Discover Top Posts Tagged with #webster county

Isolated and mountainous, Webster County once declared itself an independent U.S. state, though its governance was never recognized.

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Photocopy of photograph (from Fort Dodge Messenger, no issue or date known) Photographer and date unknown INTERIOR, FIRST FLOOR, DETAIL OF ARCHED OPENING BETWEEN LIVING ROOM AND DINING ROOM - Swain-Vincent House, 824 Third Avenue, South, Fort Dodge, Webster County, IA

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Rural Hill Church in Webster County, Georgia

There isn’t much information on this church. A historic resources survey lists the build date as 1906, but there isn’t additional information included. Newspaper archives show Rural Hill, near Bottsford, existed as early as 1889. There are references to Rural Hill Church in The Dawson News. FindAGrave lists a cemetery with that name, but it is not on the church’s property but a mile or so away. I…

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New Consolidated School Building-Weston, Georgia

I often go down rabbit holes looking for information. This can mean looking at random public domain books and reports. I decided to start sharing some of the images I find. This image is from the 1921 Fiftieth Annual Report of the Department of Education to the General Assembly of the State of Georgia. I believe this school is the Greenfield Academy, and that part of it is still standing…

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#Georgia #school #Webster County #Weston

Webster County Man Charged for Allegedly Assaulting Woman with Her Cane

A Webster County man has been accused of attacking a woman with her cane. WEBSTER SPRINGS, W.Va. — A Webster County man has been accused of attacking a lady and beating her with her cane in Webster Springs. According to a criminal complaint, deputies with the Webster County Sheriff’s Department were notified of an incident at a house in Webster Springs on Nov. 20. When the victim of the incident…

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A little more than 3 miles north of Dixon Kentucky, on the west side of US 41A is a historical marker with the title "Frontier Justice". There have been perhaps more newspaper articles, stories, legends and tall tales told about the story behind this marker than any other in western Kentucky.Historical Marker #1004 in Webster County remembers the brutal statement that was made by posting the head of notorious outlaw Micajah Harpe at a noted crossroads. Harpe’s head served as a warning and deterrent for other potential highway robbers and murderers.

Kentucky’s history includes some infamous characters and deeds, but probably none so desperate as the Harpes and the string of terror they unleashed on Kentucky’s byways in the late-eighteenth century.

The Harpes were born in North Carolina. While they often attempted to pass themselves off as brothers, apparently they were cousins whose families had sided with the British during the Revolutionary War. After the war, the Tory supporting Harpes were encouraged to relocate. They landed in what is now present-day southeast Tennessee and lived for several years among the Cherokees. Micajah Harpe, known as “Big Harpe,” and Wiley Harpe, known as “Little Harpe” had two women who traveled with them, sisters Susan and Betsey Roberts.

In 1797, the Harpes were living near Knoxville, Tennessee, and Wiley had just married Sarah (Sally) Rice. Apparently the Harpes made a living by rustling neighbors’ livestock and occasionally robbing travelers of money and goods. When the Harpes were captured after stealing some horses they escaped from their captors and vowed violence going forward.

The Harpes’ reign of terror began in East Tennessee and then proceeded though the Cumberland Gap and along the Wilderness Road into Kentucky. In December 1798, they killed a man they had befriended in present-day Rockcastle County, Kentucky. When they were captured shortly thereafter they were taken to Stanford and placed in jail. They then moved to Danville to await trial. The Harpes broke out of the Danville jail in March 1799. They next killed a boy near Columbia, Kentucky, and then headed for an outlaw’s paradise at Cave-in-Rock, Illinois, on the Ohio River. Being too cut-throat for the den of thieves there, the Harpes were forced to leave and head back to Kentucky where they left a trail of dead bodies between there and their old haunts near Knoxville.

In the summer of 1799, after killing several people near Henderson, Kentucky, Micajah was pursued by a posse to a canebrake in Muhlenberg County, where he was shot in the spine. A member of the posse cut off Big Harpe’s head and it was taken to a crossroads in present-day Webster County as a warning to others who might think of pursuing the life of an outlaw.

Four years later, Wiley "Little" Harpe was captured near Greenville, Mississippi, after being identified. With a swift trial Wiley was hanged, and like "Big" Harpe, his head was cut off and displayed. At the age 75 years young,Henry Skaggs led a pursuit and failed attempt to apprehend America's first known serial killers, the Harpe Brothers in 1799.Several vigilante posses were formed to look for the escaped criminals, but the only one that found them became frightened and ran. Skaggs, enraged, tried to reform the scattered party and pursue the Harpes, but to no avail. Undeterred, he pressed on alone, and an hour later encountered a crowd of some 20-30 settlers, jigging and drinking in the cabin of some newcomers at the close of a house-raising celebration. Skaggs told them his dire news. The men, already quite drunk, grabbed bottles and rifles indiscriminately and joined the hunt for the Harpes. Once in the forest, however, the posse's enthusiasm evaporated. Once again, Skaggs saw his followers disappear, and continued on alone.

Skaggs came to the cabin of a pioneer named Colonel Daniel Trabue, an old Indian fighter. Trabue agreed to join the hunt for the Harpes as soon as his son returned from an errand to borrow some flour and beans from a neighbor. Unfortunately for Trabue, the famished Harpes found his son first. The son's blood-soaked dog returned to the cabin and led Trabue and Skaggs to the sinkhole where the Harpes had discarded the body. He had been brutally beaten and tomahawked, and his load of supplies was stolen. Skaggs and Trabue searched for days, but never found the Harpes. Big Harpe committed his most terrible crime – he smashed his baby daughter’s head against a tree. He said he did it because she annoyed him by constantly crying. Later, he stated that this was the only killing that he felt remorse for. A week later, the brothers embarked on one more terrible murder spree.

The Stegall family in Webster County offered them shelter in their house. They were unaware of the terrible people that they were letting inside. That night, the Harpes killed another guest named Major William Love, the Stegall’s four-month-old child (because he cried), and Mrs. Stegall, when she screamed after she saw her dead child. Soon, a new posse was organized by a man called John Leiper. Moses Stegall, the father and husband of the recently killed members of the Stegall family, also joined this hunting party. The posse managed to track down the Harpes on 24 August 1799. When the brothers were asked to surrender, they decided to flee. In this attempt, Micajah Harpe was shot in the leg and pulled down of his horse by Leiper. While Micajah was dying, he confessed to twenty of the countless murders that he had committed. After the confession, Moses Stegall cut off the murderer’s head while he was still conscious. The head was spiked on a pole near the Stegall homestead. The place where the head was standing is still known as Harpe’s Head Road.

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