what had happened to the harpes and their women was a natural outcome of the frontier outlook upon life. the three mothers had gained the sympathy of the court and the community in their apparent distress and helplessness. it was believed that they had obtained a happy release from their barbarous masters. it is probable that many of the persons who now helped in the hunt for the escaped harpes did so not because they were highway murderers and should therefore be shot or hanged, but because they deserved particular punishment for their brutal conduct toward the young women. at any rate the settlements were united in the pursuit of the two men, who had so curiously escaped.
the acquitted women declared that, above all things, they desired to return to knoxville and there start life over again. a collection of clothes and money was made among the citizens of danville and an old mare was given to help them on their way to tennessee. the three women, each with a bundle over her shoulder and a child under her arm, and the old mare loaded down with clothes and bedding, left the jail one morning on what was considered no easy journey even when undertaken with good horses and the best of equipment. they walked down the street in indian file, led by the jailer, who accompanied them to the edge of town to point out the road that led through crab orchard to tennessee. these forlorn and dejected travelers, however, had covered less than thirty miles when they changed
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their course and went down along the banks of green river. a few days later they traded their horse for a canoe and then went down the stream and were soon lost sight of by the spies who attempted to watch them. [12f]
the brutal killing of langford had stirred the country for almost two months, and now that the murderers had escaped and the gnawed bones of the two marylanders were found, with all evidence pointing to the harpes as the perpetrators of this terrible murder, the citizens became even more enraged. they were aroused to the realization that the villains must be captured and disposed of at once. the case required prompt action and any and all methods that might bring about the extermination of the harpes were endorsed.
on march 28, 1799, the kentucky gazette published the following paragraph: “the criminals in the danville district jail for the murder of mr. langford, (as mentioned in our paper of the 2nd of january last) have made their escape. by an order from w. e. strong, esq., a justice of the peace for mercer county, all sheriffs and constables are commanded to take and re-commit them.”
an entry in the danville district court order book, page 370, under date of april 22, 1799, reads: “it is ordered that the commonwealth’s writ of capias issue from the clerk’s office of this court to the sheriff of lincoln county commanding him to take micajah roberts and wiley roberts who have lately broken the jail of this district and are now running at large and them, the said micajah roberts and wiley roberts, safely to keep so that he have their bodies before the judges of the district court holden for the danville district on the first day of their august term, to answer
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for the felony and murder of a certain thomas langford whereof they stand indicted.”
lynching parties had been organized since the middle of march and in the meantime a committee was sent to james garrard, governor of kentucky, presenting to him the necessity of capturing the outlaws. a memorandum on this subject in the executive journal, entered in the month of april, states that “the governor authorized josh ballenger to pursue them into the state of tennessee and other states, and to apply to the executive authorities of such states to deliver them up.”
ballenger and his men began their chase before they received official notice of the governor’s action, and were soon on the trail. near the headwaters of rolling fork, a branch of salt river, they suddenly found themselves face to face with the harpes, who, although surprised, were prepared to shoot. the pursuers retreated in confusion and the harpes, taking advantage of the situation, made their escape. henry scaggs, one of the party, suggested that the crowd go to his farm and, with the aid of his dogs, continue the chase. scaggs was one of the “long hunters” who came to kentucky in 1770 with colonel james knox and a pioneer who had ever since been looked upon as “a valiant man in battle and a great hunter.” urged by him they resumed the pursuit and continued it until late that night, when most of the men, becoming discouraged, left the party because the trail of the harpes led them through very thick and almost impenetrable cane.
a few men, led by ballenger, continued the search, but in a section where the heavy cane was no impediment. scaggs, believing the canebrake should be penetrated, went to a “log rolling” a few miles north of the
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home of colonel daniel trabue, and there, with the aid of major james blain, tried to organize another party. but the men declared that the cane was too thick and the chances of capture too slight to justify the risk, and the “log rolling” went on. scaggs then—on or about april 10—rode to the farm of colonel daniel trabue, a revolutionary soldier and one of the most prominent and altruistic of kentucky pioneers, who lived about three miles west of what is now columbia, adair county.
while scaggs was discussing his plans with colonel trabue, the colonel was patiently awaiting the return of his son, john trabue, a lad of thirteen, who had been sent to one of the neighbors to borrow some flour and seed beans. the boy was accompanied by a small dog, and, in the midst of the discussion, the dog walked into the yard badly wounded. [12e] an investigation was immediately made. the neighbor reported that the boy had left the house a few hours before with the flour and beans. all efforts made that night to find him were futile. they began to suspect that he might have been kidnapped by the harpes. the search continued for many days, but all in vain. evidence of the harpes was discovered by george spears and five other men about fifteen miles southwest of the trabue farm, near the east fork of barren river, where the outlaws had killed a calf and made moccasins out of the skin, leaving their old moccasins behind. the footprints indicated the presence of two men, but there were no signs to show that a boy was with them. [63]
little did the pursuers realize what had actually happened. the innocent lad, walking home over an old buffalo trace, had met the harpes as they were crossing it. there they killed the little fellow, cut his
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body to pieces, and threw it into a sinkhole near the path, where it remained hidden about two weeks and was then discovered by accident. the murderers had taken the flour but not the seed beans.
colonel trabue, in his autobiography or journal, written some twenty-five years after this tragedy, deplores the fact that the log rollers did not continue the pursuit: “it is a pity they did not go, for then john trabue might not have been killed.” he adds that these men ever after “reflected very much on themselves for their negligence, and said this ought to be a warning to others hereafter to always do their duty.”
in pioneer times the execution of the law by officials was in many instances an unavoidably slow process, and it therefore frequently became necessary for the law abiding citizens to organize themselves into bands and, by any method the emergency might demand, establish order and safety. no matter how achieved, preserving peace and fighting danger was looked upon by good citizens as the imperative duty of all. had the then slow-acting laws been relied upon, the sly and quick-traveling harpes probably would not have been captured for years, and their victims might have been numbered by the hundreds. on the other hand, as suggested by colonel trabue, it is possible that had the men who were called upon by scaggs done what was in those days considered a duty, langford might have been the last victim of the harpes and their career ended.
a report that mad dogs were running through the country and were likely to spring from behind any bush or tree at any time could not have alarmed the people more than did the realization that the harpes had escaped from jail and were killing all who chanced to be
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in their path. on april 22, the governor of kentucky was again appealed to for help, and he immediately signed a proclamation which was published in the frankfort palladium on may 2 and may 9, 1799:
“by the governor, a proclamation.
“whereas it has been represented to me that micajah harp, alias roberts, and wiley harp alias roberts, who were confined in the jail of the danville district under a charge of murder, did on the 16th day of march last, break out of the said jail;—and whereas the ordinary methods of pursuit have been found ineffectual for apprehending and restoring to confinement the said fugitives, i have judged it necessary to the safety and welfare of the community and to the maintenance of justice, to issue this my proclamation and do hereby offer and promise a reward of three hundred dollars to any person who shall apprehend and deliver into the custody of the jailer of the danville district the said micajah harp alias roberts and a like reward of three hundred dollars for apprehending and delivering as aforesaid the said wiley harp alias roberts, to be paid out of the public treasury agreeably to law.
“in testimony whereof i have hereunto set my hand and have caused the seal of the commonwealth to be affixed.
“done at frankfort on the 22nd day of april in the year of our lord 1799, and of the commonwealth the seventh.
“(l. s.)
“by the governor james garrard
“harry toulmin, secretary.
“micajah harp alias roberts is about six feet high—of
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a robust make, and is about 30 or 32 years of age. he has an ill-looking, downcast countenance, and his hair is black and short, but comes very much down his forehead. he is built very straight and is full fleshed in the face. when he went away he had on a striped nankeen coat, dark blue woolen stockings,—leggins of drab cloth and trousers of the same as the coat.
“wiley harp alias roberts is very meagre in his face, has short black hair but not quite so curly as his brother’s; he looks older, though really younger, and has likewise a downcast countenance. he had on a coat of the same stuff as his brother’s, and had a drab surtout coat over the close-bodied one. his stockings were dark blue woolen ones, and his leggins of drab cloth.”
before this proclamation by the governor had time to circulate throughout the state, report reached the people that the harpes had killed a man named dooley, near what is now edmonton, metcalfe county, [28] and had butchered another named stump, who lived on barren river about eight miles below bowling green. [12d]
stump was fishing, and seeing smoke rising on the opposite side of the river, a little distance from the bank, presumed some new arrivals were preparing to settle. he stepped into his cabin and got his violin, and then crossed the stream to greet the newcomers. he was clad in his shirt and trousers, without hat or shoes, but he probably felt that what he lacked in wearing apparel would be more than counterbalanced by the hearty welcome to the wilderness he was prepared to give his new neighbors. so, in this scant attire, and with a turkey over his shoulder, a string of fish in one
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hand and his fiddle under his arm, he entered their camp. he probably never realized that his good intentions had led him into the hands of the harpes. they stabbed him, cut open his body, filled it with stones and threw it into the river. [12f] some of stump’s neighbors, says the kentucky gazette, were suspected of having committed the murder and were taken into custody, but an investigation proved their innocence and also proved beyond all doubt that the harpes were the perpetrators of the crime.
the criminals continued their raid down barren river into the lower green river country to a point near henderson, kentucky, and then, either by land or water, rapidly worked their way to diamond island in the ohio and to cave-in-rock, in or near any of which places they evidently had arranged to meet their women.
how many men, women, and children these two brothers killed and what course they followed while rushing through the lower green river country and the ohio valley between henderson and cave-in-rock will never be known. shortly before reaching the cave, they committed a murder in illinois at the mouth of saline river, about twelve miles above cave-in-rock. twenty-six years later this incident was briefly summed up in the illinois gazette, published at shawneetown: “there are persons living in this country whom we have heard recount the story of the harpes with great minuteness, and the place is still pointed out, on the plantation of mr. potts, near the mouth of the saline river, where they shot two or three persons in cold blood by the fire where they had encamped.” [56]
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the many reports—some false and others only too true—of the inhuman acts committed by the harpes had, in the meantime, put every community on its guard. captain ballenger, after pursuing the outlaws a few weeks, found that, owing to the many conflicting rumors, he had been thrown off the trail and was moving in a direction opposite the one taken by the harpes and, therefore, he gave up the chase.
captain young, of mercer county, in the meantime organized a company with the determination to exterminate the harpes and all other outlaws, or at least drive them out of the country. commenting on captain young’s expedition, edmund l. starling, author of a history of henderson county, kentucky, writes: “captain young and his men recognized the perils of their undertaking; they understood the wily machinations of the enemy, and, with blood for blood emblazoned upon their banner, started upon their mission of capture or death, utterly regardless of their own personal comforts or the hardships attending a campaign in such a wild and comparatively unmarked country.”
having met with success in mercer, captain young and his men continued their pursuit and finally reached henderson county. there they were joined by a number of citizens. the combined forces swept over the entire country, including diamond island, driving the outlaws out of that part of kentucky across the ohio river into illinois. a number of the criminals fled to cave-in-rock. the character of the men who usually centered at the cave was well known to the refugees, for many of them had helped to make the place notorious.
captain young and his outlaw exterminators having covered the territory they set out to relieve, left henderson
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county and returned to mercer county—a distance of more than one hundred and fifty miles—and were there given a grand ovation. [124]
governor garrard, however, must have felt somewhat apprehensive regarding the return of the harpes, for the executive journal shows that on june 7 he “deputed alexander mcfarland and brothers” to take charge of “these inveterate enemies of human happiness” should they be found “in any adjacent state.”
it seems quite likely that while in the danville jail the harpe 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.
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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.
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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,
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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,
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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
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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
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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.
