The Cave had been used for religious purposes, as a haven in time of distress, as an inn and as a decoy house for murder and robbery. Through the widely scattered references to it in early books of travel and in magazines and newspapers we find also occasional indications that it had been, at different times and for short periods, the workshop and headquarters of counterfeiters. There are, indeed, few details concerning its occupation by bandits and criminals of any description; this is the veil of mystery that shrouds it in enduring interest. The knowledge that distinct facts about definite crimes committed there can never be obtained has challenged the imagination of various writers. Facts about the counterfeiters who used it are much less in evidence than facts about those following other forms of crime; probably because counterfeiting must of necessity be more secret than other crimes.
There is nothing to indicate that any of the counterfeiters of Cave-in-Rock were guilty of robbery by force or of murder. The part they played in outlaw river life was in the purchase of goods from passing boats and the payment for these goods in counterfeit coin and currency. Not until it was too late would the receivers of such money discover they had been duped. For this reason the counterfeiters could not long use the Cave at one time. There were, as far as is known, only three counterfeiters identified with the Cave. Two of these were among the first lawbreakers to convert the place
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 into a workshop for a nefarious trade; the other was among the last of its outlaws.
Dr. Frederick Hall, who went up the Ohio in 1839, states in his Letters from the East and from the West that “this noted cavern is styled Counterfeiters’ Cave.” He further comments that “in times gone past, never to revert, it was inhabited by counterfeiters, robbers, and murderers.” Charles Augustus Murray, in his Travels in North America, writes of his trip down the Ohio in June, 1835. He says that the current report of the country at the time of his visit to the Cave, was that when this den of thieves was finally broken up “it contained great quantities of gold, silver, silks, and stuffs, and false money, with an apparatus for coining.”
It is not known what disposition was made of the coining tools and false money referred to by Murray. Nor is it known what became of any of the apparatus and illegal money left behind by the Cave’s other counterfeiters. The person who expresses the opinion that an “upper cave” exists, is likely to add that great quantities of good and bad money are hidden in the undiscovered cavern. The counterfeiters probably carried away all their coin and coining apparatus. The only trace of suggestive evidence preserved today indicating the former occupancy by counterfeiters is the half of a double die or mold which was found many years ago in the vicinity of the Cave. It has been cherished as a possible relic of the counterfeiting regime there.
 
Implements and Weapons used by the Outlaws
Counterfeiter’s mold, knife blade, iron tomahawk, and stone idol found in vicinity of Cave-in-Rock, and a flint-lock pistol of the style used about 1800
This die was seemingly hidden near the Cave by one of the men who had used it for the purpose of making counterfeit half-dollars and the large five-dollar gold pieces of those days. It is a double plate of iron four and three-quarter inches long and two and one-quarter inches wide, welded together. The upper plate is one-eighth
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 of an inch thick and in it are cut two discs, each being one and one-half inches in diameter and having a gap at the top, opening to a funnel shaped “feeder.” It is said that a particular local clay or some other suitable material was placed in the circle and into this pliable matrix the impression was made of one side of a genuine half-dollar, or of an old style five-dollar gold-piece, which was of about the same size. This formed, when hardened, a more or less durable mold for one side of the new coin. In like manner another mold was prepared in the other half of the coining apparatus for the other side of the counterfeit piece. The two parts of the mold were then placed in proper position and the hot metal poured into the cavity through the funnel-like opening. This process doubtless produced, as a rule, a more or less crude imitation, but since many of the genuine coins of an earlier date were somewhat crude and were still in circulation, the counterfeiters experienced comparatively little trouble in imitating the old pieces.
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 handsome in 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
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 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 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.”35
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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 improbable 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 Saline River (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 probable that some of the localities in which he lived no longer have any traditions regarding his activities there.
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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
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 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 black 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 farther 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 bulle............