Ave Maria

The group lived in Powell's Valley, Tenn. for a short time.

It is an alarming story. However, there are so many gaps in the narrative that one cannot report the course of events with complete conviction and authority. It isn't just a question of time and distance. Basic human decency, morality and raw survival instinct all converge to weave a patchwork story that contradicts itself and beggars explanation. It is a story so painful that one is left searching for a redemptive thread--a lifeline that, for all its insubstantial nature is still strong enough when flung in faith to rescue even the most lost of souls.

She could not have been more than 12 when they took her from her father's home. Maria Davidson was likely out in the fields, playing with her friend Susan Wood, when the two men snatched them and fled to North Carolina. The men--Micajah and Wiley Harpe, posing as brothers but rumored to be cousins--already had somewhat of a reputation for this sort of thing and were said to be part of a Tory rape gang terrorizing patriot families who supported the War of Independence. The men took their prizes to the wilderness of Tennessee where they joined the renegade Chickamauga Cherokee community of Nickajack. Years passed there, and the men honed an inexplicable, evil delight in rape, murder and violence. Micajah, for one, was said to be convinced that he was called by God to execute judgment on certain men but Micajah was not from God. He was a murderer from the beginning and, like his father the devil, he was a liar.

The small group left Nickajack shortly before it was raided and destroyed by U.S. troops after years of criminal activity and attacks on nearby settlements. However, it wasn't the impending destruction that spurred them to move elsewhere. It was the savage murder of their companion, Doss, that made them unwelcome. Doss had complained about the brothers' savage treatment of the women and was rumored to have more than a passing interest in their welfare. The brothers brutally murdered Doss, dumped his body off the main trail, and headed to Powell's Valley near Knoxville.

Life in a frontier settlement, however, proved difficult for the men and they resorted to stealing livestock and supplies which they then resold to other members of the community. Throughout the course of their association, the Harpes had presented the women as their wives. However, the dynamic within the group became somewhat skewed when Micajah legally married Susan and Wiley wooed and married a local Methodist minister's daughter, Sally Rice. It is perhaps at this point that Maria, with the alarming sobriquet of "supplementary wife", became "Betsey Roberts" and was regarded as Susan's sister despite the fact they looked nothing alike.

About a year after Wiley and Sally's marriage, the group met up with John Langford at an inn near Rockcastle River in Lincoln County, Kentucky. Langford befriended the group and, seeing that they were destitute (and that all three of the women were pregnant), bought the group breakfast and joined them on their journey along the Wilderness Road. It proved to be a fatal mistake. Days later, the Harpes emerged from the woods leading Langford's riderless horse. Langford's body was later found not far from the road.

The group was arrested and put in the Lincoln County jail on Christmas Day, 1798. After two months of plotting, the Harpe men escaped and left the women behind--not surprising as all three were heavily pregnant and it would have been nearly impossible to travel with them in the dead of winter. During the course of the women's 100-day confinement, all three gave birth. Betsey had a son. Susan and Sally each had a girl.

All three women were put on trial for murder. Susan was found guilty. Sally was acquitted. Only Betsey was found not guilty. Because the same evidence was presented against each of the women, the judge offered Susan a new trial. However, after four days, the Attorney General declined to re-try her. Having convinced the local townspeople of their innocence and their desire to have nothing further to do with the Harpe men, the women were released and sent on their way. As an act of charity, the townspeople took up a collection, gave the women a horse and outfitted them for the journey home to Tennessee.

What should have been a celebration of release from both the prospect of jail and the years of squalor and abuse at the hands of the Harpe brothers quickly took an inexplicable turn that defies explanation. The three women and children traded the horse for a boat and headed for Henderson County to rejoin the men.

Why? What possible reason could they have had for willfully going back to such a wretched life? Looking more closely at the circumstances of their situation, one can perhaps begin to understand. First, it cannot have been an easy decision to make. Surely, the three women felt themselves to be between a rock and a hard place--Betsey especially so. While Susan and Sally had the benefit of legal marriage, Betsey had no official designation other than the contemptible "supplemental wife." To complicate matters, she could not have been more than 17 at the time. She had no real family, no standing in the community, an infant son born out of wedlock and no advocate. The women were supposed to be heading "back to Tennessee" but where? They were driven out of Powell's Valley when the men were discovered to be stealing livestock, and Nickajack had long since been destroyed. The prospect of returning to North Carolina--even if she could recall where it was she had lived--must have been too daunting to Betsey. What family could have welcomed an unwed mother and rape victim after years of living amongst thieves, scoundrels and murderers?

Returning to the Harpes did not improve their lot. In fact, it made it far worse for the brothers, wanted with a $300 bounty on their heads, had gone from bad to worse by teaming up with an enterprising band of Ohio River pirates operating out of Cave-in-Rock in what would later become Illinois. The association, however, was short lived. The Harpe group was asked to leave after Micajah and Wiley had driven a man and a horse off the bluff onto the rocks below for their own private entertainment.

The departure from Cave-in-Rock established a momentum that fueled the Harpes' destruction and left a trail of bloodshed in their wake. After a spree that claimed the lives of nearly 40 people, Micajah was finally shot, captured, killed and beheaded. Susan, to her disgrace and horror, was forced to carry the head back to Russellville, Kentucky where it was placed on a pike for all to see. Wiley, having fled, abandoned Sally and made his way to Natchez, Mississippi and was eventually captured and executed.

Again, the three women found themselves incarcerated, examined and eventually exonerated. For a time, the three remained in the Russellville area. Sally later moved back to her father's home in Tennessee where she married a respectable gentleman and raised a family. Susan, too, was said to have returned to Tennessee where she later died. Betsey stayed in Russellville until--in 1803--something curious and unique happened: she met a man who drew her out of the darkness of her past and into the light.

Given that the facts are incomplete, I believe I'm entitled to take creative license as I turn to the matter of one John Huffstutler, a second generation Swiss-American immigrant from North Carolina who, I like to believe, had been looking for his missing childhood friend, Maria Davidson.

John's marriage to Betsey stands as a testament to her innocence and her redemption from the hell on earth in which the Harpe brothers had imprisoned her. Not only did they raise a large family (at least five children) over the course of their 60-year marriage, they also moved to Illinois and helped settle Hamilton County in the 1820s. Their son, George Washington Huffstutler (G.W. to the family) continued their legacy by marrying Susan Stelle (a cousin of one of Illinois' early governors) and raising a family of 10 children.

As a family story, Maria's history was never known until my cousin Becky and I stumbled across it while researching our family's line. Understandably, we were both horrified by what we found. "What kind of legacy does this leave us?" she asked. Having dug a little deeper beneath the surface, I would like to believe it is a legacy of hope and a testament to the power of faith and redemption. It's a legacy that speaks to the fact that no one is so lost that God's love and power cannot reach them. A legacy that stands on the old scripture "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)

Don't Tell Me About Your Lifestyle

Kathleen and Jim with Cheryll, 1970.

Most of my memories of my cousin Kathleen revolve around the small, private war she fought against her parents and the other older adults in our family. As a baby boomer, I think she was the first of our generation to experience what it was like to have different life expectations than our parents.

It cannot have been easy growing up in a family of steadfast, unchanging Christian values against the backdrop of one of the most tumultuous periods in American history. There must have been times when she felt caught between a rock and a hard place. Her friends had so many things--color televisions, life-size dolls, closets full of store-bought clothes--while she (and the rest of us) had only black-and-white screens, rag dolls and home-sewn jumpers. It didn't help that our family had no money or that illness and circumstance demanded frugality from all of us. She could have become bitter about our lack but instead she became inventive and inspired--a crusading Auntie Mame of our very own who led us on a seemingly never-ending series of adventures.

Perhaps it is a little ironic that, perceiving a lack of "fun" in our lives that Kathleen introduced us to freedoms and activities that are unavailable to kids today. I saw my first drive-in movie (Live and Let Die) with my sisters Susan and Donna, cousins Becky and Colleen along with Kathleen, her husband Jim and daughter Cheryll. Eight people in one car must have been bad enough but Kathleen (surely silently screaming "Live! Live!") made sure each of us was liberally supplied with popcorn, candy and soda. I shudder today to recall that Jim calmly allowed a few of us to watch the adventures of James Bond while perched on the roof of his beloved, fire-engine red Charger.

Jim was always Kathleen's silent partner in crime (which, incidentally, is a shame because he happens to be wickedly funny). With his help, Kathleen simultaneously horrified our parents and delighted us by giving us our first lessons in driving (I was 12), taking us bowling (rented shoes!) and making that most pernicious of childhood dangers--candy--freely available (tooth decay!).

Strangely enough, Kathleen and my father were cohorts of a sort. Both regarded "bored" as a four-letter word, and both constantly pointed to the myriad of activities available to us that could be undertaken without parents. Fireworks, for example, were best watched from the roof (although they did require a certain hushed secrecy and ready access to a ladder). If a parent absolutely had to be present, then he or she was expected to chauffeur us from one suburban display to the next, chasing the bright explosions across the county until we were too tired to "ooh," ah" and "oh."

However, whereas Dad had a tendency to counsel caution for fear of inevitable lifechanging ínjury, Kathleen urged abandon for the sake of joy. Challenged by authority, her response was a call to arms, "Don't tell me about your lifestyle!" and she preached a message of curiosity, exploration and wonder. Thanks in large part to her, my cousins and I share a love of laughter, board games and good chocolate. Hers is a legacy I fondly remember.

So much of what we experienced as kids has been lost over the years. There were times when we could roam literally for miles on foot without causing our parents any concern. We could chat with people we hardly knew or didn't know at all without fear of being compromised in any way. We could build houses in alien trees, cavort with strange dogs and ignite ill-gained cherry bombs without any adult supervision whatsoever. The world is a darker place today with a dearth of open spaces and a surplus of fear. It's not safe for children any more, and we have to accept that. At least that's the way it seems until I hear those immortal words in my head: "Don't tell me about your lifestyle!"

Time After Time

While time may not be on my side, it is certainly on my mind. It seems to flow at different rates lately depending on my level of interest, access to distraction and depth of ambition. Sometime it runs away from me. Other times, it lingers pensively, studiously contemplating the pot upon the stove to legislate that, no, it shall not boil.

We think of time as a progression, a pointed movement along a singular, firmly rooted, linear track that deviates neither to the left nor right but instead rolls sonorously off towards a horizon we can only describe by its opposition to our current location. The past--presumably fixed behind us--is then. This, beneath our feet, is now. And there? There we shield our eyes from the light of the setting sun and nod to tomorrow.

Time, however, is an illusion. It's an elaborate system that we--spiritual beings caught in corporeal frames that fade and fail--employ in a vain effort to control the circumstances of our lives. Time, in a very real sense, isn't real at all.

This is why God is able to tell Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jer 1:5) Because God was, is and always shall be, He exists completely always. Because He did not become God over time but instead is the same yesterday, today and forever more, we know that God does not--indeed, cannot--change.

Therefore, because God exists at all points and at all times, He has complete knowledge of us. We have free will to make our own choices, but He already knows what those choices are and will be. He already knows all outcomes, and He seeks to reassure us that He is always there, always accessible and always the same--yesterday, today and forever more.

Suddenly, time no longer seems so pressing.