Gallows Field, Jefferson County, Mississippi
Here, in 1804, two Cave-in-Rock outlaws were hanged
(From a drawing by J. Bernhard Alberts, made in 1917)
“John Setton who has been found guilty of robbery at the present term was this day set to the bar and the sentence of the court pronounced upon him as follows, that on Wednesday the eighth day of the present month he be taken to the place of execution and there to be hung up by the neck, between the hours of ten o’clock in the forenoon and four in the afternoon, until he is dead, dead, dead. Which said sentence the Sheriff of Jefferson County was ordered to carry into execution.”
On Wednesday afternoon, February 8th, Little Harpe and James May were taken from the jail to a field about a quarter of a mile north of the village of Greenville. There, on what has ever since been known as “Gallows Field,” they received their well deserved reward, but not the one they had planned to procure. They paid, with their lives, what was, considering the atrocity of their crimes, a light penalty.
In pioneer days the official executioner usually prepared a gallows by fastening one end of a long beam or heavy pole in the forks of a tree and placing the other end similarly in another tree. On this cross timber he tied the rope with which the condemned man was to be hanged. The prisoner, as a rule, was put on a wagon, his coffin serving as a seat, and driven to the place of execution. Upon his arrival the same wagon and coffin on which he rode were used as the platform and trap of his gallows. After the suspended rope was properly looped around his neck the condemned man was made to stand erect on his coffin. When all details had been attended to the horses were rushed forward, leaving the human body hung suspended in the air. In some instances the gallows was a frame-work with a platform in which a trap door was built.
In the hanging of Harpe and May the procedure was somewhat unusual even for a frontier country. Two ropes were tied to a heavy pole placed high between two trees. The two men walked from the jail to the gallows. Each with his hands tied behind him was made to mount a ladder; his feet were then bound and the noose fastened around his neck. When the ladders were dropped the two bodies fell as far as the suspended rope permitted, and thus each was “hung up by the neck” until, as prescribed by law, he was “dead, dead, dead.” [[54]]
The news that Samuel Mason had at last been killed was a great relief to the country. The fact that Little Harpe and James May were actually hanged was a matter of equally widespread interest. The Guardian of Freedom, February 20, 1804, published the following, which was copied by a number of papers, including The Kentucky Gazette of a week later:
“Extract of a letter from a gentleman in Mississippi Territory to his friend in this town (Frankfort) dated February 8, 1804: ‘There have been two of Sam Mason’s party—which infested the road between this country and Kentucky—in jail at Greenville for trial. They were condemned last term and executed this day. One of them was James May; the other called himself John Setton but was proved to be the villain who was known by the name of Little or Red-headed Harpe, and who committed so many acts of cruelty in Kentucky.’”