Note 35 — Coiners at the Cave

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 he became, “not only the first farmer, manufacturer, and merchant, 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 empresidio 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 but 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 Lafitte as “my resepected 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.”