| The Purpose of this Narrative | [13] |
| The Lair of the Outlaws | [17] |
| Piracy and Rough Life on the River | [37] |
| The Harpes—A Terrible Frontier Story | [55] |
| The Harpes—Renewal of the Terror | [83] |
| The Harpes—Big Harpe’s Ride to Death | [107] |
| The Harpes—Mysteries and Fate of Survivors | [139] |
| Mason—Soldier, Pirate, Highwayman | [157] |
| Mason—On the Natchez Trace | [179] |
| Mason—Trapped and Tried | [207] |
| Mason and Harpe—Double-Cross and Double Death | [241] |
| Coiners at the Cave | [267] |
| The Ford’s Ferry Mystery | [283] |
| Paying the Penalty | [307] |
| The Cave in Fiction | [321] |
| Bibliography—Manuscript Sources | [335] |
| Bibliography—Printed Sources | [336] |
| Index | [347] |
Illustrations
| Cave-in-Rock | [Frontispiece] |
| From an original oil painting by J. Bernhard Alberts, made in 1916 | |
| Interior of Cave-in-Rock | [21] |
| From a drawing by J. Bernhard Alberts made in 1916 | |
| Interior of Cave-in-Rock about 1825 | [33] |
| From the original drawing by Charles Alexander Leseuer | |
| Facsimile of News Item regarding Capture of Micajah Harpe | [123] |
| Dated, Lexington, Kentucky, September 10, 1799, and published in the Carolina Gazette, Charleston, S. C., October 24, 1799 | |
| Map showing Cave-in-Rock and the Natchez Trace, 1814 | [193] |
| Facsimile of Passport issued to Samuel Mason | [213] |
| Written in French and issued by the Spanish Commandant of the District of New Madrid, March 29, 1800 | |
| Gallows Field, Jefferson County, Mississippi | [259] |
| From a drawing by J. Bernhard Alberts, made in 1917 | |
| Implements and Weapons used by the Outlaws | [269] |
| Entrance to the Cave and Lower End of Cave-in-Rock Bluff | [299] |
| From an original photograph made in 1917 | |
| View of Cave-in-Rock and Vicinity, 1833 | [323] |
| Reproduced from Charles Bodmer’s drawing |
The Purpose of this Narrative
This book is intended to give the authentic story of the famous Cave-in-Rock of the lower Ohio River, as collected from historic and romantic sources, and to present verified accounts of the most notorious of those highwaymen and river pirates who in the early days of the middle West and South filled the Mississippi basin with the alarm and terror of their crimes and exploits.
All the criminals herein treated made their headquarters at one time or another in this famous cavern. It became a natural, safe hiding-place for the pirates who preyed on the flatboat traffic before the days of steamboats. It came also to serve the same purpose for highwaymen infesting the old Natchez Trace and other land trails north and south.
A century ago and more, its rock-ribbed walls echoed the drunken hilarity of villains and witnessed the death struggles of many a vanished man. Today this former haunt of criminals is as quiet as a tomb. Nothing is left in the Cave to indicate the outrages that were committed there in the olden days.
One state historian of our own times—Parrish, of Illinois—thus describes it: “The gruesome spot, which in those old border days witnessed many a scene of revelry and bloodshed, is today no more than a curiosity, its past victims, white and black, forgotten. Just below it, where, in 1801, there stood one lone cabin, there is today a thrifty village.” In a sense the victims have been forgotten; yet they survive in the true stories of such of them as the preserved records can be made to disclose.