[15] Maj. William Stewart was one of the most eccentric characters in early Kentucky history. His life is full of suggestions for romance and song. He was born in South Carolina about 1772, and, at the age of eighteen, “getting into some difficulties, he left his native state.” He went to Nashville, says Finley, and from there started for Henderson—possibly with the intention of continuing to Cave-in-Rock. On his way north he joined a man and wife going to the Green River country. To what extent they influenced him is not known. However, when the three travelers reached the place that later became Russellville, they decided to settle there. In 1791 he left Logan County and “after years of toil, hunting, and nobody knows what else, he finally settled in Stanford and, in 1795, became a dry goods clerk for one Ballenger”—the same man who, a few years later, went in pursuit of the Harpes. In 1796 he returned to Logan County and died there in 1852. He was the first sheriff of Logan County. Collins says: “He was one of the celebrities of the place ... faithful to his friends, and dangerous to his foes.”
Smith in a chapter devoted to Stewart calls him William Stout: “Always eccentric in his material and style of dress—often he appeared attired in an entire suit made of various colored ‘lists,’ taken from the finest broadcloths sewed together, fantastically cut and fitted to his person, while the buttons on his coat and pantaloons were quarter dollars, United States coin, with eyes attached by his own ingenuity (for he was a worker in metals) and his vest buttoned with genuine United States dimes. This dress, however, was rather for high days and holidays.... On the morning of the day on which he died, he, with but little aid, drew on his curiously constituted, many colored suit of clothes, and in that attire he died and was buried.” [[121]]
[16] When, in 1860, the town of Dixon was laid out to be the seat of justice for the newly established county of Webster, one of the principal streets forming the court house square was named after John Leiper and another after Moses Stegall. These pioneers were thus honored, not to show that “the evil men do lives after them,” but to reward two men whose names were “linked with one virtue” at least—that of being responsible for the capture and death of Big Harpe.
[17] Whether or not the Harpes were brothers and Big Harpe’s two “wives” were sisters is a question that can never be decided definitely by history, but it is one over which psychologists may long argue. If the two men actually were brothers and the two women actually were sisters, it is an anomaly in nature. The Harpes were not ordinary criminals. They were abnormalities in a type that is itself abnormal. It is well recognized that abnormal products of all kinds in nature are exceptions or variations and are not the rule, and that genius in creation, in destruction, in crime, in art, etc. is very seldom duplicated by the same parentage. Abnormal criminals are extremes of a type opposed to abnormal geniuses of the creative or imaginative type. Brothers or sisters in either class occur seldom, if ever. For these reasons, a parental connection between the two Harpes and between the two women may properly be doubted. It is true that Big Harpe was the heartless leader and that Little Harpe might have been an ordinary weakling, obedient to Big Harpe because he feared him or because he failed to recognize the inhumanity of the crimes he was called upon to commit. No other record is now recalled showing such a horrible partnership between blood brothers.
[18] Lewis Collins prints this description of Big Harpe in his edition of 1847, and his son and successor, Richard H. Collins, likewise republished it in his History of Kentucky in 1874. By both it is credited to Colonel James Davidson. The elder Collins says Colonel Davidson was “personally cognizant of most of the circumstances.” Judge Hall’s Harpe’s Head had been published in 1833 and there can be no doubt that Colonel Davidson copied his description of Big Harpe, word for word, from the book, relying upon Judge Hall’s opportunities for and good character in accuracy.
[19] It is probable that in the early days many an outlaw was “said to be” a kinsman of the Harpes. The case of Mrs. George Heatherly, referred to in the History of Caldwell and Livingston Counties, Missouri, 1886, is one instance discovered. The Heatherly Gang, according to this account, operated in the Upper Grand River country of northern Missouri in 1836 and a few years preceding. They robbed many white settlers and often stole horses from the Indians. “Old George Heatherly was regarded as a thief in Kentucky and Mrs. Heatherly (his wife) was a sister of the notorious Kentucky murderers and freebooters, Big and Little Harpe.... Old Mrs. Heatherly is said to have been the leading spirit of the gang, prompting and planning many a dark deed, and often assisting in its execution.” There is no proof advanced, however, that this woman was a sister of the Harpes.
[20] It is interesting to note that Susan Harpe, wife of Big Harpe, many years after his death tried to convey the impression that Little Harpe, not Big Harpe, was the greater villain. Draper, recording some statements made to him by George Herndon who lived near Russellville, says that Big Harpe’s wife told Mrs. Herndon that “Big Harpe said to Little Harpe that he thought they had better quit killing people and go to some backwoods country, for if they did not, he feared they would be detected and killed. Whereupon, Little Harpe flew into a passion, cursed his brother for a coward, and said if he ever talked that way again he would shoot him.” In order to defend him further, she declared that “Some days before Big Harpe’s death he fancied the ground continually trembling beneath his feet.” In this way she tried to show that Big Harpe actually did suffer great fear and remorse of conscience and insinuated that Little Harpe was beyond the reach of such feelings. [[12F]]
[21] Family names were spelled indifferently in colonial and republican times. In the fashion of English speech Meason was pronounced Mason.
[22] In her account to Draper Mrs. Anthony states that in addition to Henry Havard, Samuel Mason had, besides his own family, at least two other accomplices while living near Henderson: Nicholas Welsh and a man named Hewitt. Henry Havard, after the assassination of Captain John Dunn, fled to his father’s home on Red River, Tennessee. The regulators there, upon hearing that he had been employed by Mason to kill Dunn, “raised and went to old Havard’s, found Henry hid between two feather beds and shot through the beds. They made the old man pull out the body of his son and when they found his brains were oozing out they knew he was quite dead.” Hewitt was captured on the Kentucky shore opposite Diamond Island, by regulators who were “strongly inclined to kill him, but finally refrained, but made him break his gun.” Nicholas Welsh, who ran the tavern in which Mason and his men made their headquarters when in Red Banks, disappeared immediately after Captain John Dunn was shot, and was never again heard of.
[23] One of Mason’s daughters-in-law, Mrs. Tom Mason, continued to live for a short time at the Rocky Springs rendezvous after the camp had been abandoned by the others, who rightly suspected that the governor’s reward would result in a thorough search along the Trace. It is possible Mrs. Mason’s condition made flight impossible, but it is more probable she concluded to remain behind and, in time, find a home in some law-abiding community. Guild, who interviewed Swaney, gives us only one glimpse of this woman: