The Vicious Harpes – First American Serial Killers
The annals of American crime are stained with the grim tales of those who defied the law and left a trail of violence in their wake. Among the earliest and most brutal of these figures are Micajah "Big" Harpe and Wiley "Little" Harpe, cousins whose names became synonymous with terror in the late 18th century. Often mistaken as brothers, the Harpes carved a bloody path through the frontier lands of Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and Mississippi, earning the chilling distinction of being the United States’ first documented serial killers. Their story is a dark tapestry woven with threads of violence, betrayal, and the relentless pursuit of a posse determined to bring them to justice.
Born into a family of Scottish immigrants who settled in Orange County, North Carolina, Micajah Harpe and Wiley Harpe, whose real name was Joshua, spent their formative years in close proximity. Their fathers, John and William, were brothers who, upon arriving in America, altered the spelling of their surname from "Harpe" to "Harp." As the cousins grew, they acquired the nicknames that would forever identify them: "Big" and "Little" Harp, a reflection of their differing statures. This distinction would later become an ironic identifier for the terror they inflicted upon the unsuspecting settlers of the American frontier.
The year 1775 marked a turning point for the young men, as they left North Carolina for Virginia with aspirations of becoming slave overseers. However, the burgeoning American Revolution disrupted their ambitions. Rather than aligning themselves with the cause of independence, the Harpes sided with the British, although their motives appeared to be driven more by a thirst for violence and criminal opportunity than any genuine loyalty to the Crown. They reveled in the chaos of war, joining other like-minded irregulars in acts of arson, rape, and pillaging against American patriots. This early embrace of brutality foreshadowed the even more heinous crimes that would later define their legacy. In one particularly disturbing incident, Little Harpe attempted to rape a girl in North Carolina, but was shot and wounded by Captain James Wood, though he ultimately survived the encounter.
In 1780, the vicious Harpes formally joined the ranks of the British army, participating in several battles along the borders of North and South Carolina. However, their commitment to military service proved short-lived. The following year, they deserted the army and aligned themselves with a group of Cherokee Indians, continuing their raids on settlements in North Carolina and Tennessee. This alliance provided them with both refuge and further opportunities to indulge their violent tendencies. Seeking revenge on Captain James Wood, the man who had wounded Little Harpe, they kidnapped his daughter, Susan Wood, along with another young woman named Maria Davidson. These women were forced into servitude as "wives" to the Harpes, enduring unimaginable hardship and abuse.
The Harpes, their captive women, and four other men then began their journey towards Tennessee. During the trip, a man named Moses Doss had the "audacity" to be over-concerned for the brutalized women. For his concern, he was killed by the Harpes. The group then settled in the Cherokee-Chickamauga village of Nickajack, located southwest of modern-day Chattanooga, Tennessee. For the next dozen years, the Harpes, along with their "wives," lived in the Indian village. Both captive women became pregnant twice during this time, and their fathers killed their children.
Following the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781, the Chickamauga and a breakaway faction of Cherokee continued their hostilities against American patriots. The Harpes were eager participants in these conflicts, fighting in the Battle of Blue Licks, Kentucky, on August 19, 1782, as well as numerous smaller skirmishes. Their willingness to engage in violence, regardless of the cause, solidified their reputation as ruthless and dangerous individuals.
In September 1794, as the Americans prepared to launch an offensive against the Indians at Nickajack, the Harpes somehow learned of the impending attack and fled with their women before the village was destroyed. They established a new camp nearby and resumed their pillaging activities in the surrounding areas of Tennessee. By the spring of 1797, they had taken up residence in a cabin on Beaver’s Creek near Knoxville. That same year, Little Harpe further complicated their unconventional domestic arrangement by marrying a local girl named Sarah Rice, the daughter of a minister. This new addition to their lives resulted in the other two women becoming exclusively the "wives" of Big Harpe.
In late 1798, the vicious Harpes embarked on a murder spree that would cement their place in history as two of the most brutal killers in the nation’s early years. Their first victims were two men in Tennessee, one in Knox County and another on the Wilderness Trail. By December, they had moved on to Kentucky, where they murdered two traveling men from Maryland. Unlike many outlaws who were motivated by financial gain, the Harpes seemed driven by a bloodlust that knew no bounds. They often disemboweled their victims, filling their abdominal cavities with rocks and sinking them in rivers, leaving behind a horrifying scene of carnage.
The murder of John Langford, a man traveling from Virginia to Kentucky, led authorities to focus their attention on the Harpes. A local innkeeper provided information that implicated the cousins in the crime. A posse was formed, and the Harpes were eventually captured and jailed in Danville, Kentucky. However, their imprisonment proved short-lived, as they managed to escape. In retaliation, they murdered the young son of a man who had assisted the authorities, further escalating their reign of terror.
On April 22, 1799, the Governor of Kentucky issued a $300 reward for each of the Harpe’s heads, underscoring the urgency and desperation of the situation. Fleeing northward, the vicious Harpes continued their killing spree, claiming the lives of two men named Edmonton and Stump. Near the mouth of the Saline River, they encountered and killed three men who were encamped. They then sought refuge at Cave-In-The-Rock in southern Illinois, a notorious stronghold for river pirates led by Samuel Mason. However, even the hardened criminals of the Mason Gang were appalled by the Harpes’ unbridled savagery. When the cousins began taking travelers to the top of the bluff, stripping them naked, and throwing them off, they were asked to leave.
Returning to Eastern Tennessee, the Harpes resumed their relentless murder spree. In July 1798, they killed a farmer named Bradbury, a man named Hardin, and a boy named Coffey. Soon, more bodies were discovered, including William Ballard, who had been disemboweled and thrown in the Holton River; James Brassel, whose throat had been viciously slashed, was discovered on Brassel’s Knob; and another man named John Tully, was also found murdered.
In south-central Kentucky, John Graves and his teenage son were found dead with their heads axed. In Logan County, the Harpes killed a little girl, a young slave, and an entire family asleep in their camp. In August, a few miles northeast of Russellville, Kentucky, Big Harpe killed his own daughter by bashing her head against a tree because the baby was crying.
That same month a man named Trowbridge was found disemboweled in Highland Creek. When they were given shelter at the Stegall home in Webster County, the pair killed an overnight guest named Major William Love, as well as Mrs. Stegall’s four-month-old baby boy, whose throat was slit when it cried. When Mrs. Stegall screamed at the sight of her infant being killed, she, too, was murdered.
The killings continued as the vicious Harpes fled west to avoid the posse, which included Moses Stegall, whose family the Harpes had killed earlier in the month. While the pair were preparing to kill another settler, George Smith, the posse finally tracked them down on August 24, 1799. Calling for their surrender, the two sped away, but Big Harpe was shot in the leg and the back. The posse soon caught up with him and pulled him from his horse. As he lay dying, he confessed to 20 murders, and Mr. Stegall slowly cut off the outlaw’s head while still conscious. Later, it was hanged on a pole near Henderson, Kentucky at a crossroads. For years, the intersection where the pole stood was called Harpe’s Head.
Little Harpe escaped and rejoined the Mason Gang pirates at Cave-in-The-Rock. Four years later, Little Harpe was using the alias of John Setton. When a large reward was offered for the head of their leader, Samuel Mason, Harpe, along with a fellow pirate named James May, killed Mason and cut off his head to collect the money. However, as they presented the head, they were recognized as outlaws and arrested. The two soon escaped but were quickly recaptured, tried, and sentenced to be hanged. In January 1804, they were executed, and their heads were cut off and placed high on stakes along the Natchez Road as a warning to other outlaws.
During their terrible crime spree, the Harpes killed over 40 men, women, and children.
The fate of the three "wives" of the notorious Harpes was also a subject of interest. On the day of Big Harpe’s death, the women were left at the camp and were taken to Henderson and placed in an empty blockhouse. On September 4, all three were charged with being parties to the murders of Mary Stegall, her infant son, James, and Captain William Love. They were bound for trial in Russellville but were tried and released in October.
Sally Rice Harpe returned to Knoxville to be with her father. She later married a highly respected man and raised a large family. Susan Wood stayed in the Russellville area, where she lived a respectable life. She died in Tennessee. Maria Davidson, by then going by the alias of Betsy Roberts, married John Huffstutler in September 1803. By 1828, they had moved to Hamilton County, Illinois, where they raised a large family and lived until they died in the 1860s.
In the aftermath of the atrocities committed by the vicious Harpes, many family members changed their names to distance themselves from the violent legacy of the notorious murderers.
Big Harpe and The Witch Dance
With the violence surrounding the vicious Harpes, it is no surprise that a ghostly tale surrounds Micajah "Big" Harpe. The Harpes were often known to have traveled along the Natchez Trace through Mississippi. Between Tupelo and Houston, Mississippi, there is a place called Witch Dance. Steeped in mystery for centuries, it was not only the home of the Mound Builders of Mississippi but was also said to have been used by a coven of witches who would gather for nighttime ceremonies. Lore has it that wherever the witches’ feet touched the ground during their dances, the grass would wither and die, never to grow again.
At some point before his death, Big Harpe was traveling along the Natchez Trace with an Indian guide who showed him the bare spots in the ground and told him of the legend of the Witch Dance. Big Harpe scoffed at this and began to leap from spot to spot, daring the witches to come out and fight him. Of course, nothing happened, at least not then. Eventually, Big Harpe returned to Kentucky, where the posse tracked him down in August 1799. After he was decapitated and his head placed in the tree, the skull was said to have been removed by a witch, ground into powder, and used as a potion to heal a relative. Word soon got around, and when travelers retold the story along the Trace, they would swear they could hear crackling laughter from nearby bushes and trees.