08/16/2022
TWO OF THE OUTLAWS OF CAVE-IN-ROCK
The Murderous Harpe Brothers
In the late eighteenth century, the untamed country of Kentucky and Illinois was still the wild frontier. Before it could be tamed by settlers, it was the domain of some of the most bloodthirsty killers and thieves in American history. Among them were two men who terrorized the frontier out of pure bloodlust. It took years for the authorities to end their killing spree because the Harpe brothers didn’t choose their victims – they simply killed anyone who got in their way, including women and children.
In fact, on August 16, 1798, one of the brothers smashed a baby’s head against a tree. He said he did it because she annoyed him by constantly crying. That was bad enough, but the worst part? It was his own daughter.
Not much is known about the Harpe brothers before they began their crime spree and it’s hard to separate fact from legend about everything they did. Most likely, they were born in Orange County, North Carolina to a Scottish family, but some accounts say they were actually cousins, Joshua and William Harper, who changed their names when they arrived from Scotland in 1759.
Micajar “Big” Harpe and Wiley “Little” Harpe were said to have fought for the British during the Revolutionary War. It was not for their loyalty to the crown but simply so they could kill and torture people without punishment. Allegedly, the brothers joined a gang of criminals in North Carolina and they r***d, stole, burned down properties, and murdered patriot colonists. One account stated that the gang kidnapped, r***d, and murdered three teenage girls. A fourth girl that was taken but was rescued by Captain Frank Wood, who managed to wound Little Harpe. This would not be Captain Wood’s last encounter with the brothers.
After the war, the Harpes moved west and settled among the Chickamauga Cherokee people at Nickajack, near Chattanooga, Tennessee. They stayed there for around 12 years, after kidnapping two young women and forcing them to be their wives. The unfortunate girls were Maria Davidson and Susan Wood – Captain Wood’s daughter. The women were treated like animals, beaten, kept in chains, and r***d. Some stories say that Maria and Susan became pregnant several times and each time, the brothers murdered the children.
The brothers fled Nickjack in 1794 after word reached their settlement that the authorities had learned of their location. They took the women to Powell’s Valley near Knoxville, where the brothers began robbing and killing settlers who passed through the region. A few years later, the Harpes began their so-called “trail of death” – a killing spree across Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois.
In 1797, the brothers were chased out of Knoxville for stealing livestock and for murder and they fled into Kentucky. After several more murders, they earned the attention of law enforcement and after a local innkeeper informed on them, the Harpes were arrested and locked up in Danville, Kentucky. They didn’t stay behind bars for long, though. The managed to escape and before going on the run, murdered the son of the innkeeper who had testified against them. Kentucky Governor James Garrard placed a $300 bounty on their heads.
The Harpes crossed the Ohio River into Illinois – murdered five men along the way – and found refuge with a band of outlaws at Cave-in-Rock. The cave was a stronghold for bandits and river pirates, which were then led by Samuel Mason, who organized raids on the slow flatboats that were traveling down the Ohio River. The Harpes soon introduced even more vile methods of murder to the already violent gang.
Unlike the pirates, the Harpes did not wait until nightfall or the cover of a storm to do their dirty work. They operated boldly in broad daylight. Their most effective method was to appear on the riverbank and flag down passing boats, usually telling them that they had been attacked by Indians, or robbed, and needed help. When the sympathetic travelers came ashore, the Harpes would slaughter them on the spot and raid the boat. Their trademark method of murder was to disembowel their victims, load their stomachs with stones, and then sink the bodies in the river.
As it later turned out, the Harpes were too vile for even the rough outlaws at Cave-in-Rock. After a raid on a flatboat, the sole survivor of the craft was stripped of his clothes, tied onto a blindfolded horse, and run off a cliff while the Harpes watched and howled with delight. The other outlaws who witnessed this were sickened by the brothers’ bloodthirsty entertainment and forced the Harpes and their women to leave.
The murderous brothers, together with their wives and the children they had allowed to live, returned to Tennessee. The murders that have been credited to them continued, including William Ballard, who had been disemboweled and thrown in the Holton River; James Brassel, who had his throat slashed; and John Graves and his teenage son, who were found dead with their heads cleaved in by axes. In Logan County, the Harpes killed a little girl, a young slave, and an entire family they found asleep in their camp.
Then, on August 16, 1798, Big Harpe committed his most vicious crime when he smashed his baby daughter’s head against a tree because her crying annoyed him. Later, he stated that this was the only killing that he felt remorse for. A week later, the brothers embarked on one more terrible murder spree.
The Stegall family in Webster County offered them shelter in their house – unaware that the Harpes were monsters. That night, the brothers killed another guest named Major William Love, the Stegall’s four-month-old child – because he was crying – and Mrs. Stegall, after she began screaming when she discovered her murdered child. The Harpes then set the cabin on fire in an effort to conceal the crime.
John Stegall – the husband and father of the latest Harpes victims – formed a posse with another man, John Leiper. They were determined to hunt down the Harpes and found them on August 24, 1799. When the brothers were told to surrender, they tried to flee. Big Harpe was wounded in the chase and was pulled off his horse by John Leiper. He had been shot in the spine and was unable to walk. While Harpe lay dying, he confessed to 20 of the numerous murders that he committed but he never begged for his life. John Stegall produced a knife with which to cut off the killer’s head and Harpe simply growled, “Cut away and be damned.” Big Harpe’s head was placed on a stake and left outside the ruins of the Stegall house as a warning to other outlaws. The area where the homestead was once located is still known as Harpe’s Head Road today.
Little Harpe managed to escape from the posse and he joined back up with Samuel Mason at Cave-in-Rock. He stayed with the gang for four years until he got caught up in a plot to kill Mason. A reward had been placed on Mason’s head – dead or alive – of $1,000.
This was a grand sum on those days, but Harpe didn’t just want the money – he wanted to take over Mason’s criminal enterprise. He contrived to get Mason alone, then Little Harpe buried his tomahawk into his friend's back. He finished him off and then hacked off Mason's head. He carried the grisly object off and placed it on the desk of the judge who had been charged with dispensing the reward. The men who were present that day all confirmed that he brought in the head of Samuel Mason but just as the judge was counting out the gold coins in payment, one of the bystanders recognized Little Harpe as an outlaw himself.
He tried to escape, but it was too late. He was captured and hanged in January 1804. His head was placed on a spike along Natchez Road. It was a fitting end to a man who had brought so much terror and fear to the frontier for so many years.
