On this date in 1804, two known as John Setton/Sutton and James May were hanged at Greenville, Mississippi. They were, in fact, Wiley “Little” Harpe and his outlaw partner Peter Alston — the survivors (well, up until then) of a notorious gang of Mississippi River pirates and frontier highwaymen. Their villainous coterie had plagued the Mississippi (river) and the proximate byways from Kentucky down to Mississippi (state), making a couple of spots on the great river legendary pirate hideouts in the process. With a bounty of the notorious leader Samuel Mason, “Sutton” and “May” coldly murdered their captain to turn...
