FOOTNOTES
[1] Charles Alexander Lesueur (1778–1857) French naturalist and artist, was a member of Robert Dale Owen’s communal colony at New Harmony, Indiana, forty miles northeast of the cave. His drawing of Cave-in-Rock has never been published except in a doctoral thesis by Mme. Adrien Loir entitled, Charles Alexandre Lesueur, artiste et savant Français en Amérique de 1816 a 1839; issued in 1920 by Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, Le Havre. In this thesis are reproduced forty of Lesueur’s drawings.
[2] The first, and in a sense the only standard guide book of this kind ever published, was Zadok Cramer’s The Ohio and Mississippi Navigator. It made its appearance about 1801 and was followed by a number of revised and enlarged editions until 1824, when the last edition was printed. It was practically the only printed guide for flatboats.
[3] Conflict with pirates, cut-throats, and counterfeiters was only one of the perils to which the boatmen were exposed on their long and trying trips into the western wilds. Floating ice, heavy winds and rains, treacherous currents, hidden bars, and large snags were among the natural dangers that constantly engaged the attention of the steersman. Many boats, managed by careless or inexperienced men, were overturned, the craft and cargo damaged or lost, and, as was frequently the case, some or all on board drowned. Poorly constructed boats were put out of commission after meeting with only a few minor obstacles.
[4] Prior to about 1824 Harpe was spelled Harp.
[5] After killing Langford the Harpes probably continued to travel along the Wilderness Road until they reached Crab Orchard, from which place radiated, besides the Wilderness Road to Cumberland Gap, at least four other routes: the Louisville route, the Frankfort and Cincinnati route, passing Logan’s Fort (or Stanford) Danville, and Harrodsburg, the Maysville route, and the Tennessee route. Crab Orchard, being a converging point of roads, many travelers going east waited there until a crowd of a dozen or more was organized, thus assuring each a greater safety in making the trip through the Wilderness. Settlers passing through the Wilderness going west usually left home in a crowd sufficiently large to protect itself. [[123]] Langford, as is shown later, met the five Harpes in the Wilderness and, notwithstanding their appearance, he doubtless felt that they would at least serve as protection in the event of danger. The Harpes, after killing Langford, probably passed through Crab Orchard and continued northwest via the Frankfort road, toward Stanford and in or near Stanford turned west for the purpose of misleading anyone who might pursue them as that course threw them toward both Tennessee and western Kentucky.
[6] In 1799 Stanford was a frontier settlement of less than 200 persons, including slaves. In 1780, when Lincoln County was formed, Logan’s Fort or St. Asaph’s became the seat of justice. In 1787 (on land presented by Colonel Benjamin Logan, a site about half a mile east of the fort, where the brick court house now stands) the county erected a log court house thirty feet long and twenty feet wide, with a small jury room on each side, the structure forming a T. Near it stood a log jail of two rooms, each twelve feet square.[[28]] In these log buildings the Harpes were tried and confined.
[7] A perusal of the accounts kept by Joseph Welsh, the sheriff of Lincoln County, reveals many interesting facts. John Gower against the Commonwealth of Kentucky runs: “For making a pair of handcuffs for Wiley Roberts 9s. And putting on and taking off when committed and before trial 2s. 6d. To putting on and taking off the handcuffs after trial and before removal to the District jail 2s. 6d.,” making a total of 14s. For this same service on Micajah Roberts, Gower received, respectively 2s. 6d., 1s. 3d., and 1s. 3d., a total of only 5s.
The sheriff received the following sums: “For summoning a court for the examination” of the five prisoners, £1. 5s. “For summoning twelve witnesses vs. Micajah Roberts and others, at 1s. 3d. each, 15s.” “For imprisoning, 2s. 6d., keeping in jail 10 days at 1s. a day, 10s., Removing to District jail, 7s. 6d., total 20s.,” making a total of £5.
Another bill presented by the sheriff was for eight men guarding the five prisoners in the Lincoln County jail for fourteen days at 4s. 6d. each per day, making a total of £25. 4s. The last bill shows he paid seven of the guards “for one day and traveling twenty miles in removing the above prisoners to the District jail and returning at 2d. per mile, 6s. 4d. [sic]” making a total of £2. 4s. 4d.