GALLOWS FIELD, JEFFERSON COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI 259 From a drawing by J. Bernhard Alberts, made in 1917 IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS USED BY THE OUTLAWS 269 ENTRANCE TO THE CAVE AND LOWER END OF CAVE-IN-ROCK BLUFF 299 From an original photograph made in 1917 VIEW OF CAVE-IN-ROCK AND VICINITY, 1833 323 Reproduced from Charles Bodmer’s drawing The Purpose of this Narrative This book is intended to give the authentic story of the famous Cave-in-Rock of the lower Ohio River, as collected from historic and romantic sources, and to present verified accounts of the most notorious of those highwaymen and river pirates who in the early days of the middle West and South filled the Mississippi basin with the alarm and terror of their crimes and exploits. All the criminals herein treated made their headquarters at one time or another in this famous cavern. It became a natural, safe hiding-place for the pirates who preyed on the flatboat traffic before the days of steamboats. It came also to serve the same purpose for highwaymen infesting the old Natchez Trace and other land trails north and south. A century ago and more, its rock-ribbed walls echoed the drunken hilarity of villains and witnessed the death struggles of many a vanished man. Today this former haunt of criminals is as quiet as a tomb. Nothing is left in the Cave to indicate the outrages that were committed there in the olden days. One state historian of our own times--Parrish, of Illinois--thus describes it: “The gruesome spot, which in those old border days witnessed many a scene of revelry and bloodshed, is today no more than a curiosity, its past victims, white and black, forgotten. Just below it, where, in 1801, there stood one lone cabin, there is today a thrifty village.” In a sense the victims have been forgotten; yet they survive in the true stories of such of them as the preserved records can be made to disclose. The story of the Harpes is more than that of mere criminals. They were arch-criminals among criminals, apparently loving murder for its own sake. There was a time when the whole of Kentucky and Tennessee was terrorized at the possibility of their appearance at any hour in any locality. Samuel Mason (or Meason) the Wilsons, and others, measured up more nearly to the standard of true highwaymen and pirates. If they had lived in England their careers would have closed on Tyburn Hill or at the rope’s end on “Execution Dock.” The stories of James Ford show that his real classification must forever remain largely a mystery.