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.

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 to 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.

In 1797, probably while in his Methodist preacher disguise, Little Harpe married Sarah Rice, daughter of an actual minister and, with the other women and their children, moved to a rural setting near Knoxville, Tennessee. There, they established a farm, but they seem to have spent most of their time stealing horses, pigs, and anything else of value from their neighbors, who finally drove them out.

After this, the Harpe brothers dedicated themselves to killing anyone who crossed their path for no reason at all. The first known murder was a man named Johnson in 1797, who was found in a creek with his torso cut open and loaded with stones. This would become the signature method of disposing of the corpses of their victims: cutting them open, filling them with rocks, and sinking them in some body of water.

The band moved through the region of modern-day Kentucky, murdering more people. Although they would then steal valuables, supplies, or horses from their victims, this was not their motive; they killed people just to kill them.

They met up with a fellow traveler named John Langford at an inn, offered their protection, and then later murdered him. When Langford's body was found split open and filled with rocks, the innkeeper where he had met the Harpe brothers identified them, and a posse was formed. The Harpes were captured and taken to jail in Danville, Kentucky, but escaped.

In 1799, a bounty of $300 (over $5,000 in today's currency) was placed on each of the Harpes. They continued their killing spree, however, always eluding capture, until they finally decided to take refuge with another notorious criminal, Samuel Mason, and his Cave-In-Rock gang in Illinois, on the bank of the Ohio River.

Mason and his men would attack flatboats, steal any valuables, kill the crew, and then flee back to their hideout in the cave. Mason's gang was well-known for their cruelty and ruthlessness, but the Harpe brothers were too much even for these murderers, as explained by historian Wallace Edwards:

In the spring of 1799, one of the flatboats came ashore upriver from Cave-In-Rock. A couple disembarked, climbed up a cliff, and seated themselves on the rock to enjoy the view. The sweethearts held hands and whispered to each other their observations on the magnificence of the surroundings.

It was their misfortune to be observed by the Harpe brothers, who were skulking in the woods. The two men stealthily approached the couple from behind and, breaking out in loud laughter, shoved them off the ledge and watched their bodies smash on the rocks below. When they told their fellow pirates what they had done, the homicidal pranksters received only muted praise for their exploit…

Not long after this failed attempt to get attention, Big and Little Harpe tried again to raise their status among their colleagues. Three men were captured in a battle over a flatboat and its cargo. They were taken to the pirate's lair and presumably trussed up to await their fate.

One of the prisoners was spirited away by the Harpe brothers who stripped him and tied him to the back of a horse. They led the horse up to the top of the cliff over the cave and blindfolded it. They smacked its rump with sticks, forcing the horse to the edge of the precipice where its flailing hooves dislodged some rocks.

The gang below, hearing boulders tumbling down at the mouth of the cave, went out to see what was happening. They came into the open just as the horse with its naked passenger tumbled through the air and splattered on the limestone boulders at riverside. Up above the cliff's edge, Big and Little Harpe cheered and doubled up with laughter.

This was too much for their companions. Rather than being suitably impressed by the murder, the pirates were stunned by the cruelty which was, even by their standards, shocking. One can assume it was fear of having what we today would call psychopaths in their midst that caused the outlaws to expel the Harpe brothers from Cave-In-Rock.

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The Harpes then returned to Tennessee, killing more people, before moving on to Kentucky. Here, one night in August 1799, Big Harpe killed his infant daughter by bashing her head against a tree to stop her from crying. Later, a Mr. Trowbridge was found murdered with the signature Harpe stones in his chest cavity, and the Harpes were on the run again.

They were taken in by Moses Stegall, who is thought to have been a former associate. Stegall, his wife, and his four-month-old boy entertained the Harpes and another guest, Major William Love, that night, and then the brothers and Love went to sleep. Love's snoring annoyed the Harpes, so they killed him. The next morning, when the little boy would not stop crying, Big Harpe slit his throat, and when Mrs. Stegall screamed and attacked them, she was also killed.

The Harpes quickly fled and were pursued by a posse led by one John Leiper and Moses Stegall. On 24 August 1799, they caught up with the Harpes. Big Harpe was shot by Leiper in the back and leg and was captured, but Little Harpe escaped. As Big Harpe lay bleeding, Stegall slowly cut off his head (some accounts claim he ordered the head cut off while he watched), and this was later placed in a tree (or on a pole) at an intersection in Webster County, Kentucky, that came to be known as Harpe's Head Road (now a state historic site).

Little Harpe fled back to the Cave-In-Rock gang and worked with them for the next four years, apparently no longer engaging in his previous horrible antics, until they were captured. During the capture, Samuel Mason, Little Harpe, and another gang member, Peter Alston, escaped, but Mason had been shot. He may have died of his wounds, or Little Harpe might have killed him, but either way, Little Harpe and Alston cut off Mason's head and brought it to the authorities to collect the bounty, presenting themselves under the names John Sutton and James May.

They were recognized, however, and arrested, but managed to escape and fled to the Natchez Trace, parts of which had become a haven for outlaws. They were apprehended and hanged in February 1804, and their heads were both cut off and set on stakes along the Natchez Trace.

The three "wives" of the Harpe brothers were taken into custody after Big Harpe had been killed. Moses Stegall wanted them executed for the deaths of his wife and son, but the judge in Russellville, Kentucky, ruled in their favor that they had also been victims of the Harpe brothers, not accomplices. They were released and went on to live normal lives.

The Harpe brothers and their crimes became legendary, as did the manner of their deaths. Big Harpe's head at the intersection, and Little Harpe's on Natchez Trace, stood not only as a warning to any other would-be outlaws, but as historical markers, reminding people of what had happened and how those heads had come to hang there. Scholar Bill Johns comments:

The early republic was full of such spectacles, each an improvised sermon about the price of belonging. Punishment was not merely the correction of crime; it was a language through which the young nation expressed its insecurity. In towns that had no newspapers, no clocks, and no constables, the punishment itself was the news. A hanging or a beheading drew people from miles away, mothers with infants, men with muskets across their knees, all waiting for proof that order still existed. They came not only to see a man die, but to feel that they, too, were participants in something larger than survival. The violence was communal, and therefore sanctified.

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The violence of the Harpe brothers, however, was neither, and their heads on those poles let everyone who saw them know that order, having been established, would be maintained by all who abided by its rules; and those who tried to bring chaos would pay dearly.