The Outlaws of Cave-in-Rock: Historical Accounts of the Famous Highwaymen and River Pirates Who Operated in Pioneer Days Upon the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and Over the Old Natchez Trace (Classic Re - Hardcover

Otto Arthur Rothert

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9780331409871: The Outlaws of Cave-in-Rock: Historical Accounts of the Famous Highwaymen and River Pirates Who Operated in Pioneer Days Upon the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and Over the Old Natchez Trace (Classic Re

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0331409879 ISBN 13: 9780331409871

Publisher: Forgotten Books, 2018

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Excerpt from The Outlaws of Cave-in-Rock: Historical Accounts of the Famous Highwaymen and River Pirates Who Operated in Pioneer Days Upon the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and Over the Old Natchez Trace

Any history of these outlaws would doubtless be looked upon as wild fiction unless the statements were carefully verified by court records and contemporary newspaper notices, and the records Of early writers who gathered the facts regarding them when these facts were told by men and women who lived at the time the atrocities were committed. The adage that truth is stranger than fiction is exemplified fully in their careers.

The lives and exploits of these men constitute an im portant phase in pioneer life because their deeds greatly affected the settlement Of the new country. Dread of them brought peaceful settlers together in communities and helped to hasten the establishment of law and order. Their histories are therefore a part of the his tory of the country. The historian who passes them over as mere blood-and-thunder tales misses entirely one of the high lights in the great adventure of the settling of the Mississippi basin.

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From the Back Cover:

Exceptionally rare and valued by book collectors, Otto A. Rothert's riveting saga of the outlaws and scoundrels of Cave-in-Rock has not been available to the general public for decades. Rothert chronicles the adventures of an audacious cast of river pirates and highwaymen who operated in and around the famous Ohio River cavern from 1795 through 1820 (adventures featured in Disney's Davy Crockett and the film How the West Was Won). Once sporting the enticing sign "Liquor Vault and House for Entertainment", this beautiful cavern location decoyed the unsuspecting by offering a venue for food, drink, and rest. As a "scene for shrouded crime", Rothert notes, "it was perfect". Rothert's predators range from the brutish Harpes and the gentleman-soldier-turned-brigand Samuel Mason to the mysterious James Ford, probably of the murderous Ford's Ferry gang. Where the Harpes were bloodthirsty and barbaric, Mason was shrewd. Mason never shed blood unless to protect himself, and he robbed for booty - not the joy of the kill. The last of the Cave-in-Rock outlaws, the Ford's Ferry gang, left many skeletons, yet their activities remain mysterious. In his foreword to this edition, Robert A. Clark notes that when Rothert queried the Arthur H. Clark Company regarding his manuscript in the spring of 1922, he wrote: "I have an idea it will be interesting to those who 'dearly love the excitements of the criminally audacious.'" Rothert was correct. Compellingly lively, The Outlaws of Cave-in-Rock is nonetheless the work of a scholar, a historian who documents his findings and leaves a detailed bibliographical trail. Presenting many eyewitness accounts, Rothert supplies the lore and legend of the colorfulvillains of Cave-in-Rock. Always maintaining the difference between stories he tells with historical authority and those that are pure speculation, Rothert provides both a fascinating narrative and a valuable regional history.

About the Author:

Otto A. Rothert, secretary of the Filson Club of Louisville for many years, was the author of A History of Muhlenberg County and other books.

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