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
Отрывок из книги
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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