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OLD
WEST LEGENDS
The Vicious Harpes - First American Serial
Killers |
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Earning the
dubious distinction of being the United States’ first known serial
killers, Micajah "Big" Harpe and Wiley "Little" Harpe ) were murderous
outlaws who operated in Tennessee, Kentucky and
Illinois
in the late 1700s. Often referred to as the Harpe Brothers, they were
actually cousins who often passed themselves off as brothers.
Both of their fathers were Scottish immigrants who had settled in Orange
County, North Carolina. Micajah Harpe was born to John Harpe and his wife,
while Wiley Harpe, who was actually named Joshua, was born to John’s
brother, William and his wife. Soon after the arrival of the Harpes in
America, they changed the spelling of their original name from “Harpe” to
“Harp.”
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During
the American Revolution, the Harpes fought for the British. art by
Frederick Coffay Yohn, early 1900's.
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Growing up
near each other, the boys soon took up the nicknames of Big and Little
Harp, as Wiley was much smaller than Micajah. The two left North
Carolina in 1775 for Virginia intending to find jobs as slave
overseers; however, the American Revolution interrupted their career.
The pair sided with the British, but their interest seemed to be more
in violence and criminal activities than any sense of patriotic duty.
Along with other like-minded irregulars, they apparently thrilled in
the activities of burning farms, raping women, and pillaging the
American patriots. When Little Harp attempted to rape a girl in North
Carolina, he was shot and wounded by Captain James Wood; however, he
survived.
In 1780, the Harpes joined with the regular British troops and fought
in several battles along the North and South Carolina borders. The
next year, they left the army and joined up with a group of Cherokee
Indians, raiding settlements in North Carolina and Tennessee and
continuing their pillaging. Taking revenge on Captain James Wood, who
had earlier wounded Little Harpe, the pair kidnapped his daughter,
Susan Wood, and another girl named Maria Davidson. The women served as
wives to the Harpes.
The pair, along with the brutalized women and four other men, then
began to make their way to Tennessee. During the trip, a man named
Moses Doss had the “audacity” to be over-concerned for the brutalized
women. For his concern, he was killed by the Harpes. The group then
settled in the Cherokee-Chickamauga village of Nickajack located
southwest of modern-day Chattanooga, Tennessee. For the next dozen
years, the Harpes, along with their “wives” lived in the Indian
village. During this time, both of the captive women became pregnant
twice and their children were killed by their fathers.
After the British surrendered at Yorktown in 1781, the Chickamauga and
a break-away band of Cherokee continued to make war on American
patriots and the Harpes were only too willing to help them, fighting
in the Battle of Blue Licks, Kentucky on August 19, 1782 and other
smaller skirmishes.
In September, 1794, the Americans planned to take the offensive
against the Indians at Nickajack, but somehow, the Harpes got wind of
the attack and fled before the patriots wiped out the village. The
Harpes and their women then settled down at a new camp nearby, where
they stayed for the next nine months, once again pillaging local
villages in Tennessee. By the spring of 1797, they were living in a
cabin on Beaver's Creek near Knoxville. That same year, Little Harpe
married a local girl; a minister’s daughter, named Sarah Rice, and the
other two women became the “wives” of Big Harpe.
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Murdered, from Frank Leslie's Illustrated
Newspaper.
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Just over a year
later, in late 1798, the Harpes would begin their murder spree, one of the
most violent in the nation’s history.
They first killed two men in Tennessee, one in Knox County and one on the
Wilderness Trail. By December, they had moved on to Kentucky, where they
killed two traveling men from Maryland. Unlike most outlaws of the time,
they seemed to be more motivated by blood lust than financial gain, often
leaving their victims disemboweled, filling their abdominal cavities with
rocks, and sinking them in a river.
Next, a man
named John Langford, who was traveling from Virginia to Kentucky, turned
up dead and a local innkeeper pointed the authorities to the Harpes. The
criminal pair was then pursued, captured, and jailed in Danville,
Kentucky, but they managed to escape. When a posse was sent after them,
the young son of a man who assisted the authorities, was found dead and
mutilated.
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On April 22, 1799, the Kentucky Governor issued a $300
reward on each of the Harpe heads. Fleeing northward, the Harpes killed
two men named Edmonton and Stump. When they were near the mouth of the
Saline River, they came upon three men who were encamped, and killed all
three. The pair then made their way to Cave-In-The-Rock in southern
Illinois,
a stronghold of the river pirate, Samuel Mason. In the meantime, the posse
was aggressively pursuing them, but unfortunately stopped just short of
Cave-in-The-Rock.
Along with their wives and three children in tow, the Harpes holed up with
the Samuel Mason Gang, who preyed on slow-moving flatboats making their
way along the Ohio River. However; though the Mason Gang could be
ruthless, even they were appalled at the actions of the Harpes. After the
murderous pair began to make a habit of taking travelers to the top of the
bluff, stripping them naked, and throwing them off, they were asked to
leave.
The Harpes then returned to Eastern Tennessee, where they continued their
vicious murder spree in earnest. In July, 1798, they killed a farmer named
Bradbury, a man named Hardin, and a boy named Coffey. Soon, more bodies
were discovered including William Ballard, who had been disemboweled and
thrown in the Holton River, James Brassel, who had his throat viciously
slashed was discovered on Brassel’s Knob, and another man named John Tully
was also found murdered.
In south central Kentucky, John Graves and his teenaged son were found
dead with their heads axed and in Logan County; the Harpes killed a little
girl, a young slave, and an entire family who were asleep in their camp.
In August, a few miles northeast of Russellville, Kentucky, Big Harpe
killed his daughter, by bashing her head against a tree, because the baby
was crying.
That same month a man named Trowbridge was found disemboweled in Highland
Creek and when they were given shelter at the Stegall home in Webster
County, the pair killed an overnight guest named Major William Love, as
well as Mrs. Stegall’s four-month old baby boy, whose throat was slit when
it cried. When Mrs. Stegall screamed at the sight of her infant being
killed, she too, was murdered.
The killings continued as the Harpes fled west to avoid the posse, which
included Moses Stegall, whose family the Harpes had killed earlier in the
month. While the pair was preparing to kill another settler named George
Smith, the posse finally tracked them down on August 24, 1799. Calling for
their surrender, the two sped away, but Big Harpe was shot in the leg and
the back. The posse soon caught up with him and pulled him from his horse.
As he lay dying, he confessed to 20 murders and Mr. Stegall slowly cut off
the outlaw’s head. Later it was hanged on a pole at a crossroads near
Henderson, Kentucky. For years, the intersection where the pole stood was
called Harpe's Head.
In the meantime, Little Harpe escaped and soon rejoined the Mason Gang
pirates at Cave-in-Rock. Four years later, Little Harpe was using the
alias of John Setton. When a large reward was offered for the head of
their leader, Samuel Mason, Harpe, along with a fellow pirate named James
May, killed Mason and cut off his head to collect the money. However, as
they presented the head, they were recognized as outlaws themselves and
arrested. The two soon escaped but were quickly recaptured, tried, and
sentenced to be hanged. In January, 1804, they were executed and their
heads cut off and placed high on stakes along the Natchez Road as a
warning to other outlaws.
During their terrible crime spree the Harpes killed more
than 40 men, women and children.
But, what happened to the three "wives" of the notorious Harpes?
On the day that Big Harpe was killed in August, 1799, the women were left
at the camp. The three women, each having one child, were taken to
Henderson and placed in an empty block house. On September 4th, all three
were charged with being parties to the murders of Mary Stegall, her infant
son, James, and Captain William Love. They were bound over for trial in
Russellville, but were tried and released in October.
Sally Rice Harpe then returned to the Knoxville area to be with her
father. She later married a highly respected man and raised a large
family.
Susan Wood stayed in the Russellville area, where she lived a respectable
life. She died in Tennessee.
Maria Davidson, who was by then going by the alias of Betsy Roberts,
married a man named John Huffstutler in September, 1803. By 1828, they had
moved to Hamilton County, Illinois,
where they raised a large family and lived until their deaths in the
1860s.
After the atrocities committed by the Harpes, many family members changed
their names so they wouldn’t be connected with the violent murderers.
©
Kathy Weiser/Legends
of America, updated April, 2010.
Also See:
The Early Outlaw
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From the Rocky Mountain General Store
Great American Bars and Saloons
by
Kathy Weiser,
Owner/Editor of Legends of America
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Kathy Weiser's first venture into the publishing world takes you into the
many watering holes of America's past, particularly the numerous
saloons
that sprouted up during our nation's
Wild West
days. This great
photographic review displays hundreds of
vintage photographs from
California
to
Arizona, the mining camps of
Colorado, all the way to New
York and its turbulent days of
Prohibition.
Hardcover, 2006, 224 Pages.
Signed by the author!!
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