Caseyville Ky. Page

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Caseyville, Ky. Page 1

" CASEY'S LANDING "

Caseyville, Kentucky

Union County Kentucky

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Caseyville , Kentucky is located in Union County 2 miles above the mouth of Tradewater River, and 12 1/2 miles south east of Morganfield Kentucky. It was Founded in 1826 or1827 by Nicholas Casey.

Nicholas Casey was born at Harrodsburg,he was the son of a pioneer named Peter Casey of the Revolutionary War.The town Caseyville, Kentucky was first called Casey's Landing. The Post Office was est. Aug 6 1838 John Casey was the Post Master..

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Page up-dated 10 / 12 / 00

Hello and welcome to all. I'm EZJ ( a nick name from ham radio)

I live in Western Ky. I want to say from the start of this that I'm new

at this and will most likely mess up alot on this page.(smile).

I also want to at this time to say that all pic and text info. I use on this page I have got from surfing and searching sites on the web and I don't know anything about copy right laws about using these pic. and text info. on this site. So with that said if anyone finds any pic.or text info. on this page that they have copy rights to and don't want them on this site PLEASE email me and I will remove it ASAP. This is a non-profit info. page about the town of Caseyville , Kentucky and I'm doing it in hopeing to save some history about this early American history town in Western Kentucky .

If you have copy-right laws to anything on any of my pages and want it removed Please E-Mail here : jwj55@hotmail.com

Next map is the Caseyville, Ky. Area 1862-1863

Next Map is by memory by

John W. Jones

1950's - 1970's

Click on map below for full view, then page up-down, left-right.

This is a large pic

Duff's Cave is a story about a Counterfieter name Duff ( could be John Duff ) that used CAVE IN ROCK and lived at Caseyville,Ky. (see text below)

Counterfieters at Cave-in-Rock: Duff and Alston By OTTO A. ROTHERT Outlaws of Cave-in-Rock (1924) — Among the early counterfeiters who made the Cave their headquarters for a time was Philip Alston, who looms large in the romance and gossip of the latter part of the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries. He was a gentleman by birth, education, and early association. He comes down to us a handsome figure and grand in manner, wearing broad-cloth, ruffles, and lace. He had an air of chivalry to women and of aloofness, superiority, and mystery to men. He was the "Raffles" of pioneer days and legend paints him in high colors. Alexander C. Finley, in his History of Russellville and Logan County, Kentucky - a unique publication from the standpoint of its style - says Philip Alston was driven out of the South and settled in Logan County about 1782. A few years later "his thirst for counterfeiting again returned." But "feeling insecure" Alston moved from place to place in western Kentucky. "About 1790 he crossed over the Ohio and became the fast friend and disciple of the notorious counterfeiter Sturdevant [Duff?] at the Cave-in-the-Rock. But he did not reside here for long before he came to himself and wondered how he, the gentlemanly Philip Alston, although an elegant counterfeiter, could have become the companion of outlaws, robbers and murderers... and so he returned to Natchez." [Footnote: Finley says Philip Alston was born in South Carolina and in early manhood became "a full grown counterfeiter." After living in Natchez and "attaining to the highest respectability ... his avaricious eye rested on a golden image of the Savior, in the Catholic Church, ... and he went immediately and counterfeited some coins from it." He fled from Natchez to Kentucky and settled in Logan County, where he established a salt works and store at Moat's Lick. While running these he managed the Cedar House, a tavern near Russellville. He also farmed, preached, and taught school, and incidentally "flooded the country with spurious money." Thus be became, "not only the first farmer, manufacturer, and exchange, but he established the first depot of exchange and the first bank, and also the first mint in western Kentucky." About 1788, "the whole people rose up in their majesty and banished him." He next appeared in Livingston and Henderson counties and then fled to Cave-in-Rock. After a short stay at the Cave he returned to Natchez where "he found his old enemies, who became his fast friends. He rose in the estimation of the Spaniards until he was appointed an empressidio of Mexico, when in the midst of his success and returning fortune death stepped in and sealed his fate." Finley, who never cites authorities, states that "Peter Alston, Philip Alston's youngest son, became an outlaw and robber, and joined Mason's band at Cave-in-the-Rock and was allied to the Harpes, and with one of the Harpes was executed at Washington, Mississippi ... for the killing of his chief, Mason, for the reward." No records have been found that contradict any of Finley's statements, except the one to the effect that Peter Alston killed Samuel Mason. Nancy Huston Banks in her novel 'Round Anvil Rock presents Philip Alston as a kind of mysterious gentleman who, although generally trusted by the community, is regarded by some with suspicion because of his frequent absences and ever-replenished supply of imported cloth, laces, and jewelry. In the novel Alston refers to Jean Laffite as "my respected and trusted friend," and admits that he, Alston, makes business trips to Duff's Fort, near Cave-in-Rock, although "it was no longer a secret that regular stations of outlawry were firmly established between Natchez on the one side and Duff's Fort on the other." [end footnote] It is quite likely that a counterfeiter named Duff had been making use of the Cave long before the time of Philip Alston's short stay at the place. He may be regarded as Cave-in-Rock's first outlaw. Neither history nor tradition has preserved Duff's Christian name. One version suggests that he may have been the John Duff who met George Rogers Clark on the Ohio, near Fort Massac in June, 1778, and who, after some bewilderment, showed General Clark the way to Kaskaskia. It is not improbably that the two were one and the same man. At any rate, very little is known of John Duff, the guide, or of Duff the coiner. Governor Reynolds in My Own Times and Collins, in his History of Kentucky devoted only a few lines to Duff, and these lines pertain to his death. The author of A History of Union County, Kentucky, prints some five pages on his career, based on traditions gathered in 1886. Duff apparently lived the latter part of his life in or near Cave-in-Rock and procured his lead and silver along the Saline River and in other sections of southern Illinois. He evidently operated a counterfeiter's den in different places. According to tradition, there were at least three places known as "Duff's Fort:" one was at Cave-in-Rock, another at Caseyville, Kentucky (near the mouth of Tradewater River, fourteen miles above the Cave) and a third in Illinois, at Island Ripple on the Saline, (thirteen miles above its mouth and about twenty-eight miles, via river to the Cave). Like all outlaws of his and other times, Duff was obliged to shift his headquarters. It is probably that some of the localities in which he lived no longer have any traditions regarding his activities there. In 1790, Philip Alston, as stated by Finley, fled to the Cave and became a "fast friend and disciple" of Duff. Collins, in his chapter on Crittenden County, Kentucky, says that Duff lived near the mouth of Tradewater River in 1799 and then, or shortly thereafter, was killed by Shawnee Indians and that "there was reason to believe some one residing at Fort Massac had employed the Indians to commit the crime." Governor Reynolds briefly states that Duff was killed "near Island Ripple in the Saline Creek, and was buried near the old salt spring," and that "it was supposed the Indians were hired to commit the murder." Just where he was killed cannot be ascertained with any certainty after a lapse of so many years. There are two or three coves or small caves on Saline below Island Ripple, each of which is known as Duff's Cave, and each has a local tradition to the effect that Duff was killed in it. The compiler of A History of Union County, Kentucky, is the only writer who has gathered any Duff traditions, and since he confined his research to the stories told in and near Caseyville, his life of this Cave-in-Rock outlaw does not branch into the many and varied claims made in local traditions of other sections. Nevertheless, his sketch of this pioneer and counterfeiter is one that might be accepted as typical of what would be found in the other localities in which Duff had made his headquarters. In sum and substance the story runs as follows: Duff lived in a house called "Duff's Fort," which stood near what later became the old site of the Christian Church in Caseyville. Here he dispensed a rude but cordial hospitality. On the bluff above was his meadow. The overhanging cliff near his house furnished a shelter for his horses. The shallow cove in which they stood is now almost filled with alluvial soil deposited by the little brook which flows near. His household consisted of his wife and a faithful slave named Pompey, who would risk anything or undergo any hardship for his master. It is said that Duff was a brave man and a good strategist; he was seldom found at a disadvantage. He often had narrow escapes in his encounters with the officers of the law and the people living in the vicinity. On one occasion, when he was closely pursued by his enemies, he ran towards his home. There he found his wife at the river doing the family washing. Near her was a large iron kettle, in which she was boiling clothes. Without hesitation Duff upset the kettle, rolled it into the stream, where it was quickly cooled, and lifting the kettle over his head, he plunged into the water. The river was low at this point, enabling him to wade most of the way to the further bank. Before he reached the Illinois shore, however, his pursuers appeared on the Kentucky side and opened fire. Their aim was well directed. Several of the bullets struck the kettle, but rebounded without injury to the man beneath. On reaching the dry land he took the kettle from his head. Holding it behind him as continued protection, he ran for safety. The pursuers increased their fire. More bullets rained upon the impromptu shield - but Duff escaped unhurt to the shelter of the woods. On another occasion when sorely pressed he took refuge with a Mrs. Hammack, who was an old-time Methodist living in that part of the country. She treated him so kindly that he decided to let her have a glimpse of his hidden treasurers. On the appointed day he blindfolded her and his wife and led them by a very circuitous route to a cave. After they were in the mysterious cave he removed the bandages from their eyes and, by the light of torches, the two women were enabled to see the large quantities of counterfeit silver and gold coins in boxes and chests stored by Duff. He then replaced the bandages and took the two women back to Mrs. Hammack's house. Mrs. Hammack's impression was that the cave ran into the side 0of a cliff but notwithstanding many efforts, she was never able to retrace her steps to the place; Mrs. Duff related, after her husband's death, that he had taken her from their home to the cave on another occasion and in the same manner. He then promised her that would some day show her the way to his cave, but explained at the time that he could not then do so, for his enemies might torture her into a disclosure of his location when he was in it. His intentions were frustrated by his sudden death. There are three different accounts of Duff's death given by local tradition. One version has it that he was killed by some of the citizens of the county, near the bluff where he quartered his horses. According to this account, a number of men were pursuing him and when he showed fight they were obliged to shoot him. Another says he was killed by Indians with whom he had quarreled about a dogfight. The following is the version most widely accepted: Duff, three of his associates, and his slave Pompey, while in Illinois securing white metal, were surprised by about six soldiers sent from Golconda, Illinois, or some other point below Cave-in-Rock. The counterfeiters were captured and taken down the river in a boat. Handcuffs were placed upon all the white prisoners. Pompey had not been manacled because the soldiers carried only four sets of irons and, furthermore, they presumed the negro cared little whether his master was doomed. Near the Cave-in-Rock they stopped for dinner. When they landed, all the soldiers went ashore except one who was left in charge of the prisoners in the boat. After stacking their arms near the boat, they went into the Cave to build a fire and prepare the meal. One of the prisoners whispered to Duff that he found he could slip his irons off. Pompey hearing this, passed a file to him and, taking advantage of the absence of the guard, who went ashore for few minutes, he filed away at Duff's fetters and soon succeeded in breaking them. At a signal, Pompey sprang upon the guard and tied him to a tree and then proceeded to liberate the two men chained in the boat. Duff and the other unfettered prisoner immediately seized the stacked arms and rushed upon the men in the Cave who, having no side arms, were forced to an unconditional surrender. Some of the soldiers were tied and other secured with irons and all thrown into the boat and set afloat. They drifted down the river and, as they were floating opposite the fort from which they had bee sent, they were ordered to stop, but of course could not do so. They were fired upon a number of times before the commander discovered their helpless condition. He then sent out a skiff and brought them ashore. In the meantime, Duff and his companions had made their way up the river to the Saline and had got safely home again. The inglorious outcome of this expedition greatly incensed the commander of the fort and he was determined upon revenge. He accordingly hired a Canadian and three Indians to go up the river to Duff's Fort and kill him. They were to ingratiate themselves into the good graces of the counterfeiter and watch their opportunity to kill him. If they succeeded they were to return and receive a reward. They arrived in Duff's neighborhood and camped below his house. The Canadian soon became friendly with Duff, who did not suspect the object of his presence, and was invited to his house. The genial hospitality of the counterfeiter was fatal to the Canadian's plan, and each day he found himself less inclined to carry out his murderous scheme. Meanwhile, the Indians were becoming impatient. One evening they informed the Canadian that they had concluded to kill Duff the next day, whether he helped or not. He then decided to put Duff upon his guard. The next morning, although Duff was drinking rather heavily, the Canadian disclosed the plot to him. Duff, seizing a stick, rushed from the house, swearing he would whip the Indians with it and drive them off. He met them coming towards his house, painted and armed for a conflict. Pompey, recognizing the danger his master was facing, rushed to him with a loaded gun, but before it could be used the Indians shot Duff and his slave. "The leader having fallen," says the author of A History of Union County, Kentucky, in concluding his account of Duff, "the rest of the gang were speedily dispersed." [Footnote: Duff secured metal from the veins of lead ore on the Saline and, as it contained a little silver, he separated the silver from the lead as best he could and made counterfeit coins. In the connection the author of A History of Union County, Kentucky, further comments: "The traditions of Duff's great wealth have acted upon many of the citizens of Caseyville much as the tales of Captain Kidd's plunder affected the inhabitants of Long Island. Youthful imaginations have been inflamed with thoughts of the fabulous wealth stored away in some cavern along the Caseyville cliffs. Many a ramble has turned into a search for the caves in that vicinity, but so far as the public knows, none of them has ever eventuated in any discoveries."[end footnote]

1830

Col. Plug

The Boat-Wreckers

(see text below )

The Boat-Wreckers—Or Banditti of the West (Rochester, N.Y.) Daily Advertiser (Jan. 29, 1830) — Subjoined is another of those vivid sketches by which the editor of the "Western (Cincinnati) Review" is illustrating the early history of the region in which he is located. We quote from the January number of the review-as follows:

COL. PLUG A northerner resident in the West sometimes feels his pride wounded, as he finds so few of the first famous residenters' to have been born north of the Hudson. I take pleasure in having it in my power, to redeem one memorable exception from oblivion. Traits of the horse, alligator and snapping turtle, are not exclusively western instincts, as I will make appear. Col. Fluger was born in the county of Rockingham, in New-Hampshire, and in a town, where they still call a kitchen a scullery. He had a slight at cards, and a knowing instinct in relation to watches and horses, almost from his babyhood. The boy, who wanted to be unburdened of his coppers, had only to play 'hustle,' or 'pitch-penny' with him. He was supposed to have a reverend dread of mortal hurts, but could 'lick' any boy of his size at fourteen. But being a youth of broad red cheeks, muscle and impudence, and withal, abundantly stored with small talk, from eighteen to twenty-one he was a decided favorite with the fair, and had had various love affairs, being reputed remarkably slippery in regard to the grace of perseverance. At twenty four he had mounted epaulettes, was a militia colonel, had a portentous red nose, and was in bad odour with all honest people. Soon afterwards, he went under lock and key for want of some one who would bail him for twenty dollars. The colonel, on his release, in a huff of unrequited patriotism, discovered, that the people had no taste for merit; and incontinently in his wrath abandoned his country, setting his face towards the western woods, which had just began to be a subject of discussion. Little is remembered of him on the upper waters of the Ohio; though it appears, that he attempted to 'lick' the contractor, who built a flat boat for him at Pittsburgh, because he insisted upon paying the man in rum, and other yankee notions, among which was a promissory slip of paper. Col. Fluger was soon made out to be remarkably 'cute,' even to a fault; and the people of that sharp dealing town were not unwilling to wash their hands of one, to whom it was both more agreeable, and more familiar, to bite, than be bitten. Flat boats had begun to descend the Ohio to New-Orleans in considerable numbers. But from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, was, for the most part, a vast, unpeopled wilderness. At Fort Massac, and thence to the Mississippi, on the north shore of the river, harbored a gang of those detestable villains, whose exploits were of such terrible notoriety in the early history of the navigation of this beautiful river. Numerous Kentucky broad-horns, generally with whiskey and provisions, and sometimes with cutlery and piece goods, were seen floating down the forests. They were manned by an unique people, tall, athletic, reckless, addicted to strange curses, and little afraid of thunder. Withal they loved a reasonable dram, were fond of playing cards, and were easily parted from their money. These honest fellows were the fowls, that he roues of Massac and Cash delighted to pluck. They would entice the broad horns to land, and play cards with the crew, and cheated them under the cotton wood shade. They would pilot their boats into a difficult place, or give them such directions from the shore, as would be sure to run them on a snag. Failing that, they would creep, like weasels, into the boats by night, while they were tied up to the willow, and bore a hole, or dig out the caulking on the bottom. When the crew found their boat sinking, these benevolent Cash boys were busily at hand, with their periougues and crafts, to snare the floating barrels and boxes. Rightly they named it 'plunder' in Kentucky parlance; for they rowed the saved goods up the Cash, and in the deep swamps next day no trace of them was to be seen. If one or two of the crew chanced to straggle away in pursuit of their lost cargo, they scrupled not to knock them in the head, shoot, of dirk them, and give them a nameless grave in the morasses. A volume of narratives of these boat-wreaking scoundrels might be collected. Nor will you ever float by Fort Massac, the House of Nature, or the mouth of Cash, with an old residenter for a companion, without learning hair-bristling stories of the knavery, cruelty, and murders of the villains of Cash. Col. Fluger floated to these wretches by the attraction of like to like. The faded scarlet and the tarnished yellow of his epaulettes, his red nose, his 'cuteness,' his strange curses, his utter recklessness, stood him instead of initiary 'grips.' He was one of them forthwith, in honor and trust; and in a month he was the Napoleon of the desperadoes of Cash. His slang-curses were ultra Kentuckian on a ground of yankee; and he had, says my informant, more of this 'than you could shake a stick at.' The fund of his real fighting courage was questionable; but he was improving in that hue; and for cunning and cruelty was an incarnate devil. Finding, that in that commonwealth, titles were not only not in demand, but matter of envy, he coifed his. To tall in with the laconic and forcible stile of his troop, who came over all appellatives by the shortest, he cut down his family name to Plug. Being, says my informant, of a delicate ear, and rich Booktionary lore, he undoubtedly thus condensed the name for its euphonic compactness. For night and secret work, Plug had a fleet of Bucksnatchers with chosen crews, to row up and down the river. Not a warehouse between Louisville and Cash had a lock, for which this gang had not a model key. The enormous bunch of black and rusty keys, shown at Dorfeuille's Museum, as having been found in the Ohio, near the House of Nature, undoubtedly belonged to the banditti of Col. Plug. We have no doubt, that they will here after be viewed with suitable reverence, as antique relic of no mean mystery and importance. Plug had his episode of love and marriage on this wise. A periougue load of French and Spanish traders were descending from St. Louis to New Madrid, where they resided. They landed on the point, nearly opposite the mouth of Cash, whether for hunting or divertissement, or for what object, does not appear. Plug, like his prototype, was roaming up and down, and to and fro, at the head of his gang. They came upon the camp-fire of the traders, as they had dined, drank their whiskey, and were taking their pipes, and reclining in the shade so paradisiacal reverie. These meek citizens cared as little to see Plug, as him of the deep sulphur domicile. They cleared out in their periougue in a twinkling. A Damsel of their number had wandered away some distance to gather pawpaws. The party intercepted, and made her prisoner. They found her a giantess in size, of varnished copper complexion, and evidently bearing the blood of at least three races mixed in her veins. But, though deserted by her friends, she neither wept, made verses, or betrayed fear, of surprise-not she. A real cosmopolite, Her march was o'er the fallen logs, Her home the forest shade. Her dialect was as fair a compound as Plug's though not very intelligible to him, being composed, in nearly equal proportions, of south of Europe, Negro and Indian. But love has its own language. She and the Colonel saw, loved and mutually conquered. The subordinates might envy; but who would contest the claims of Plug to the fair one? The sex and the relation of the quarteroon to her husband were designated by the same tact which cut down Fluger to Plug. She was thereafter known by the name Pluggy. Five miles up the Cash, on the verge of a vast swamp, surrounded by deep cane brakes, and inextricable tangle, was the log bower of these Arcadians. Some millions of unemployed musquetoes kept garrison in the swamp.-Bears, wolves and panthers were no strangers there; and moccasin snakes renewed their vernal skins at their leisure. But the inmates, as the Kentucky orator said, in this sublime state of retiracy among the abrogomes,' had their skins generally too full of the happifying water of life, to feel, other than an agreeable tickle, the nozzling of the proboscis of musquetoe; and had moccasin bitten them, it is a question, if the serpent had not been poisoned, instead of the bitten. Many a load of whiskey and flour, and many a box of piece goods had disappeared in this swamp, through which ran the Cash; and if fame be not egregiously a liar, many a boatman's body was disposed of, uncoffined, and in a nameless sepulchre; and here, no doubt, where deposited the avails of Dorfeuille's bunch of keys. Here bandit scenes transpired, which only needed Schiller's painting, to have been as famous as those of Venice or German.- In a few months Pluggy's renown rivaled that of her husband. Her height, fierceness and rough chin, and kind of long moss at the corners of her upper lip, not unlike mustachioes, often raised bantering questions among the banditti, in their cups, when the leader was absent, if he had not really taken a man, instead of a lady, tot he partnership of his abode. In fact, it had become a joke among them to affirm that Pluggy was a man in the dress of a squaw. In due time a little wailer Plug raised a lusty cry in the woods, being that the poor thing had not taken a musquetoe dose, and its skin had not yet acquired the habit of being bitten. Dr. Mitchell and others had not yet raised nice physiological distinctions; and this little one, in the rough cast reasonings of the gang, was deemed proof conclusive in regard to the sex. Their only domestic broil of public notoriety occurred some years afterwards. An intercourse, not altogether platonic, was suspected to be in progress between Pluggy and the second in command. The courage of the commander had waxed, by this time, to the sticking point. He called the lieutenant, known by the Sobriquet 'Nine-eyes,' to the field, or rather swamp of honor. 'Dern your soul.' Said he. 'do you think this sort of candlestick ammer (meaning, perhaps, clandestine amour) will pass" 'If you do, by gosh, I will put it to you or you shall to me.' They measured their ground, like two heroes, and there was no mistake in the affair, which was settled by rifles. Each carried in his flesh a round piece of lead, as a keepsake of the courage and close shooting of the other. Each became cool and even affectionate, admitting honorable satisfaction. 'You are grit,' aid be of Rockingham to Nine eyes. The other sore 'that his captain had deported, like a real Kentuck.' A little curly headed Plug attended, as a kind of bottle holder. He was directed to place a bottle of whiskey mid way between them. Each hopped, pari pasau, to the tune, one, two, three, &c. to the bottle. Over it they drank, embraced, and attested each other's honor. They must be by in dry dock awhile; but they comforted each other, that they were too well up to these things to be fazed by a little cold lead. It was understood, too, that Nine-eyes had been platonic and Pluggy immaculate; and the historian averreth, that his of undoubting opinion, that no duel hath been more creditable to the parties from that time to this. How many boats they robbed, how many murders committed, or abetted, it were bootless to think of compressing into our limits. The country began to settle. An officer, named a Sheriff, began to perambelate the country armed to the teeth, and bearing the sword not in vain. Boats, that stopped near Cash, were manned, and armed for resistance. Plug discerning the signs of the times, drew in his horns, mended the exterior of his manners, and saw the necessity of achieving by craft, what he had formerly carried, coup de main. The greatest success of the gang was in the line of gambling; and their main resource in piloting boats into dangerous places, and in general, acting the part of boat wreckers and moon cursers An occasional boat, feebly manned, sometimes feel into their power in a dark and stormy night. It went up the Cash; and in the morning neither plank, nor vestige nor crew was to be found. Ajax, Achilles and Napoleon had their reverse, and so had Plug. A Kentucky boat experienced some indignity, and was prepared for revenge, the next autumn. Five or six persons, well armed, landed above, and kept in sight of the boat, as they descended the woods with it. Their hands rowed the boat ashore at the mouth of Cash, where Plug and four associates were waiting, like spiders in ambush for flies. It was a sultry September afternoon, and the weather betokened an evening of storm and thunder. They were courteously invited to land; and were piloted up the Cash for the security of a harbor from the tempest. The three Kentuckians affected simplicity, and proposed a game of cards under the cotton wood shade. They were scarcely seated, and their money brought forth, before Plug whistled the signal for onset. But he reckoned this time without his host. The concealed reserve sprang to the aid of their friends, and the contest was soon decided. Three of Plug's company were thrown into the river, and at least one was drowned. All evaporated from their captain, as June clouds vanish before the sun.— Poor Col. Plug resisted to no purpose. They stripped him to his birthday suit, and thronged him so, that his arms, per force, embraced a sapling of the size of his body; and, for the rest, they fixed him as immovably, as if he had been in the stocks, as his epidermis was toughish, and parchment-like, they faithfully laid on the cowhide to mollify the leather of his back, to facilitate the operations of the musquetoes. These little musicians, by a spirit of concern, the secret of which is best known to themselves, issued forth, to the number of at least half a million, each emulous of reposing on some part of his flesh, and tasting his lymphatic. Not an arable spot of his body, of the size of a musquetoe, but bore one; and the industrious little leeches carried doubt and even triple, in the contest for precedence in experimenting his composition. As soon as one sped away with his sack sufficiently red, and distended, a hundred waited for his place. Plug chewed the cud of fancies altogether bitter, and wished himself lapping cream in his native scullery. He demed, and grunted, but could not move a muscle sufficiently to interrupt a single blood letter in his operations. They heeded his curses and writhing as little, as a sleeping parishioner is hay time does the fiery 'fifteenth' denunciation of his parson. Poor Pluggy in her lone bower knew, by the failure of the return party, that there was reason to snuff bad omens some where in the gale. She set forth to seek her beloved; one of the young Plugs in breeches and another in petticoats followed her steps. She trailed the party; and in half an hour came upon the vanquished one, running the christian race, steadfast and immovable. He embraced the tree, as in the most vehement affection, with is face towards it; and his naked body was one surface of musquetoes. She soon decyphered his position. But instead of incontinently cutting him loose, she clasped her hands theatrically, crying out, 'Yasu Chree! O mio carissiamo spese, what for, like one dem fool, you hug de tree, and let the marengoes suck up all your sweet blood!' If Plug cursed her unadvisedly let it be urged in extenuation, that his spirit was stirred in him, and any thing rather than complacent. Be that determined as it may, he cursed her most unconnubially, and bade her 'not to let on' any of her jaw, until she had cut him loose. Plug began him sons and daughters, and was in a fair way to have defrauded the gallows and die peaceably in his bower. But he was caught, eventually in a trap of his own springing. A boat had landed not far above Cash; and the crew were in the woods to shoot turkeys. A Mississippi squall was coming on. To equalize the danger, Plug was in the vacant boat, digging out the caulking at the bottom. While he was yet in the act, and the crew were running from the woods to get on board, the gale struck the boat from the shore, broke the fast, and drove it into the stream, with only Plug on board. The waves from above, lashed to fury, and the leak from below filled the boat, and it sunk. Plug had disengaged a barrel of whiskey, and too to his favorite resource, to enable him to gain the shore. But it rolled him off on one side, and then on the other. Plug drank water instead of whiskey, which he would have preferred. His sins came up in terrible array, and his heart beat quick and pantingly. In short he found a watery grave. Thus fell the last of the boat wreckers.

Mike, a storyteller from Rochester, found and passed on this article about Plug. Thank you. The House of Nature referred twice in the story is another name for Cave-in-Rock, another haunt for pirates. The spelling is as in the original.