View of Cave-in-Rock and Vicinity, 1833
It shows a landscape interesting in itself but false to the actual scene
(Reproduced from Charles Bodmer’s drawing)
Our earliest item relative to fiction pertaining to the Cave was found in a review published in The Port Folio, February, 1809, of Thomas Ashe’s Travels in America Performed in 1806, printed in London in 1808. The critics in Ashe’s day, and ever since, declared the writer of Travels a literary thief, bone thief, and infamous prevaricator and ridiculed his work on the ground that it was filled with incredible stories grafted onto authentic incidents and actual facts. This general condemnation gave the new book a wide circulation for a few years. The editor of The Port Folio devotes a dozen pages to his “entire contempt both of Mr. Ashe and his work.”
Most of the travelers who appeared after Ashe’s day and examined the Cave detected in his sketch a combination of facts and fiction that helped spread the name and history of this interesting and picturesque rendezvous of outlaws. Many a visitor still goes to the place expecting to explore the “upper cave” but soon discovers that its size has been wildly exaggerated by Ashe. His account of the Cave is one of the longest ever written and will always be of curious interest no matter from what standpoint it may be read, other than history. The reproach to Ashe is that he gave the hoax out as veritable facts encountered in his travels and never corrected this impression or acknowledged his purpose. About half of what he says concerning the Cave is at least highly probable; the remainder is wholly fictitious.
A casual investigation of the stories published after outlawry terminated at Ford’s Ferry, brought to light two novels and a long poem in which the Cave serves as a background. Viewed from the standpoint of today their plots have the consistency of a dime novel. Browsing in the field of fiction also led to the discovery of the one time celebrated romance of Harpe’s Head.
Harpe’s Head, by Judge James Hall, was first published in America in 1833, and the following year was printed in London under the title of Kentucky, A Tale. It was later republished in America in Judge Hall’s volume, Legends of the West. Harpe’s Head is the only novel in which the notorious Harpes are introduced as characters. It is a story of a small emigrant family traveling from Virginia to western Kentucky over the route then endangered by the Harpes. All the characters are fictitious, except the two outlaws and their wives. No reference is made to their career at the Cave.
The romance is written in a dignified and graceful style. Atkinson’s Casket for November, 1833, in its comments on the book says “it has some masterly scenes,” and quotes one in full—a Virginia barbecue. Among other interesting sketches of pioneer times woven into Harpe’s Head is one of “Hercules Short” or “Hark Short, the Snake Killer,” a half-witted boy who performs extraordinary feats and who labors under the impression that he is a son of Big Harpe. On one occasion “Hark” remarks that his mother told him, “If anybody was to rake hell with a fine-comb they would not find sich a tarnal villain as Big Harpe.”
Edmund L. Starling, in his History of Henderson County, Kentucky, 1887, says: “The history of the Harpes in this portion of Kentucky, has long ago, and repeatedly found its way into the histories of Kentucky and other states, in pamphlets and the newspapers of the country, and at one time was even dramatized for the American stage. But it was so desperate and appalling to all rational sensibilities that it was abandoned by the drama.” I did not find any pamphlets or dramas regarding the Harpes.
The earliest novel found using Cave-in-Rock for a background is Mike Fink, A Legend of the Ohio, by Emerson Bennett, who for a time was a well-known writer of thrilling romances. This melodrama was first published in Cincinnati in 1848, and although now a somewhat rare book, it ranked, judging from the number of editions issued, among widely-read stories of the middle of the last century. Its popularity was not due to any high literary merit, but to its wild and extravagant plot. The greater part of the story deals with bloody battles between a band of outlaws and the flatboat crew and passengers led by Mike Fink. Practically all the action takes place in or near the Cave, and for that reason “A Legend of Cave-in-Rock” would have been a more appropriate subtitle.