Harpe Brothers - Disputed Claims of Early Lives and Involvement in Revolutionary War and Indian Wars

Disputed Claims of Early Lives and Involvement in Revolutionary War and Indian Wars

In Jon Musgrave's article of Oct. 23, 1998, in the southern Illinois newspaper, American Weekend, through thorough research, he cited the T. Marshall Smith 1855 book, Legends of the War of Independence, and of the Earlier Settlements in the West, that the Harpes were much older than most mainstream historians have acknowledged. Smith stated he had heard stories from his grandfather, older pioneers, and those who had interviewed two of the Harpe wives. One of his stories was that the Harpe brothers were actually cousins, William and Joshua Harper, who would sometime later take the alias Harpe, emigrated, in 1759 or 1760, at a young age, from Scotland. Their fathers were brothers, John and William Harper, who settled Orange County, North Carolina between 1761 and 1763. The Harper patriarchs were loyal to the British Crown and were known as Royalists, Kings Men, Loyalists, and Tories and may also, have been regulators involved in the North Carolina Regulator War. The anti-British Crown neighbors of the Harpers were known as Whigs, Rebels, and Patriots. Around April or May, 1775, the young Harper cousins left North Carolina and went to Virginia to find overseer jobs on a slave plantation.

At the outbreak of the American Revolution, little is known of the Harpes' whereabouts. According to Smith, from an eyewitness account from Captain James Wood, they joined a Tory rape gang in North Carolina and took part in the kidnapping of three teenage girls, with a fourth girl being rescued by Captain Wood. These gangs took advantage of the war by raping, stealing, and murdering, and burning and destroying the property, especially farms, of patriot colonists. In an interview Smith had with the Patriot soldier, Frank Wood, who was the son of Captain James Wood revealed that he was the older brother of Susan Wood Harpe, the later kidnapped wife of Micajah "Big" Harpe. Frank Wood claimed to have seen the Harpe brothers, serving "loosely" as Tory militia, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton's British Legion, at the Battles of Blackstocks, November 20, 1780, and Cowpens, January 17, 1781. They also appeared in the same supporting role, at the Battle of King's Mountain, October 7, 1780, under British commander Major Patrick Ferguson. These battles that the Harpes supposedly participated in resulted in major Patriot victories. Following the British defeat at Yorktown in 1781, the Harpes left North Carolina, dispersed with their Indian allies, the Chickamauga Cherokees, to Tennessee villages west of the Appalachian Mountains. On April 2, 1781, they joined war parties of four hundred Chickamauga Cherokee and attacked the Patriot frontier settlement of Bluff Station, at Fort Nashborough (now Nashville, Tennessee), which would again be assaulted by them, on either July 20, 1788, or April 9, 1793. A Captain James Leiper was killed in the 1781 attack on the fort and may have been related to the John Leiper, who was later involved in the killing of Micajah "Big" Harpe in Kentucky in 1799. On August 19, 1782, the Harpes accompanied a British-backed, Chickamauga Cherokee war party to Kentucky in the Battle of Blue Licks, where they helped to defeat an army of Patriot frontiersmen. During the Harpe brothers' early frontier period among the Chickamauga Cherokee, they lived in the village of Nickajack, near Chattanooga, Tennessee, for approximately twelve to thirteen years. During this span of time, they kidnapped Maria Davidson and later, Susan Wood and made them their women. In 1794, the Harpes and their women abandoned their Indian habitation, before the main Chickamauga Cherokee village of Nickajack, in eastern Tennessee, was destroyed in a raid by American settlers. They would later relocate to Powell's Valley, around Knoxville, Tennessee, where they stole food and supplies from local pioneers. The whereabouts of the Harpes were unknown between the summer of 1795 and spring of 1797, but by spring they were dwelling in a cabin on Beaver's Creek, near Knoxville. On June 1, 1797, Wiley Harpe married Sarah Rice, which was recorded in the Knox County, Tennessee marriage records. Sometime during 1797, the Harpes would begin their trail of death in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois.