances and the exact date of the killing of Coffey, James
Brassel, and John Tully, it calls attention to the fact that the
night after the Harpes murdered Tully “they passed by old Mr.
Stockton’s going toward their father’s-in-law, old Mr. Roberts.” A
point of great human interest is the concise and vivid description
of the two Harpes given in the affidavit prepared by Colonel
Trabue: “The big man is pale, dark, swarthy, bushy hair, had a
reddish gun stock--the little man had a blackish gunstock, with
a silver star with four straight points--they had short sailor’s
coats, very dirty, and grey greatcoats.”
Colonel Trabue, in his _Autobiography_, does not give a copy of his
affidavit, but relative to it, he writes: “I sent out that night
for some neighbors and made arrangements. We sent one man off the
next morning by sunrise to Frankfort to the Governor, that he might
have it published in the newspapers. Mr. Wood’s and Mr. Stockton’s
statement I wrote down and had them swear to it, what they knew of
their own knowledge and what Robert Brassel had told them. I sent
another man down to Yellow Banks [should read Red Banks] to General
Samuel Hopkins with the news and the statement. I directed the men
to go as fast as they could, and spread the news as they went;
it was also immediately put in the newspapers. The man I sent to
General Hopkins was John Ellis. As he went on he spread the news.
He happened to go the same route the Harpes had taken. When they
heard of him they pursued and tried to overtake him. Ellis had a
good horse and went sixty or seventy miles a day. The whole state
got in a great uproar, because it was uncertain which route the
murderers would take.”
The two messengers sent by Colonel Trabue rode over trails that
wound through a sparsely populated wilderness where danger in one
form or another was likely to be encountered at any moment. One
rider dashed in a northerly direction about ninety miles, while
the other rushed westward twice that distance. Each “spread the
news” along his route, and from every settlement he passed, the
report--“The Harpes are here”--was hurriedly sent out. The warning,
in comparatively little time, reached practically every family in
Kentucky and many in Tennessee. The press verified the reports and
soon the people saw for themselves in “black and white,” which was
then considered the garb of “gospel truth,” that the Harpes had
returned to Kentucky and were guilty of crimes even more brutal
than any heretofore perpetrated.
The Frankfort _Palladium_, on August 15, 1799, published the names
of four men and on what day in July each was killed by the Harpes,
and concludes its paragraph with the statement that “we are happy
to hear they are closely pursued and sincerely hope they will
ere long meet the punishment which the atrocity of their crimes
demands.” _The Western Spy and Hamilton Gazette_, of Cincinnati, on
September 3 published a Frankfort news item giving practically the
same facts and expressing the same hope.
Such widespread terror and fear as was aroused by the raid of
the Harpes found expression, no doubt, not only in the _Kentucky
Gazette_ and the _Palladium_, but in all the papers published
in Kentucky and Tennessee. Stewart’s _Kentucky Herald_, of
Lexington, the _Mirror_, of Washington, Mason County, Kentucky,
and the _Gazette_ and the _Impartial Observer_, both of Knoxville,
Tennessee, were in existence at the time. Careful research in
these four papers has failed to reveal any allusion to the Harpes,
for the copies available are of other dates than those likely to
mention these outlaws in their presentation of current events. It
is possible that a number of current newspapers in the east and
south printed more or less about the Harpes and thus warned the
people of the possibility of their sudden appearance. As we shall
see later, the _Carolina Gazette_, of Charleston, South Carolina,
in its issue of October 24, 1799, devoted twenty-five lines to the
Harpes. This story, in all probability, was not its first and only
paragraph relative to them.
Although the alarm was being spread by the people and the press,
and many a man had prepared to slay the outlaws, the report of the
latest butchery was soon followed by another. The day after Colonel
Trabue sent the messengers to Frankfort and Henderson, the Harpes
traveled up Marrowbone Creek and, about twenty-five miles south of
Colonel Trabue’s home, stopped at an out-of-the-way place on which
John Graves and his thirteen-year-old son were cultivating a crop
and making preparations for the rest of the family to join them.
[63]
The Harpes arrived at their cabin late in the evening and got
permission to spend the night. “Early in the morning, probably
before the Graveses awoke, they, with Graves’ own axe, split the
heads of both open and threw the bodies of both in to the brush
fence that surrounded the house.” “There they lay,” writes Draper,
in one of his note books, “until some one, seeing so many buzzards
around, made an investigation and discovered what had taken place.”
[12E] This tragedy was announced in the _Palladium_ of August 22,
in a paragraph quoted from the _Guardian of Freedom_, Frankfort,
Kentucky. The statement then published is another verification of
the notes made by Draper many years later.
From the Graves cabin they traveled north twenty miles or more into
Russell County to the home of old man Roberts, the reputed father
of the two women Big Harpe claimed as wives. The only reference
to this “old Mr. Roberts” is in Colonel Trabue’s affidavit sent
to the Governor of Kentucky in August, 1799. Local tradition has
nothing to say about Roberts--when he came or left, or where his
cabin stood. Evidently he was still living in Russell County
in 1802, for in November of that year Reverend Jacob Young, a
Methodist preacher, met “a brother-in-law of the infamous Micajah
Harpe,” who, although his name is not stated in the preacher’s
autobiography, must have been a son of the “old Mr. Roberts” in
order to qualify for the connection. At any rate, two of the Harpe
women were doubtless invited by their father to remain with him.
If, however, such an invitation was not extended, the women would
have appealed to him for help had they been inclined to reform, and
he, as many other fathers would have done, might have consented to
make an effort to lead them from the vile associations into which
they had fallen. What these two daughters might and should have
done they failed to do. They clung to their companions in crime and
with them fled westward south of Green River toward Mammoth Cave
and Russellville.
While on the way the Harpes killed a little girl and a negro boy.
Writers do not agree as to just where and when these two murders
took place. It is likely they were enacted while the Harpes were
going to Logan County and that they led up to a third child-murder
even more inhuman. The first of these tragedies, as briefly related
by Breazeale, is that “they met with a negro boy going to mill,
dashed the boy’s brains out against a tree, but left the horse and
bag of grain untouched.” The other recorded by Collins is equally
brief: “One of their victims was a little girl found at some
distance from her home, whose tender age and helplessness would
have been protection against any but incarnate fiends.”
They soon reached Logan County. There, according to T. Marshall
Smith, they discovered, about eight miles from Drumgool’s station,
now Adairville, the two Trisword brothers, who with their wives,
several children, and a few black servants, were camping for the
night. The next morning before sunrise, while the emigrants were
still asleep, the Harpes and two Cherokee Indians made a wild
attack on the tent occupied by the travelers and killed the entire
party except one of the men, who ran for help. When the rescuing
party arrived upon the scene it found the ground covered with the
bodies of the dead, some of them badly mangled. While several of
the men were occupied burying the dead, others were looking for
evidence of the direction the outlaws had taken.
This account, because it lacks verification, is not here presented
as one true in its details. It is known, however, that as a result
of this tragedy or because of some other atrocity committed
about this time by the Harpes, William Stewart, sheriff of Logan
County, organized a party of about a dozen men to search for the
highwaymen. This pursuing party, having reason to believe that
the outlaws were traveling south, rushed toward the Tennessee
line. In the meantime, however, the cunning Harpes were working
their way northward. They stopped a few hours about three miles
northeast of Russellville, on the Samuel Wilson Old Place, about
half a mile up Mud River from what is now Duncan’s bridge over Mud
River on the Russellville and Morgantown road. There the Harpes
watered their horses at the same spring that quenched the thirst of
the hundreds of people who a few weeks before attended the Great
Revival conducted by the Reverends John and William McGee and James
M’Gready. Samuel Wilson, an eye witness, in his description of
this religious meeting, says: “Fires were built, cooking begun,
and by dark candles lighted and fixed on a hundred trees around
and interspersing the ground surrounded by tents, showing forth
the first, and as I believe still, one of the most beautiful camp
meetings the world has ever seen.” This was one of the first of the
Great Revival meetings that so spontaneously stirred what was then
called the West. The Harpes doubtless knew or inferred from the
condition of the place that it had been used recently for religious
purposes. [121]
The Harpe men had no patience with their children and often
reprimanded the three women, declaring that the crying infants
would some day be the means of pursuers detecting their presence.
They frequently threatened to kill them. To protect their babies,
the mothers many a night went apart, carrying their children
sufficiently far away to prevent their cries being heard by the
unnatural fathers. But the long-feared threat was at last carried
out. [12F]
It is a strange sequence of events that on this same camp ground
and almost immediately after the Great Revival, one of the Harpes
killed his own child in the presence of its mother. A large maple
tree still marks the spot near which this deed was enacted.
The details of this murder as given today by tradition are
practically the same as those published by T. Marshall Smith: “Big
Harpe snatched it--Susan’s infant, about nine months old--from its
mother’s arms, slung it by the heels against a large tree by the
path-side, and literally bursting its head into a dozen pieces,
threw it from him as far as his great strength enabled him, into
the woods.” This terrible tragedy is briefly referred to by Hall
and Breazeale, both of whom state that Big Harpe, just before
his death, declared he regretted none of the many murders he had
committed except “the killing of his own child.”
The traditions of today and the three early writers just referred
to are probably wrong as to the kinship that existed between the
murdered child and its murderer. Draper, in his sketch of the
Harpes, gives a more flexible statement: “Tradition says they
killed one of their own children.” They had only three children
and all of them were born in the Danville jail. Big Harpe’s boy,
born to Betsey, and his girl, born to Susan, lived many years,
as is shown later. The child that was so cruelly murdered by Big
Harpe could have been no other than the daughter of Sally, who
had married Little Harpe. So, in all probability, if Big Harpe
committed the crime, his brother’s child was the victim.
The Harpes--Big Harpe’s Ride to Death
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 of these, near the
present town of Sebree, was Knob Lick.