William (Harper) Harp (abt. 1770 - 1804)

Born about 1770 in Cape Fear, Craven, North Carolina

Husband of Sarah (Rice) Madden — married 1 Jun 1797 in Knoxville, Tennessee

Died 4 Feb 1804 at about age 34 in Mississippi, United States

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Biography

Warning! This profile contains information about people or events that some readers may find upsetting

Micajah "Big" Harpe and Wiley "Little" Harpe were murderous outlaws who operated in Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois and Mississippi in the late 1700's.

America's first documented serial killers

Weapon of choice: Tomahawks

Victims: Between 39 and 50 People in Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

Tories

The Harper patriarchs remained true to the British Crown and were admitted Loyalists, and Tories and may further, have been regulators involved in the North Carolina Regulator War. Their father John Harpe and his wife, were Scottish settlers who had settled in Cape Fear, North Carolina. They fought on the side of English during the early days of the war. Around 1779, at the ages of 10 and 12, the Harpe brothers witnessed their parents being hung and executed by their Patriot neighbors.

After their parents were gone, the Harpes joined with the British armies and fought in several battles along the North and South Carolina borders. As part of the troop, the Harpe Brothers conducted raids on the homes of patriots, looting and slaughtering as they tore through the countryside. The pair sided with the British, but their involvement seemed to be higher in brutality and criminal acts than any thought of loyal service. Along with other like-minded irregulars, they took delight in the actions of burning farms, raping women, and ransacking the American patriots.

Cherokees

After the war, the brothers met up with a Cherokee tribe which continued raiding Patriot settlements. The next year, they left behind the army and entered in with a tribe of Cherokee Indians, and continued raiding settlements in North Carolina and Tennessee. At one point, while Little Harp attempted to rape a young woman in North Carolina, he was shot and wounded by Captain James Wood; Taking revenge on Captain James Wood, who had earlier wounded "Little" Harpe, the pair kidnapped his daughter, Susan Wood, and another young woman named Maria Davidson. The brutalized women served as wives to the Harpes.

They eventually settled in and spent the next twelve years, along with their “wives”, living in the Cherokee-Chickamauga village of Nickajack; located southwest of current-day Chattanooga, Tennessee.

During this time, both of the imprisoned women became pregnant twice and their babies were murdered by their fathers.

Knoxville

By the spring of 1797, during a brief period of pretended respectability, they were living in a cabin on Beaver Creek near Knoxville. That same year, "Little" Harpe married a local minister’s daughter, named Sarah Rice.^[1]

Marriage of Wiley Harp & Sarah Rice

Maria Davidson and Susan Wood became the “wives” of "Big" Harpe. The brother's actually shared all three wives. It wasn't long before the Harpes engaged in horse stealing, hog stealing, and, evidently, barn and house burning. Suspecting the Harpes, local citizens captured them, but they escaped.

The next incident that became known was the disappearance of a man named Johnson whose body later appeared floating in the Holstein River; it is believed that the Harpes had ripped his body open to fill it with stones so it would not float. This was the beginning of their string of murders. Just over a year later, in late 1798, the Harpes would begin their murder spree, one of the most violent in the nation’s history.

The Bloody Trail

They first killed two men in Tennessee, one in Knox County and one on the Wilderness Trail. By December, they had moved on to Kentucky, where they killed two traveling men from Maryland. Unlike most outlaws of the time, they seemed to be more motivated by blood lust than financial gain, often leaving their victims disemboweled, filling their abdominal cavities with rocks, and sinking them in a river.

In July, 1798, they killed a farmer named Bradbury in Roane County, Tennessee, a man named Hardin, and the son of Chesley Coffey a few miles from Knoxville on July 22; James Brassell on July 29, who had his throat viciously slashed was discovered near Brassell Knob; and another man named John Tully was also found murdered.

Other killings marked their trail and bloodied the frontier landscape: Dooley in Metcalfe County; Stump on Barren River below Bowling Green; two or three people near the mouth of the Saline River close to Cave-in-Rock; more bodies were discovered including William Ballard, who had been disemboweled and thrown in the Holston River, a few miles from Knoxville; John Graves and his teenaged son were found dead with their heads axed and in Logan County; the Harpes killed a little girl, a young slave, and an entire family who were asleep in their camp.

The Wilderness Road Murders marked the progress of the Harpes from Tennessee via western virginia to Kentucky in December 1798. Along this trail they are reputed to have killed a peddler named Peyton, the first killing in Kentucky, two people from Maryland, and Stephen Langford, a young man of means from Virginia.

The Langford Murder alarmed the citizens of Lincoln County. Captain Joseph Ballenger led a posse in pursuit of the Harpes and the three women, captured them near Stanford, and jailed them. upon searching the Harpes' possessions, the authorities discovered shirts with Langford's initials and a large amount of money such as Langford used. Convinced of their guilt, the Stanford authorities sent the five-member group to Danville where they appeared before the Lincoln County Court of Quarter Sessions on January 4, 1799. After hearing testimony, the three judges of the court decided the five should stand trial for the murder of Thomas [sic] Langford in the District Court of Danville in April. On March 16 "Big" and "Little" Harpe escaped.

Nevertheless, the trial of the three women began on April 15, although each had given birth during their captivity. The sympathy of the court, the belief that they were now free from the Harpes and could lead decent lives, and the avowed intention of the women to return to Tennessee prompted local citizens to contribute clothes, money, and a horse for their trip.

As the women started toward Tennessee ad had gone a few miles, they changed directions and proceeded down the Green River, presumably toward the Ohio River. Posing as widows, the women located in an area about eight miles south of Henderson. The Harpe brothers either joined them there and continued to Cave-in-Rock or joined them at Cave-in-Rock. Along the way to join the women, the Harpes left their trace as they killed John Trabue.

John Trabue, the thirteen year-old son of Colonel Daniel Trabue of columbia, had gone to a neighbor's house to borrow flour and seed beans. Although the dog that had gone with him returned to the house, the boy did not, and a search party failed to find him. He had disappeared. Accidentally discovered about two weeks late, the mutilated body was in a sinkhole with the seed beans but not the flour.

The Flying Horse

They Joined the Famous Samuel Mason's gang. Together with Mason’s gang they robbed the boats on the Ohio River, but the two brothers' methods were so brutal even for Samuel Mason. Even they could not stomach the Harpes' nonsensical killing.

The incident of the flying horse, was the last straw for Sam Mason's Cave-in-Rock pirate gang. It was after a successful raid on a flatboat traveling on the Ohio River, while the gang was busily celebrating and enjoying the produce of their robbery; the Harpes had been saving the sole survivor of the flatboat for the evening's entertainment.

The Harpe's took the man's clothes off, and bound him to a blindfolded horse. They then led the horse to the top of the cliff overlooking the cave. The brothers proceeded to frightening the blindfolded animal, causing it to run over the edge of the cliff with the horrified man bound on its back; both were killed on the rocks below.

Laughing at their mischief, the Harpes walked down to see if they had been a success; the outlaws of Cave-in-Rock were not amused and The Harpes and their women were thrown out of the gang and forced to leave.

Bloody Trail Continues

In August 1799, a few miles northeast of Russellville, Kentucky, "Big" Harpe killed Sarah Rice's baby, by bashing her head against a tree, because a posse looking for the Harp brothers was drawing close and the baby was crying.

The Harpes headed toward Squire McBee's farm with the obvious intention of killing him, for McBee was a justice of the peace. As they neared the house, McBee's dogs attacked them and chased them away. Nursing their pride as well as perhaps some bites, the Harpes went about four more miles to the home of Moses Stigall, located about five miles east of Dixon. Stegall had gone to Robinson Lick to replenish his supply of salt and was absent.

Mrs. Stegall had allowed Major William Love, a surveyor, to spend the night in the house. In order to sleep in the loft of the house, Love had to climb up a ladder on the outside of the cabin; when the Harpes arrived he was in bed. Lacking a spare bedroom, Mrs. Stegall quartered the Harpes in the same loft bed with Love. During the night one of the brothers smashed Love's head with a hand ax and after descending from the loft to eat breakfast, they complained to Mrs. Stegall that Love snored during the night.

While she prepared breakfast, Mrs. Stegall, placed her infant in a cradle for the Harpes to rock it and keep it quiet. The baby was quiet -- unusually quiet; when Mrs. Stegall finally checked on her baby she discovered that its throat had been cut ear-to-ear. The Harpes then killed Mrs. Stegall with the same butcher knife used to kill the baby.

On this night of August 20-21 after setting fire to Stegall's house, the Harpes left and headed for Squire McBee's house. Hiding along the road, they suspected the Squire might see the fire and investigate; they intended to ambush him along the road. However, two other men -- Hudgens and Gilmore -- who stumbled into their trap met the deathly fate intended for McBee.

John Pyles and four men discovered the burning house, reported it to McBee. McBee along with William Grissom investigated. When returned to McBee's house, Stegall arrived and heard for the first time the tragedy of his family. The men who had gathered at McBee's house decided to end the Harpe menace at any cost.

End of the Road

The Harpe killings continued in July 1799 as the two fled west to avoid the new posse, organized by John Leiper, which was made up of seven or eight backwoodsmen -- which included the avenging husband and father Moses Stigall, John Williams, Matthew Christian, Neville Lindsey, Silas McBee, William Grissom, and James Thompkins -- who pursued and caught "Big" Harpe in Muhlenberg County at a place later known as Harpe's Hill.

As the pair was preparing to kill another settler named George Smith, John Leiper's posse finally tracked them down on August 24, 1799. The posse called for the Harpes to surrender; they attempted to flee.

Micajah Harpe was shot in the leg and back by Leiper, who soon caught up with "Big" Harpe and pulled him from his horse, subduing the outlaw with a tomahawk in a scuffle. As Micajah lay dying, he confessed to at least twenty murders. After his confession, and while "Big" Harpe was still conscious, Moses Stigall, out for revenge, slowly cut off his head.

Harpe’s Head

Later, the final resting place for "Big" Harpe's head, was spiked on a pole (some accounts claim a tree) at a crossroads near the Moses Stigall's Cabin, located about three miles north of Dixon where the highway from Henderson forks with one branch going to Marion and Eddyville and one branch going to Madisonville and Russellville.

Webster County, Kentucky (Historical Marker #1004)

Still known today as "Harpe's Head" or "Harpe's Head Road" along a modern-day highway. Historical Marker #1004, in Webster County, Kentucky, remembers the brutal statement that was made by posting the head of notorious outlaw Micajah Harpe at a noted crossroads. Harpe's head served as a warning and deterrent for other potential highway robbers and murderers.^[2]

"Little" Harpe's Fate

A reward for the capture of Mason, dead or alive, prompted gang members John Sutton or Setton, one of the many aliases used by Wiley Harpe, and James May, alias of Peter Alston, to bring Mason's head in, in an attempt to claim the reward money. Setton and May were recognized and identified as wanted criminals, Wiley Harpe and Peter Alston were arrested, tried in U.S. federal court, found guilty of piracy, and were sentenced to death by hanging on February 4, 1804, at Gallows Field, Jefferson County, Mississippi.^[3]

As with "Big" Harpe's head, "Little" Harpe's head was displayed on a highway, the Natchez Trace, as a warning to other criminals. As the Natchez Trace widened with use and age, the road moved closer and closer to "Little" Harpe's grave until it was in a ditch. Little is left of the remains as dogs and other animals have disposed of the bones.

Sources

1. ↑ "Tennessee Marriages, 1796-1950," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XDQD-9YD : 8 December 2014), Willie Harp and Sarah Rice, 01 Jun 1797; citing Knox,Tennessee, reference ; FHL microfilm 1,205,064.
2. ↑ Frontier Justice - Harpe's Head
3. ↑ Samuel Mason - Wikipedia

See also:

• FamilySearch ID: KFBM-7NG
• America’s first serial killers
• Legends of America - We Harpes
• Vorply.com - first known American serial killers
• Muhlenberg County KYGenWeb Project - The Bloody Trail of the Harpes
• Revolutionary Killers: Harpe Brothers, Serial or Spree?
• The McClendon Letters - Early 1800’s Henderson County Kentucky
• Killing Cousins