The Outlaws of Cave-in-Rock

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Otto A. Rothert. The Outlaws of Cave-in-Rock

The Outlaws of Cave-in-Rock

Table of Contents

Illustrations

The Purpose of this Narrative

The Lair of the Outlaws

Piracy and Rough Life on the River

The Harpes—A Terrible Frontier Story

The Harpes—Renewal of the Terror

The Harpes—Big Harpe’s Ride to Death

The Harpes—Mysteries and Fate of Survivors

Mason—Soldier, Pirate, Highwayman

Mason On the Natchez Trace

Mason—Trapped and Tried

Mason and Harpe—Double-Cross and Double Death

Coiners at the Cave

The Ford’s Ferry Mystery

Paying the Penalty

The Cave in Fiction

Bibliography

Footnote

Index

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Otto A. Rothert

Historical Accounts of the Famous Highwaymen and River Pirates

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Today it is comparatively dry, except during the spring and shortly after a heavy rain. Practically all the water running through the Cave now comes from a narrow crevice in the rear, which drains a small sinkhole in the surface. Through this opening, as already stated, much soil has been deposited in the back part of the Cave during the past fifty years. Nature has made practically no changes in the Cave itself since its discovery by white men, but the landscape has been affected by the removal of the large trees that once shaded its mouth. A decrepit sycamore, an ash or two, a few small maple trees, some scrub cedars, and some Virginia creeper constitute the only vegetation now growing around the opening.

The travelers who visited Cave-in-Rock in flatboat days gave the place more time and thought than did those who appeared after the introduction of steamboats. The New Orleans, or Orleans, which was the first steam-propelled boat to make a trip from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, passed it in 1811. Not until fully five years thereafter was the practicability of navigating the Ohio by steamboats satisfactorily demonstrated. Local tradition has it that the James Monroe, coming down in 1816, was the first steamboat to land at the Cave. Thomas Nuttall, who appeared on the scene two years later, was, as already stated, one of the last distinguished men who floated down the river in a flatboat and commented on the place. Leisure was an inseparable feature of flatboat travel. With the coming of steamboats the lingering of travelers along the river became a thing of the past. After 1820 comparatively few boats of any kind stopped at the Cave. Boats became more numerous, but whether propelled by steam or oars, they traveled not only faster but through a country rapidly increasing in population, and passengers and crew stopping in this section found better shelter elsewhere. But Cave-in-Rock was ever pointed out as a place that “in days gone by” had been the den of flatboat robbers. Counterfeiters and other outlaws, however, operated in the neighborhood until as late as 1832.

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