Cave-In-Rock, Illinois
Encyclopedia
Cave-In-Rock is a village in Hardin County, Illinois
, United States
. Its principal feature and attraction
is a large nearby cave
on the banks of the Ohio River
. Cave-in-Rock was originally a stronghold
for outlaws including; river pirate
s and highwaymen, Samuel Mason
and James Ford
, tavern
owner/highwayman
, Isaiah L. Potts, serial killers/bandits
, the Harpe Brothers
, counterfeiters
, Philip Alston
, Peter Alston
, John Duff
, Eson Bigsby, and the Sturdivant Gang
, and the post-Civil War
bandit, Logan Belt. The population was 346 at the 2000 census.
According to the United States Census Bureau
, the village has a total area of 0.4 square miles (1 km²), of which 0.4 square miles (1 km²) is land and 0.04 square mile (0.1035995244 km²) water.
of 2000, there were 346 people, 165 households, and 96 families residing in the village. The population density
was 874.6 people per square mile (334.0/km²). There were 201 housing units at an average density of 508.1 per square mile (194.0/km²). The racial makeup of the village was 99.57% White
, 0.43% other races, and 0.18% multiracial
. Hispanics or Latinos
of any race were 2.02% of the population.
There were 165 households, of which 28.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 44.8% were married couples
living together, 10.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 41.8% were non-families. 41.2% of all households were made up of individuals and 28.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.10 and the average family size was 2.82.
The age distribution was 23.4% under 18, 7.5% from 18 to 24, 24.9% from 25 to 44, 19.4% from 45 to 64, and 24.9% who were 65 or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 81.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 82.8 males.
The median income for a household in the village was $20,694, and for a family $28,393. Males had a median income of $35,833 versus $18,125 for females. The per capita income
for the village was $12,050. About 20.5% of families and 28.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 43.8% of those under age 18 and 24.1% of those age 65 or over.
Cave-in-Rock's primary feature is a striking 55 feet (16.8 m)-wide riverside cave formed by wind and water erosion and cataclysm
ic effects of the 1811-1812 New Madrid Earthquake
at Cave-in-Rock State Park
37°28′07"N 88°09′21"W, just upriver from the village. The first European to come across it was M. de Lery of France, who found it in 1739 and called it "caverne dans Le Roc". Other names for the cave include Rock-In-Cave, Rocking Cave, Rock-and-Cave, House of Nature, The Cave, Big Cave, and Murrell
's Cave.
In 1790, counterfeiters Philip Alston
and John Duff
(John McElduff) used the cave as some type of rendezvous, though details are scarce. Although folklore printed in 19th century histories failed to establish a prior connection between the two men, both had lived in the area of Natchez, Mississippi at the start of the Revolutionary War
.
Duff was living upriver a few miles, either at Battery Rock or across the Ohio River at what would become Caseyville, Kentucky, when in 1797, Samuel Mason
moved his base of operations from Diamond Island
and Red Banks
to the cave and made it the home of river pirates. Two of Mason's brothers had been business partners of Duff at Kaskaskia, Illinois
in the 1780s. Mason created a combination tavern
, gambling den
, brothel
, and criminal refuge
. His men lured in gullible river travel
ers and then robbed and killed them.
James Wilson also, known as Bully Wilson, may actually have been an alias
for Samuel Mason, the next leader of the gang after Mason's hasty departure, or possibly the front man for the Mason's operation. He may be the Wilson who married one of Mason's nieces. In 1799, he hung a sign over the cave's entrance saying "Wilson's Liquor Vault and House for Entertainment".
By this time, Duff and his asssociates had been making salt (or looking for silver
) in the Great Salt Springs area along the Saline River
in southeastern Illinois. A detachment
from the U.S. Army garrison
at Fort Massac
, down river from Cave-In-Rock, captured him and three of his men, Blakely, Hazle and Hall. The soldiers took their prisoners by boat down the Saline River to the Ohio River, intending to return to the fort. Old histories do not explain why they stopped at the cave. Subsequent events suggest it took during the spring of 1799, when Wilson in business, making it a stop for entertainment. Duff and his men escaped and overpowered the soldiers. They tied them up, put them in a boat, and pushed it into the river to float downstream to the fort. On June 4, 1799, the commandant
of Fort Massac, Captain
Zebulon Pike, Sr., father of the future explorer of Pike's Peak, hired a French Canadian
coureur de bois and three Shawnee
warrior
s to assassinate Duff, which they did.
The infamous Harpe brothers
also reached the cave region in the spring of 1799. They are associated with two separate stories at the cave and one at the infamous Potts Spring area to the north. The first story has them pushing a young couple off the top of the cliff above the cave. They survived. The second was an act of piracy in which only one man survived. Later, he was forced off the cliff as well, this time involving the man being tied down to a horse. Nether survived. The Potts Spring story is recalled as a murder of two or three hunters. This Harpe murder site, within twenty years, would become the future location of the legendary Potts Inn, which was presumed to be a human death trap for unsuspecting travelers, along the Ford's Ferry High Water Road, an early frontier
highway
, who wanted to spend the night for food and lodging
.
Mason and Wilson's time at the cave may have come to an end during the summer of 1799, when they were attacked by a group of bounty-hunters/vigilantes under the leadership of Captain Young calling themselves "The Exterminators". No contemporary accounts attest to river pirates occupying the cave in the first decade of the 19th century. The Harpes retreated back into Kentucky and Mason traveled downriver and began to focus on highway robbery along the Natchez Trace
.
The next generation of outlaws in the region sprang either from the Sturdivant Gang
, a group of counterfeiters based at Sturdivant Fort, on top of the bluffs overlooking the Ohio River at what is now Rosiclare, Illinois
; or the Ford's Ferry Gang led by James Ford
. based a few miles upriver from the cave at what became known as Ford's Ferry, Kentucky. Law enforcement officials led three raids against Sturdivant Fort in 1822 and 1823. Although it is not clear what happened following the raids, the gang disappears from the area by 1830. The Ford's Ferry Gang was broken up following the mysterious deaths or murders of James Ford's two sons, followed by his own assassination in 1833.
Even after the death of Ford, outlaws remained. Isaiah L. Potts operated Potts Inn on the Ford's Ferry High Water Road in Illinois north of the cave. Travelers checked in but, sometimes failed to check out. This presumed frontier hotel was very similar to the Bloody Benders
' Wayside Inn, which appeared fifty years later in Labette County, Kansas
. The legend of Billy Potts, the returning son was murdered unknowingly by his father and likely took place in the months following Ford's assassination. This tragic story, of poetic justice
, has taken on folklorish
proportions. Records show the elder Potts and his wife separated in 1834 or 1835.
Eson Bigsby, sometimes, the first name was spelled Eason or Enos and the last name Bixby also, took up counterfeiting in Hardin County in the decades following the Sturdivants. His attack on his wife Anna in an effort to find out where her first husband's money was buried dates to the early 1860s and led to the legends of Anna Bixby, her treasure and her ghost. She actually survived running off of a cliff in the dark. She is the namesake of the Anna Bixby Women's Center in nearby Harrisburg, Illinois
.
Although not completely connected to the "Ancient Colony", the Logan Belt Gang terrorized Hardin County in the 1870s and 1880s, until Belt was assassinated.
According to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources
, "in 1929, the State of Illinois acquired 64.5 acres (26.1 ha) [26.1 ha] for a park that since has increased to 204 acres [83 ha]. The well-wooded, 60 foot-high [18 m] hills and the rugged bluffs along the river - commanding expansive views of the famous waterway
- became Cave-In-Rock State Park
."
criminals on the run from civilized
society. In the middle of the first decade of the 1800s, church services were being held in the cave. This earliest Christian congregation
eventually, formed the Big Creek Baptist
Church, the first church organized in southeastern Illinois in 1807. Cave-In-Rock officially, became an Illinois village in 1839, in the same year that Hardin County was created from a section of Pope County, Illinois.
, Davy Crockett
and Mike Fink
anachronistically fight Sam Mason and his pirates. Also, at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, there is a scene called "Cut-Throat Corner" and "Wilson’s Cave Inn" that can be seen on the bank of the Rivers of America
while riding the Liberty Belle Riverboat around Tom Sawyer's Island
. This scene is based upon the real life Cave-In-Rock and the activity of river pirates during that time period.
A scene of the MGM classic How the West Was Won
was filmed at the cave as well as at Battery Rock. In 1997, The History Channel
show In Search of History also filmed at the site for an episode entitled "River Pirates".
Cave-In-Rock has hosted the Gathering of the Juggalos
for the past four years and hosted the event in 2011. The event is an official gathering of fans of the hip-hop group Insane Clown Posse
.
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Its principal feature and attraction
Tourist attraction
A tourist attraction is a place of interest where tourists visit, typically for its inherent or exhibited cultural value, historical significance, natural or built beauty, or amusement opportunities....
is a large nearby cave
Cave
A cave or cavern is a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. The term applies to natural cavities some part of which is in total darkness. The word cave also includes smaller spaces like rock shelters, sea caves, and grottos.Speleology is the science of exploration and study...
on the banks of the Ohio River
Ohio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
. Cave-in-Rock was originally a stronghold
Fortification
Fortifications are military constructions and buildings designed for defence in warfare and military bases. Humans have constructed defensive works for many thousands of years, in a variety of increasingly complex designs...
for outlaws including; river pirate
River pirate
A river pirate is a type of pirate who operates in a river. The term river pirate has been used to describe many different kinds of pirate groups responsible for attacks all over world.-History:...
s and highwaymen, Samuel Mason
Samuel Mason
Samuel Mason or Meason was a Revolutionary War militia captain on the frontier, who following the war, became the leader of a gang of river pirates and highwaymen on the lower Ohio River and the Mississippi River in the late 18th and early 19th centuries...
and James Ford
James Ford (pirate)
James Ford was an American civic leader and business owner in western Kentucky and southern Illinois at the turn of the 19th century. Despite his clean public image, as a "Pillar of the Community", he was also, secretly, a river pirate and the leader of a gang that would come to be known as...
, tavern
Tavern
A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food, and in some cases, where travelers receive lodging....
owner/highwayman
Highwayman
A highwayman was a thief and brigand who preyed on travellers. This type of outlaw, usually, travelled and robbed by horse, as compared to a footpad who traveled and robbed on foot. Mounted robbers were widely considered to be socially superior to footpads...
, Isaiah L. Potts, serial killers/bandits
Banditry
Banditry refers to the life and practice of bandits which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as "one who is proscribed or outlawed; hence, a lawless desperate marauder, a brigand: usually applied to members of the organized gangs which infest the mountainous districts of Italy, Sicily, Spain,...
, the Harpe Brothers
Harpe Brothers
Micajah "Big" Harpe and Wiley "Little" Harpe , pronounced and , were murderers, highwaymen, and river pirates, who operated in Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and Mississippi in the late 18th century...
, counterfeiters
Counterfeit money
Counterfeit money is currency that is produced without the legal sanction of the state or government to resemble some official form of currency closely enough that it may be confused for genuine currency. Producing or using counterfeit money is a form of fraud or forgery. Counterfeiting is probably...
, Philip Alston
Philip Alston (counterfeiter)
Philip Alston was an 18th century counterfeiter both before and after the American Revolution in Virginia and the Carolinas before the war, and later in Kentucky and Illinois afterwards...
, Peter Alston
Peter Alston
Peter Alston was the late 18th Century and early 19th Century counterfeiter and river pirate, who is believed to be Little Harpe's associate and partner in the murder of notorious outlaw leader Samuel Mason in 1803. He was the son of the colonial-era counterfeiter Philip Alston associated with...
, John Duff
John Duff (counterfeiter)
John Duff was a counterfeiter, hunter, and scout who assisted in George Rogers Clark's campaign to capture the Illinois country for the American side during the Revolutionary War. He had been leading a group of hunters returning from Kaskaskia, Illinois, when intercepted by Clark's soldiers near...
, Eson Bigsby, and the Sturdivant Gang
Sturdivant Gang
The Sturdivant Gang was a multi-generational group of counterfeiters whose criminal activities took place over a 50 year period from Colonial Connecticut to the Illinois frontier. Although they did not follow the same frontier settlement pattern as most of the "Ancient Colony of Horse-Thieves,...
, and the post-Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
bandit, Logan Belt. The population was 346 at the 2000 census.
Geography
Cave-In-Rock is located at 37°28′12"N 88°9′59"W (37.470050, -88.166297).According to the United States Census Bureau
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data...
, the village has a total area of 0.4 square miles (1 km²), of which 0.4 square miles (1 km²) is land and 0.04 square mile (0.1035995244 km²) water.
Demographics
As of the censusCensus
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
of 2000, there were 346 people, 165 households, and 96 families residing in the village. The population density
Population density
Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...
was 874.6 people per square mile (334.0/km²). There were 201 housing units at an average density of 508.1 per square mile (194.0/km²). The racial makeup of the village was 99.57% White
White American
White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...
, 0.43% other races, and 0.18% multiracial
Multiracial American
Multiracial Americans, US residents who identify themselves as of "two or more races", were numbered at around 9 million, or 2.9% of the population, in the census of 2010. However there is considerable evidence that the real number is far higher. Prior to the mid-20th century many people hid their...
. Hispanics or Latinos
Hispanic and Latino Americans
Hispanic or Latino Americans are Americans with origins in the Hispanic countries of Latin America or in Spain, and in general all persons in the United States who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino.1990 Census of Population and Housing: A self-designated classification for people whose origins...
of any race were 2.02% of the population.
There were 165 households, of which 28.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 44.8% were married couples
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
living together, 10.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 41.8% were non-families. 41.2% of all households were made up of individuals and 28.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.10 and the average family size was 2.82.
The age distribution was 23.4% under 18, 7.5% from 18 to 24, 24.9% from 25 to 44, 19.4% from 45 to 64, and 24.9% who were 65 or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 81.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 82.8 males.
The median income for a household in the village was $20,694, and for a family $28,393. Males had a median income of $35,833 versus $18,125 for females. The per capita income
Per capita income
Per capita income or income per person is a measure of mean income within an economic aggregate, such as a country or city. It is calculated by taking a measure of all sources of income in the aggregate and dividing it by the total population...
for the village was $12,050. About 20.5% of families and 28.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 43.8% of those under age 18 and 24.1% of those age 65 or over.
The Cave
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
ic effects of the 1811-1812 New Madrid Earthquake
New Madrid earthquake
The 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquakes were an intense intraplate earthquake series beginning with an initial pair of very large earthquakes on December 16, 1811. These earthquakes remain the most powerful earthquakes ever to hit the eastern United States in recorded history...
at Cave-in-Rock State Park
Cave-in-Rock State Park
Cave-in-Rock State Park is an Illinois state park on in Hardin County, Illinois in the United States. The state park contains the historic Cave-in-Rock, a landmark of the Ohio River...
37°28′07"N 88°09′21"W, just upriver from the village. The first European to come across it was M. de Lery of France, who found it in 1739 and called it "caverne dans Le Roc". Other names for the cave include Rock-In-Cave, Rocking Cave, Rock-and-Cave, House of Nature, The Cave, Big Cave, and Murrell
John Murrell (bandit)
John A. Murrell , a near-legendary bandit operating in the United States along the Mississippi River in the mid-nineteenth century...
's Cave.
Outlaw history
From the 1790s to the 1870s, the area around Cave-in-Rock was plagued by what historians as early as the 1830s referred to as the "Ancient Colony of Horse-Thieves, Counterfeiters and Robbers", and better known today due to Otto Rothert's history early in the 20th Century as the "Outlaws of Cave-in-Rock".In 1790, counterfeiters Philip Alston
Philip Alston (counterfeiter)
Philip Alston was an 18th century counterfeiter both before and after the American Revolution in Virginia and the Carolinas before the war, and later in Kentucky and Illinois afterwards...
and John Duff
John Duff (counterfeiter)
John Duff was a counterfeiter, hunter, and scout who assisted in George Rogers Clark's campaign to capture the Illinois country for the American side during the Revolutionary War. He had been leading a group of hunters returning from Kaskaskia, Illinois, when intercepted by Clark's soldiers near...
(John McElduff) used the cave as some type of rendezvous, though details are scarce. Although folklore printed in 19th century histories failed to establish a prior connection between the two men, both had lived in the area of Natchez, Mississippi at the start of the Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
.
Duff was living upriver a few miles, either at Battery Rock or across the Ohio River at what would become Caseyville, Kentucky, when in 1797, Samuel Mason
Samuel Mason
Samuel Mason or Meason was a Revolutionary War militia captain on the frontier, who following the war, became the leader of a gang of river pirates and highwaymen on the lower Ohio River and the Mississippi River in the late 18th and early 19th centuries...
moved his base of operations from Diamond Island
Diamond Island (Kentucky)
Diamond Island is an island in the Ohio River. It has an area of about one half square mile. It is ten miles west of Henderson, Kentucky in Henderson County, Kentucky...
and Red Banks
Henderson, Kentucky
Henderson is a city in Henderson County, Kentucky, United States, along the Ohio River in the western part of the state. The population was 27,952 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Evansville Metropolitan Area often referred to as "Kentuckiana", although "Tri-State Area" or "Tri-State" are more...
to the cave and made it the home of river pirates. Two of Mason's brothers had been business partners of Duff at Kaskaskia, Illinois
Kaskaskia, Illinois
Kaskaskia is a village in Randolph County, Illinois, United States. In the 2010 census the population was 14, making it the second-smallest incorporated community in the State of Illinois in terms of population. A major French colonial town of the Illinois Country, its peak population was about...
in the 1780s. Mason created a combination tavern
Tavern
A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food, and in some cases, where travelers receive lodging....
, gambling den
Casino
In modern English, a casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions...
, brothel
Brothel
Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...
, and criminal refuge
Safety
Safety is the state of being "safe" , the condition of being protected against physical, social, spiritual, financial, political, emotional, occupational, psychological, educational or other types or consequences of failure, damage, error, accidents, harm or any other event which could be...
. His men lured in gullible river travel
Travel
Travel is the movement of people or objects between relatively distant geographical locations. 'Travel' can also include relatively short stays between successive movements.-Etymology:...
ers and then robbed and killed them.
James Wilson also, known as Bully Wilson, may actually have been an alias
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
for Samuel Mason, the next leader of the gang after Mason's hasty departure, or possibly the front man for the Mason's operation. He may be the Wilson who married one of Mason's nieces. In 1799, he hung a sign over the cave's entrance saying "Wilson's Liquor Vault and House for Entertainment".
By this time, Duff and his asssociates had been making salt (or looking for silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
) in the Great Salt Springs area along the Saline River
Saline River (Illinois)
The Saline River is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately long, in the Southern Illinois region of the U.S. state of Illinois. The river drains a large section of southeast Illinois, with a drainage basin of . The major tributaries include the South Fork, Middle Fork and North Fork, all...
in southeastern Illinois. A detachment
Detachment (military)
A detachment is a military unit. It can either be detached from a larger unit for a specific function or be a permanent unit smaller than a battalion. The term is often used to refer to a unit that is assigned to a different base from the parent unit...
from the U.S. Army garrison
Garrison
Garrison is the collective term for a body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it, but now often simply using it as a home base....
at Fort Massac
Fort Massac
Fort Massac is a colonial and early National-era fort on the Ohio River in Massac County, Illinois, United States.Legend has it that, as early as 1540, the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto and his soldiers constructed a primitive fortification here to defend themselves from native attack...
, down river from Cave-In-Rock, captured him and three of his men, Blakely, Hazle and Hall. The soldiers took their prisoners by boat down the Saline River to the Ohio River, intending to return to the fort. Old histories do not explain why they stopped at the cave. Subsequent events suggest it took during the spring of 1799, when Wilson in business, making it a stop for entertainment. Duff and his men escaped and overpowered the soldiers. They tied them up, put them in a boat, and pushed it into the river to float downstream to the fort. On June 4, 1799, the commandant
Company Commander
A company commander is the commanding officer of a company, a military unit which typically consists of 100 to 350 soldiers, often organized into three or four smaller units called platoons....
of Fort Massac, Captain
Captain (OF-2)
The army rank of captain is a commissioned officer rank historically corresponding to command of a company of soldiers. The rank is also used by some air forces and marine forces. Today a captain is typically either the commander or second-in-command of a company or artillery battery...
Zebulon Pike, Sr., father of the future explorer of Pike's Peak, hired a French Canadian
French Canadian
French Canadian or Francophone Canadian, , generally refers to the descendents of French colonists who arrived in New France in the 17th and 18th centuries...
coureur de bois and three Shawnee
Shawnee
The Shawnee, Shaawanwaki, Shaawanooki and Shaawanowi lenaweeki, are an Algonquian-speaking people native to North America. Historically they inhabited the areas of Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Western Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana, and Pennsylvania...
warrior
Warrior
A warrior is a person skilled in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based society that recognizes a separate warrior class.-Warrior classes in tribal culture:...
s to assassinate Duff, which they did.
The infamous Harpe brothers
Harpe brothers
Micajah "Big" Harpe and Wiley "Little" Harpe , pronounced and , were murderers, highwaymen, and river pirates, who operated in Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and Mississippi in the late 18th century...
also reached the cave region in the spring of 1799. They are associated with two separate stories at the cave and one at the infamous Potts Spring area to the north. The first story has them pushing a young couple off the top of the cliff above the cave. They survived. The second was an act of piracy in which only one man survived. Later, he was forced off the cliff as well, this time involving the man being tied down to a horse. Nether survived. The Potts Spring story is recalled as a murder of two or three hunters. This Harpe murder site, within twenty years, would become the future location of the legendary Potts Inn, which was presumed to be a human death trap for unsuspecting travelers, along the Ford's Ferry High Water Road, an early frontier
Frontier
A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary. 'Frontier' was absorbed into English from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"--the region of a country that fronts on another country .The use of "frontier" to mean "a region at the...
highway
Highway
A highway is any public road. In American English, the term is common and almost always designates major roads. In British English, the term designates any road open to the public. Any interconnected set of highways can be variously referred to as a "highway system", a "highway network", or a...
, who wanted to spend the night for food and lodging
Lodging
Lodging is a type of residential accommodation. People who travel and stay away from home for more than a day need lodging for sleep, rest, safety, shelter from cold temperatures or rain, storage of luggage and access to common household functions.Lodgings may be self catering in which case no...
.
Mason and Wilson's time at the cave may have come to an end during the summer of 1799, when they were attacked by a group of bounty-hunters/vigilantes under the leadership of Captain Young calling themselves "The Exterminators". No contemporary accounts attest to river pirates occupying the cave in the first decade of the 19th century. The Harpes retreated back into Kentucky and Mason traveled downriver and began to focus on highway robbery along the Natchez Trace
Natchez Trace
The Natchez Trace, also known as the "Old Natchez Trace", is a historical path that extends roughly from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee, linking the Cumberland, Tennessee and Mississippi rivers...
.
The next generation of outlaws in the region sprang either from the Sturdivant Gang
Sturdivant Gang
The Sturdivant Gang was a multi-generational group of counterfeiters whose criminal activities took place over a 50 year period from Colonial Connecticut to the Illinois frontier. Although they did not follow the same frontier settlement pattern as most of the "Ancient Colony of Horse-Thieves,...
, a group of counterfeiters based at Sturdivant Fort, on top of the bluffs overlooking the Ohio River at what is now Rosiclare, Illinois
Rosiclare, Illinois
Rosiclare is a city in Hardin County, Illinois, along the Ohio River. The population was 1,213 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Rosiclare is located at ....
; or the Ford's Ferry Gang led by James Ford
James Ford (pirate)
James Ford was an American civic leader and business owner in western Kentucky and southern Illinois at the turn of the 19th century. Despite his clean public image, as a "Pillar of the Community", he was also, secretly, a river pirate and the leader of a gang that would come to be known as...
. based a few miles upriver from the cave at what became known as Ford's Ferry, Kentucky. Law enforcement officials led three raids against Sturdivant Fort in 1822 and 1823. Although it is not clear what happened following the raids, the gang disappears from the area by 1830. The Ford's Ferry Gang was broken up following the mysterious deaths or murders of James Ford's two sons, followed by his own assassination in 1833.
Even after the death of Ford, outlaws remained. Isaiah L. Potts operated Potts Inn on the Ford's Ferry High Water Road in Illinois north of the cave. Travelers checked in but, sometimes failed to check out. This presumed frontier hotel was very similar to the Bloody Benders
Bloody Benders
The Bloody Benders were a family of serial killers who owned a small general store and inn in Osage township, Labette County, Kansas from 1872 to 1873. The inn was a dingy place called the Wayside Inn. The alleged family consisted of John Bender, his wife Kate, son John Jr. and daughter Kate...
' Wayside Inn, which appeared fifty years later in Labette County, Kansas
Labette County, Kansas
Labette County is a county located in southeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the county population was 21,607. Its county seat is Oswego, and its most populous city is Parsons...
. The legend of Billy Potts, the returning son was murdered unknowingly by his father and likely took place in the months following Ford's assassination. This tragic story, of poetic justice
Poetic justice
Poetic justice is a literary device in which virtue is ultimately rewarded or vice punished, often in modern literature by an ironic twist of fate intimately related to the character's own conduct.- Origin of the term :...
, has taken on folklorish
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
proportions. Records show the elder Potts and his wife separated in 1834 or 1835.
Eson Bigsby, sometimes, the first name was spelled Eason or Enos and the last name Bixby also, took up counterfeiting in Hardin County in the decades following the Sturdivants. His attack on his wife Anna in an effort to find out where her first husband's money was buried dates to the early 1860s and led to the legends of Anna Bixby, her treasure and her ghost. She actually survived running off of a cliff in the dark. She is the namesake of the Anna Bixby Women's Center in nearby Harrisburg, Illinois
Harrisburg, Illinois
Harrisburg is a city and township in Saline County, Illinois, United States. It is located about southwest of Evansville, Indiana, southeast of St. Louis, Missouri. The 2010 population was 9,017, with a township population of 10,790. It is the county seat of Saline County...
.
Although not completely connected to the "Ancient Colony", the Logan Belt Gang terrorized Hardin County in the 1870s and 1880s, until Belt was assassinated.
According to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources
Illinois Department of Natural Resources
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources is a cabinet-level department of the state government of Illinois. It is headquartered in the state capital of Springfield...
, "in 1929, the State of Illinois acquired 64.5 acres (26.1 ha) [26.1 ha] for a park that since has increased to 204 acres [83 ha]. The well-wooded, 60 foot-high [18 m] hills and the rugged bluffs along the river - commanding expansive views of the famous waterway
Waterway
A waterway is any navigable body of water. Waterways can include rivers, lakes, seas, oceans, and canals. In order for a waterway to be navigable, it must meet several criteria:...
- became Cave-In-Rock State Park
Cave-in-Rock State Park
Cave-in-Rock State Park is an Illinois state park on in Hardin County, Illinois in the United States. The state park contains the historic Cave-in-Rock, a landmark of the Ohio River...
."
Town history to the present
It can be said that, the majority of Cave-In-Rock's earliest settlers, were fugitiveFugitive
A fugitive is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from private slavery, a government arrest, government or non-government questioning, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals...
criminals on the run from civilized
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
society. In the middle of the first decade of the 1800s, church services were being held in the cave. This earliest Christian congregation
Local church
A local church is a Christian congregation of members and clergy.Local church may also refer to:* Local churches , a Christian group based on the teachings of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, and associated with the Living Stream Ministry publishing house.* Parish church, a local church united with...
eventually, formed the Big Creek Baptist
Baptists in the United States
Baptists are the largest Protestant grouping in the United States, and the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., with 16 million members. Baptist churches exist in each of the United States today...
Church, the first church organized in southeastern Illinois in 1807. Cave-In-Rock officially, became an Illinois village in 1839, in the same year that Hardin County was created from a section of Pope County, Illinois.
Popular culture
In Walt Disney's Davy Crockett and the River PiratesDavy Crockett and the River Pirates
Davy Crockett and the River Pirates is a 1956 live-action Walt Disney adventure film starring Fess Parker as Davy Crockett. It was shot in Cave-In-Rock, Illinois...
, Davy Crockett
Davy Crockett
David "Davy" Crockett was a celebrated 19th century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier". He represented Tennessee in the U.S...
and Mike Fink
Mike Fink
Mike Fink called "king of the keelboaters", was a semi-legendary brawler and boatman who exemplified the tough and hard-drinking men who ran keelboats up and down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers....
anachronistically fight Sam Mason and his pirates. Also, at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, there is a scene called "Cut-Throat Corner" and "Wilson’s Cave Inn" that can be seen on the bank of the Rivers of America
Rivers of America (Disney)
The Rivers of America is an artificial river found in the Frontierland district of the Magic Kingdom-classed Disney theme parks around the world. The first river was built in Disneyland when the park opened in 1955. It surrounds Tom Sawyer Island, which can be reached by rafts traveling from the...
while riding the Liberty Belle Riverboat around Tom Sawyer's Island
Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer Island
Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer Island is an artificial island surrounded by the Rivers of America at Disneyland. It contains caves with references to Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean film trilogy, Mark Twain characters from the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and provides interactive, climbing,...
. This scene is based upon the real life Cave-In-Rock and the activity of river pirates during that time period.
A scene of the MGM classic How the West Was Won
How the West Was Won (film)
How the West Was Won is a 1962 American epic Western film. The picture was one of the last "old-fashioned" epic films made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to enjoy great success. It follows four generations of a family as they move ever westward, from western New York state to the Pacific Ocean...
was filmed at the cave as well as at Battery Rock. In 1997, The History Channel
The History Channel
History, formerly known as The History Channel, is an American-based international satellite and cable TV channel that broadcasts a variety of reality shows and documentary programs including those of fictional and non-fictional historical content, together with speculation about the future.-...
show In Search of History also filmed at the site for an episode entitled "River Pirates".
Cave-In-Rock has hosted the Gathering of the Juggalos
Gathering of the Juggalos
The Gathering of the Juggalos is an annual festival put on by Psychopathic Records, featuring performances by the entire label as well as numerous well-known musical groups and underground artists. It was founded by Robert Bruce, Insane Clown Posse , and their label in 2000...
for the past four years and hosted the event in 2011. The event is an official gathering of fans of the hip-hop group Insane Clown Posse
Insane Clown Posse
Insane Clown Posse is an American hip hop duo from Detroit, Michigan. The group is composed of Joseph Bruce and Joseph Utsler, who perform under the respective personas of the "wicked clowns" Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope. Insane Clown Posse performs a style of hardcore hip hop known as horrorcore...
.
Points of interest
- Cave-In-Rock State ParkCave-in-Rock State ParkCave-in-Rock State Park is an Illinois state park on in Hardin County, Illinois in the United States. The state park contains the historic Cave-in-Rock, a landmark of the Ohio River...
- Cave-In-Rock Ferry
- Riverfront Opera House
- Hardin County Golf Club
External links
- Cave-In-Rock Community Profile
- Photographs of Cave-in-Rock, Illinois
- Cave-In-Rock State Park
- Cave in Rock - Shawnee National Forest - Southern Illinois
- Cave in Rock Ferry
- Hardin County Golf Club
- Cave-In-Rock Frontier Days (Third weekend in September)
- "Riverfront Opry House returns live drama to Cave-In-Rock stage," by Brian DeNeal, Daily Register, Apr 22, 2011
- The Cave - Lewis and Clark Expedition - Illinois Historical Marker
- Folklore of the Bloody History of Cave-In-Rock, Ghosts of the Prairie.com
- 2010 Cave-In-Rock Crime Rate Indexes