The Outlaws of Cave-in-Rock

This classic includes the following chapters:

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.

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