Harpe Brothers: America's First Serial Killers
Colonial American history has many 'firsts' – Harvard University, the first institution of higher learning (1636), Bacon's Rebellion (1676), the first large-scale armed insurrection, the Stono Rebellion (1739), the first major slave revolt, Pennsylvania Hospital (1751), the first hospital – and, among the many others, the Harpe brothers, America's first serial killers.
Between 1797 and 1799, the Harpe brothers are known to have killed at least 39 people (though the numbers are unclear, and they are thought to have killed at least 50). They did not murder these people for profit or revenge or for any reason at all; they killed them because that is what they enjoyed doing, and they became so notorious that even other hardened criminals came to fear and shun them.
I was reminded of the Harpe brothers recently when I was researching an article on David Crockett and, in the course of that, watched the 1956 Disney film, Davy Crockett and the River Pirates. In the latter part of the movie, Davy Crockett and his friend George Russell (played by Fess Parker and Buddy Ebsen) overcome the infamous Mason Gang, a historically attested band of river pirates.
Crockett would have actually only been around twelve years old when the Mason Gang – with the Harpe brothers – was operating along the Ohio River in 1799, but the film's writers chose well in pitting Davy Crockett, "the Lion of the West," against Samuel Mason and the Harpe brothers, two of the most amoral and truly horrific figures in American history, as the line between order and chaos, between good and evil, could not have been clearer.
Early Life & American Revolution
The early lives of the Harpe brothers are intertwined with legend, and it is difficult to separate fact from fiction. They were not brothers, but first cousins, the sons of John and William Harper, and were born in the region that would become North Carolina. The elder boy, Micajah Harpe (later known as Big Harpe), was born circa 1768, and the younger, Wiley Harpe (later known as Little Harpe), circa 1770. Their birth names were Joshua Harper and William Harper, respectively.
The Harpers were Scottish immigrants who chose the Tory side when the American Revolution began, serving in the militia and engaging in raids on the farms and settlements of those advocating for independence from Great Britain. John and William may have fought in the War of the Regulation (1765-1771), but when the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, they seem to have understood they would do better to align themselves with the Continental forces and tried to enlist. They were rejected, however, because of their well-known Tory sympathies and earlier raids.
Soon after this, allegedly, a group of local Patriots attacked the Harper home, lynching John, William, and their wives. The boys escaped into the woods and were eventually taken in by Chickamauga Cherokee, who (according to legend) taught them how to live off the land, hunt, steal, and kill. Some sources seem to suggest the murder of their parents turned the boys into killers, others that they were encouraged by the Chickamauga Cherokee to disregard the rules of the "White Man" – none of these serve to explain their later atrocities, however.
The Chickamauga Cherokee band that rescued them was aligned with the British cause and raided the homes of Patriots, in which the Harpe brothers probably joined them. They left the Cherokee to join the Loyalist militia under British Major Patrick Ferguson and fought at the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780. They also may have later fought at the Battle of Cowpens (1781) and in other engagements.
When British General Charles Cornwallis surrendered after the Siege of Yorktown in 1781, the Harpe brothers returned to the Chickamauga Cherokee and continued the war on their own, raiding Patriot settlements as before. Even after the Treaty of Paris of 1783 ended the war, the Harpe brothers and their Native American allies continued hostilities through at least 1793 and possibly 1795.
During this time, they kidnapped two women – Maria Davidson and Susan Wood – who would become their shared wives and bear them children. By this time, they had changed their names from Harper to Harpe, as the Harper name was associated with the Tory cause. They were already wanted men by 1797 when, posing as Methodist preachers – or as vigilantes pursuing the notorious Harpe brothers – they gained people's trust, gathered intelligence on who was looking for them and where, and were able to evade search parties.
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⇒ Harpe Brothers: America's First Serial Killers
