Daniel Blowe, in 1820, briefly recorded that “Mason’s gang of robbers made Cave-in-Rock their principal rendezvous in 1797, where they frequently plundered or murdered the crews of boats descending the Ohio.” Most historians who touched on the subject after Blowe’s time publish, with equal brevity, the same statement. Henry Howe, in his Historical Collections of the Great West, published in 1852, says: “Sometimes Mason plundered the descending boats but more frequently preferred to wait and plunder the owners of their money as they returned.” Comparatively few men returned north by river and it is therefore likely that not many single boats or small flotillas going south floated by unmolested. In this connection Judge James Hall comments that the boats that were permitted to pass the Cave and Hurricane Island, six miles below, were pointed out by Mason, who on such occasions would jokingly remark: “These people are taking produce to market for me.” [[61]]
Mason discovered that many of his men who went south with captured boats never returned to report, and he realized that sooner or later an attempt would be made to capture him if he continued his work at the Cave. He therefore decided to go south. For these and probably other reasons he, as stated by Monette, “deserted the Cave in the Rock on the Ohio and began to infest the great Natchez Trace where the rich proceeds of the river trade were the tempting prize.”
By what means and under what circumstances Mason and his family moved south is not known. After leaving Henderson County he remained longer at Cave-in-Rock than at any other one place. His name is inseparably associated with Cave-in-Rock, both in history and tradition, but neither history nor tradition has preserved an account giving the details of any definite robbery committed by him while there. It is likely that he left the Cave in ample time to avoid being driven out by a body of men who had been organized by the merchants of Pittsburgh for the purpose of trying to exterminate him and all other river pirates. No record of Mason’s whereabouts during 1798 and 1799 can now be found. During these two years many robberies occurred along the Mississippi River and along various trails on the American side of the river from Kentucky to New Orleans, but the guilty men were seldom captured. A number of these robberies, on both river and land, were doubtless perpetrated by Mason under one or more assumed names.
According to Audubon, the ornithologist, the Masons made their headquarters for a while on Wolf Island, in the Mississippi, twenty-five miles below the mouth of the Ohio. About 1815, or a number of years after Mason’s career was closed, Audubon gathered the following about the famous outlaw’s stay on this island:
“The name of Mason is still familiar to many of the navigators of the Lower Ohio and Mississippi. By dint of industry in bad deeds, he became a notorious horse-stealer, formed a line of worthless associates from the eastern part of Virginia (a state greatly celebrated for its fine breed of horses) to New Orleans, and had a settlement on Wolf Island, not far from the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi, from which he issued to stop the flatboats, and rifle them of such provisions and other articles as he and his party needed. His depredations became the talk of the whole western country; and to pass Wolf Island was not less to be dreaded than to anchor under the walls of Algiers. The horses, the negroes, and the cargoes, his gang carried off and sold.”
In March, 1800, Mason appeared in New Madrid, Missouri, then Spanish territory, and applied for a passport. This was issued to him, as appears later, on the recommendation of a man whom he had met casually at Red Banks (Henderson, Kentucky) and who was unaware of the real character of the person he introduced. The passport not only permitted Mason to settle on Spanish territory with the privilege of purchasing land, but it also served as a document designating him as a desirable citizen. When he applied for this permit, he may have resolved to open up a farm and lead a respectable life. If so, the resolution to reform was of short duration, for he made no attempt to select a site for a permanent home. In the meantime he carefully preserved the passport, knowing it might some day serve, in its way, as a letter of recommendation. It would also serve as evidence that he had taken an initial step toward becoming a Spanish subject. Should he confine his land operations to the American side, and his river piracy to the waters of the Mississippi, and make none but American citizens his victims, the chances were he might some day find a safe and convenient retreat in the Spanish domain west of the river.
During 1800 and the three years that followed, Mason moved over the country with remarkable activity. A report of a robbery committed by him on the Natchez Trace, says Monette, was soon followed by an account of another perpetrated on the Mississippi many miles away, and vice versa. Men going down the Mississippi, as those going down the Ohio, encountered many troubles incidental to the running of boats. They were always exposed to river pirates of whom Mason was one. Among other hardships to which they were subjected was the unrestrained authority of the Spanish, who were then in possession of the land west of the Mississippi and who practically controlled the navigation of that river.
Mason On the Natchez Trace
Much has been written about the old Natchez Trace, the narrow Indian trail leading from Natchez, Mississippi, to Nashville, Tennessee, at which place travelers took other trails leading to Illinois, Kentucky, and Virginia. In the flatboat days many merchants who had disposed of the goods they brought down the Ohio and Mississippi returned north with the proceeds of their sales by this overland route; others took the ocean route by way of Philadelphia, back to their homes. Many of these pioneer merchants refer to their experience in this wilderness and many early western travelers who rode over this old trail describe it in their books. We shall, however, confine our glimpse of the early days on this historic trace to the facts concerning Mason.