Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Do you like murder mysteries? My guest today is a historical sleuth and she's unearthed a particularly intriguing and gruesome case from our distant past. Katherine Grandjean is a history professor at Wellesley College, and the author of a new book. It's titled, "Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of the American Revolution." Professor Grandjean, welcome to the program, it's a really, really interesting book.
Katherine Grandjean: Oh, thank you so much. Glad to be here.
GR: Well, we really appreciate you making the time. So let me just start with a very basic question. How did you get put on to the trail that led to writing this book?
KG: Well, the truth is, I just could not resist this story. I mean, that's the very candid answer. So, "Kingdom of Devils," is, it tells the story of a brutal series of murders, as you said, on the revolutionary frontier committed by two brothers named Wiley and Micajah Harpe. And cutting across hundreds and hundreds of miles of territory in the early west, they killed about two dozen people.
GR: Wow.
KG: And the sort of incredible, one of the incredible things about this story is that no one has ever really explained why they did it, or why this all happened. And that was the riddle that sort of drew me into it. As a little bit of further background, I'm a historian, I've written about other frontiers and Native American history, and you know, encounter, generally. So I was sort of primed, I think, for a frontier story to come along that would allow me to unpack the darker sides of early American history. And what happened was, I happened to be teaching a course that's about early American violence. And in that course, I assigned kind of an old roundup, an article from the 1960s that just sort of gave an overview of violent episodes in American history. And my intention, I had not read it, my intention was just to give my students a way of thinking about what they might want to write about in their own research projects, just kind of a list of things that had happened. It so happened that in that piece, the Harpe’s were mentioned, very briefly in a couple of sentences, they were called the ‘brutal Harpe brothers’ who were responsible for something like 20 or 30 deaths in frontier Kentucky and Tennessee. And I just was sort of blown away because I had never heard of them, I had never encountered this story. And at this point, I had already been reading and writing and thinking about early American history for years. So I just thought to myself, how in the world do I not know about this case? And that was the beginning of it. I just fell down the rabbit hole of trying to understand what these murders were all about. That's really what caught me. Why? Why did they do this? Why did they commit all these murders? And, you know, it wasn't very long before I just could not put it down.
GR: Well, I want to unpack some of the things that you threw out there, in particular the question of why, but I have some other questions first. So, one was about the way you went about writing it. You had, your reviewers had some very high praise for the book in advance. And one of the reviewers used something that really caught my eye, which was, compared your book to, "In Cold Blood," which is one of my all-time favorite books by Truman Capote.
KG: That’s great.
GR: And he claimed, Capote claimed to have invented a genre, I think he was over claiming for himself, but the genre of nonfiction novel. And I was wondering if you had that type of consciousness when you were writing this, that you, because every, all the reviewers praised your writing and said that it was, you know, it read like a really great mystery novel. Did you do that consciously?
KG: Yes. And thank you for sort of highlighting that, because I think it was very important to me to tell this story in a way that would be compelling and sort of plot driven, even as it does make some important points. I think about the early Republic in the years after the American Revolution. You know, we're in this moment where there's a lot of uncertainty and nobody really knows what the United States is going to be or look like. And so, it is a serious history book in the sense that it sort of interprets some of what's happening in these years. But having said that, I wanted to write a good story, you know, and I wanted to sort of, ensure that my readers wanted to keep turning the pages and that I would sort of develop some of these characters and places and the world around them in really rich, kind of immersive detail. So, I think the "In Cold Blood" comparison is an apt one in certain ways. Not just stylistically, but, you know, that was also, in some ways a book that pushed the limits of genre and I think mine does too. You know, I mean, it's sort of sits somewhere, it's a marriage of true crime and history, and it is sort of novelesque in its in its sensibilities and in its structure. And so, I hope it succeeds on the level of sort of murder spree thriller as well as, you know, a portrait of post-revolutionary America.
GR: So, let's do something similar to what you see in like a traditional British murder series, detective series, just to give us an idea. Let's start with a couple of bodies, you know, you mentioned that these guys killed about two dozen people, but what was the nature of the victims being discovered and the circumstances of the deaths, were there any shared characteristics as people knew it at the time?
KG: There are some shared characteristics. You know, the first murder that seems to be the one that's sort of, the way when people narrate the Harpe murders, they usually begin with a victim named Thomas Langford, who was sort of an affluent, you know, very well to do man from Virginia traveling into Kentucky, kind of silver jangling in his pockets. And the Harpe’s encountered him, it seems, in a tavern and what was called the Wilderness Road, which was sort of the way everyone went to get to Kentucky in the sort of settlements in early Kentucky. And he's representative in some ways, mostly the Harpe’s killed men, and they killed boys, I think even more specifically, many of the victims were well-to-do, sort of affluent, men who had done really well and prospered in the years after the American Revolution. People like Justices of the Peace and Continental Army, veterans and men of substantial property. So there are some clues in that, you know, there are some indications I think of what they're up to when you start to see that pattern. Having said that, and this was sort of a very hard-won lesson for me working on this case, there really is no one murder that unlocks the entire thing. I mean, there's not exactly one profile because they killed people they knew, they killed people they didn't know, and I ultimately decided that, you know, the victimology only takes you so far, and you kind of have to step back and see the wider picture, which in the 1790s was not easy to do because they're covering hundreds of miles. I mean, they just, they took advantage of the fact that they could keep moving and spreading terror. And, you know, the county sheriff is sort of the face of law enforcement in these years. His jurisdiction ends at the county line, so if you keep moving, you know, there's really no ability for law enforcement in the late 18th century to sort of work across wide swaths of territory. And there were coroners and there were, you know, deputies and kind of lesser peace officers that sort of swarm to the scene every time one of these murders happens. But their ability to sort of conceive of it in a wider way or have any hope, really, of catching these fugitives, even once they become kind of notorious and there's a little more public awareness of what's happening, their ability to do anything about it is sort of hamstrung.
GR: I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Wellesley history professor Katherine Grandjean and we're discussing her new book. It's titled, "Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of the American Revolution," So how did the public at that time become aware of who was doing this? How did they get found out?
KG: That's a great question. And another thing about this story that sort of surprised me was that, you know, despite the kind of haplessness of law enforcement, the media, you know, the sort of nascent newspaper and print networks in Kentucky and Tennessee and in the early Western territories were much better about gathering information and sort of printing information almost in real time. The publishers, men like John Bradford, who published the "Kentucky Gazette," and George Ralston, who published the "Knoxville Gazette," had surprisingly effective networks of post riders and sort of men who distributed their newspapers. And so, they were better, in fact, at collecting clues about these murders and then presenting them to the public than law enforcement was. So, at the same time that there's this kind of ongoing spiraling of terror in the public consciousness and knowing that law enforcement can't really do much about it, there is a kind of growing notoriety around the Harpe’s. Even as the murders were unfolding, they sort of gained, you know, and I will say it took a little bit of time for that to begin happening because the first couple of murders, nobody knew that they should be afraid, you know? A murder here or there on the American frontier is not out of the ordinary, it's not out of the question, right? So, it's not really until it's sort of started to sink in I think that it's the same two men who are responsible for a lot of these deaths, and where are they going to turn up next? It's probably a couple months into it, really, before the public begins to sort of conceive of the fact that this is something pretty novel and a kind of threat that has not really been confronted before.
GR: So, I'm not going to ask you what ultimately happened to these two.
KG: Thank you.
GR: I'm going to preserve that reveal for when people buy the book and read it. But, you mentioned that, you know, that this information does get passed along and shared through news publications and, you know, the word of mouth and all that. Did it did it affect the area in a certain way that, you know, people like, men started staying up all night to make sure that, you know, their families were safe or what? You know, how did it affect the general area?
KG: Yeah, it did affect the general area, I think psychologically, you know? I'm not sure I can argue that it had any kind of long term implications for, you know, the building up of law enforcement. But certainly as the murders were unfolding, there are many accounts, I mean, quite a few records capture the fact that these little frontier villages sort of convulsed with fear. You know, there are stories about, you know, children being told not to stray too far and men kind of putting a pocket pistol into their trousers on the way to do business in a different part of Kentucky. So, yes, in real time, there was really serious sort of shock waves of fear in society. And this is a place and time where it's not necessarily the case that people are unafraid. They're not used to being kind of complacent and comfortable. It's just that, you know, the threats that they're more accustomed to worrying about are things like Shawnee raids or a Cherokee attack on the Wilderness Road. That kind of thing, these people have been sort of bred for generations to fear. But the idea that, you know, ordinary looking American strangers might knock on your door and be a lethal threat to you or your family, that's really not something that they have any natural immunity to. So, I think the sort of emotional and mental repercussions of this spree are pretty profound for the time.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Katherine Grandjean, the Wellesley history professor has written a new book titled, "Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of the American Revolution." So, let's get into the topic that you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation about the motives for these murders and how you discovered that they were more complicated than a lot of people assumed. So, this wasn't just two guys that kind of went off and became serial killers, there was something other than just pure bloodlust that was driving them. Tell us what you discovered.
KG: Yeah, and that's exactly what I instinctively felt at the beginning. You know, historically, when people have tried to make sense of these murders, they have said things like, well, these two brothers were just bloodthirsty or they were monsters. That never felt fully satisfying to me and I felt like there had to be more to it. There just, you know, there had to be more to the story. And so, to say that they're monsters, I think forecloses on the possibility of understanding better. And what I ultimately came to conclude is that there really is a deeper meaning. And they, I believe they thought they were doing something more profound and meaningful than just this kind of, you know, improvised and like, spasmodic explosion of violence. I think they really were making a statement. And that insight came to me after, you know, several years, frankly, of trying to reconstruct their background, their experiences before the murders began, what happened to them in Knox County, Tennessee, which is where they were living before the spree. And I uncovered a kind of, without giving everything away, you know, some challenges and misfortunes and a kind of almost a cascade of problems that began to accumulate for these two brothers. And then I started to also kind of put that into view with some of the things that have come down to us about how they talked about the spree and what other people sort of said they said about the spree. There is some surviving evidence about that. Things like, they declared war on fellow American citizens, and they were doing this in retaliation for some fancied injury. Okay, so, think about whether that feels kind of familiar and resonant in some way. So, sort of bringing in criminology and other sorts of disciplines even than just history, I concluded, really what they look like are rampage killers, this is a rampage. And rampage killing comes from sort of a different place. It's very often about revenge, grievance, having the last word and sort of like, protest is a strong word to use, but…
GR: Well, is there a class component to it? I mean, it's not, you know, looking at this, you say they encountered all these difficulties, and they often murdered well-to-do men. It almost sounds like this is like they're engaging in sort of a class warfare at the individual level. Does that capture a bit of it?
KG: I think that's fair to say. I mean, I think that I wouldn't necessarily sort of reduce it to just that, but I do think there is a class component to it. I mean, I think these are two men who felt pushed out of opportunity in ways that, you know, while they were watching other people really benefit in some ways from all of the promise of the post-revolutionary years and the sort of expectation coming out of the revolution. And so even the politics of Kentucky and Tennessee in these years is very much about haves and have nots. It's, you know, in the legislatures, it's sort of very fissured along those lines. And I think when you put the Harpe murders in the same arena as that story and kind of see them as embedded in the social politics of the era, yes, you can see that this is about, you know, the losers, if you will, sort of having their way with the winners.
GR: And so what do you think this tells us about the founding era in America that we may not know or fully appreciate?
KG: Well, this is a darker picture of what independence meant and what the American Revolution meant. I mean, I think of this book as, in the broadest sense, really being about the long legacies of the American Revolution. And the revolution, you know, was an absolutely momentous, inarguably profound thing, historically, politically, but also personally for Americans, because it was not just a political experiment. You know, it's not just sort of the political separation with Britain, the creation of the United States. Those things are profound, I won't take any meaning, or I won't take any sort of significance away from those things. But that's part of it, right? Because the revolution also taught Americans to think about themselves in new ways and expect new things for themselves. You know, under monarchy, most men are just subjects, and they didn't expect to become gentlemen because they hadn't been born to that, right? But the revolution says pursue happiness to the extent that your own abilities and merits can take you, you know, go sort of chase your dreams. And so, what the book does is sort of say, there's a little bit of a price to that that I think we have not acknowledged, which is that, you know, inaugurating this new kind of society, which is in many ways magical and incredibly empowering, but also competitive and, you know, organized in such a way that people will succeed and soar in this new republic, but also kind of fail in some cases and not be able to realize their dreams, and some of those people act out violently. So, I hope at the end of the day, what I'm uncovering is that there is that threat, there is that sort of unseen, violent legacy, which I think we have not grappled with as Americans.
GR: And a real dislocation to it sounds like from what you're saying, you know, it created I mean, the old thing that was always said about the British system was, you know, there's a place for everyone and everyone in their place.
KG: Correct.
GR: So this completely upends that.
KG: Correct.
GR: But that puts pressure on you then, yeah, very fascinating. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. My guest is Katherine Grandjean, we're discussing her new book, it's titled, "Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of the American Revolution." You know, in terms of this argument you're making regarding the violence on the frontier and during the founding era, do you think there's something fundamentally different about that era regarding that frontier in contrast to as it expanded further west? I mean, we're more familiar with stories of lawlessness and violence and the quote unquote, “wild west”, but is this something, I don't know, more raw? How would you explain the difference?
KG: I think yes and no, I would say. I mean, I think it is qualitatively different than other frontiers in some ways. You know, you're right, we are more familiar with the sort of wild west of the Jesse James era.
GR: Billy the Kid, you know, yeah.
KG: Right, right. I mean, and that feels more known and familiar. But, you know, so I think in the revolutionary era, it's the first west, it's Kentucky and Tennessee, it's the Trans-Appalachian West. Part of what's different about it is the fact that the American Revolution has just tossed the chessboard, I mean, it is in some ways more destabilized and more new and more kind of confused than it will be in future years. I think nobody knows quite what to expect and one of the things that happens in the aftermath of the revolution is that, you know, this proclamation line that the British have sort of instituted down the spine of the Appalachians and said, there will, you know, everything west of this is Indian country, and there will be no further western settlement. Well, when the revolution ends and that's removed, there are just sort of gushers of streams of migration, I mean, people pour over the mountains. And so, there is this kind of carnival of mobility and rootlessness and breaking of ties from families and villages and just a kind of loss of traditional safety nets in ways that probably really had not been true in many ways in other eras, and maybe wouldn't necessarily be true in the trans Mississippi West either. There's some novelty to that in the sort of quickness with which it happens and the unfamiliarity with which it happens, and the people who are just kind of disoriented and destabilized in the midst of living through this tornado. So, you know, having said that, there are some things about it that are, of course, familiar. Grinding warfare with native people, obviously the absence of sort of strong structures of state and law enforcement and court systems that kind of corral the people who are moving into these new territories. So there's some resonance, I think, you know, with future wests. And Turner, for all his flaws, I mean, I have to confess, I am sort of a Turnarian in some ways, you know, I think there is something…
GR: Yeah, it seems like he’s captured something there that you're exploring, yeah.
KG: Yeah. I mean, look, the West is a crucible in American history in many ways.
GR: Yeah, no, it's fascinating. So, do the people living in the areas of Kentucky where these murders were concentrated, today would they know the name Harpe’s? Is it part of the local lore or not?
KG: Yeah, that's a great question. Mostly not, I think, though it has survived as a kind of folk story and folk tradition in some places, particularly in the places that are associated with, you know, the major episodes of this series of murders. So there, you know, there's some kind of folk memory that has survived, but it's surprisingly has been forgotten even in Tennessee and Kentucky to a large extent, I found. I mean, it's just sort of staggering, I think that these murders are not better remembered even in the locales where they took place. And they have been lost for about 100 years. I mean, the last books really to cover these crimes in any detail were written about a century ago.
GR: Wow. Well, yeah, this is my last question, we only have about a minute left, but, I'm just wondering, why do you think that's the case? Is it, I mean, one thing that occurred to me was, well, maybe it's the Hatfield and McCoy feud that kind of colonized the memory of those folks in that area and drove out the… why do you think they don't know about it? It's weird, you’re right.
KG: Yeah. Why have the murders been forgotten? This is a thing I've wrestled with a lot. I think there are a couple of ways of thinking about this. One is, the Civil War really kind of crashed like a giant wave over southern folk tradition. Two, Appalachia became branded as kind of aberrant by mainstream America, people became uninterested in studying it. And the third thing, though, I think is, look, there's been a kind of strange squeamishness about looking too closely at the Harpe’s all along, I think. You sort of sense Americans have been worried what might happen if they sort of stare too long at these two brothers and what they did. We don't want to sort of own and recognize them, I think.
GR: Well, so we'll have to leave it there. And that's the intriguing thing about your book, you invite people to stare at them and it's quite interesting what they'll see. That was Katherine Grandjean. And again, her new book is titled, "Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of the American Revolution" and if you'd like to upgrade your current beach reading, but still keep that reading interesting and bloody, this is choice. So, Professor Grandjean, thanks so much for talking with me, really had a lot of fun with this.
KG: Thank you so much.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
