This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
Every measurement needs one mark against which to measure the rest of the scale: an absolute zero or a perfect ten. River stages on the Upper Mississippi are measured against the all-time low water mark of 1866. The scale of good and evil, too, has such marks. Along the Mississippi, it's no contest. When it comes to evil, the Harpe Brothers would be a ten.
Big Harpe and Little Harpe appeared on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers at the beginning of the 19th century. Big Harpe had already murdered one of his own babies who fussed too much. "I told the women (his two wives) I would have no crying about me," he explained.
The Harpes terrorized river valleys for several years. They pushed young couples off cliffs, killed settlers who had welcomed them in, and burnt their cabins, taking only enough for their immediate needs: food that they could have had for the asking. Several times, Little Harpe ate food he begged from a woman in the kitchen while Big Harpe climbed in the nursery window and cut the baby in pieces.
The Harpes claimed they hated humans, and killed without regard for race, creed, or gender. Not a shred of human decency, absolute zero.
The end came when the Harpes stopped at a cabin, pretending to be Methodist ministers. The woman knew them, but kept quiet out of fear, and arranged for each Harpe to sleep with another guest. Each Harpe, of course, murdered his guest, and then, they killed the woman and burned her cabin.
This time they were hunted down by a friend of the family. Little Harpe escaped temporarily, but Big Harpe was cornered and slowly shot to death. His head was cut off and placed in the crotch of a tree for a time. Then, it was packed in a barrel of blue Mississippi river bottom clay and sent up and down the river for victims of his crime to spit on and kick around like a pumpkin.
We Rock Islanders don't like to brag, but on the evil scale even a Capone or a Dilinger could do no better than a six measured against the Harpes.
Rock Island Lines with Roald Tweet is underwritten by Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.
