Deaths
In July 1799, John Leiper raised a posse to avenge the murder of Mrs. Stegal, including Moses Stegal, the victim's husband. Leiper reached Harpe first, and managed to shoot Big Harpe. After a scuffle with a tomahawk, Leiper overcame Harpe. When Stegal arrived, he decapitated Harpe and stuck his head on a pole, at a crossroads still known as "Harpe's Head" or Harpe's Head Road in Webster County, Kentucky. By the end of their reign of terror, the "Bloody Harpes" were responsible for the known murders of no less than 40 men, women, and children. Little Harpe eluded the authorities for some time, using the alias John Setton, until allegedly being caught in an effort to get a reward of his own on the head of an outlaw, Samuel Mason. He was captured in 1803, tried and hung on February 8, 1804.
Read more about this topic: Harpe Brothers
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“You lived too long, we have supped full with heroes,
they waste their deaths on us.”
—C.D. Andrews (1913–1992)
“I sang of death but had I known
The many deaths one must have died
Before he came to meet his own!”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“This is the 184th Demonstration.
...
What we do is not beautiful
hurts no one makes no one desperate
we do not break the panes of safety glass
stretching between people on the street
and the deaths they hire.”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)