The Digital Yoknapatawpha Project

These two categories represent the kinds of white men who have been confined in the jail: occasional lawbreakers who are easily detained by "a single wooden bar in slots across the outside of the door like on a corn crib" (202).

This bandit, part of the gang that is brought to the settlement, is said to have claimed the sergeant who commanded the militia unit that captured him was "a former follower of his, the bandit's, trade" (201).

The sergeant who commanded the militia unit that captured the outlaw gang was reported by some to have "recognized one of the bandits as a deserter from his corps" - and reportedly himself recognized by "one of the bandits" as "a former follower of his, the bandit's trade" (201).

At mid-20th century, Jefferson members of "Rotary and Lions Clubs and Chambers of Commerce and City Beautifuls" (201) strongly advocate building development and economic growth of their town. These "Jefferson city fathers" (206) seek to solve problems differing greatly from those dealt with by the story's earliest settlers.

This group had "been part of a general muster at the settlement two days ago for a Fourth of July barbeque" (201). Like stereotypical frontiersmen, they are soon "ejected" from town for their "drunken brawling" (201). After running into and capturing a gang of bandits, they return to the settlement in hopes of claiming a reward; instead, they are eventually locked up with the outlaws they had captured.

John Murrell and his "organization" were criminals who worked the Mississippi River area of the South between about 1825 and his capture in 1834. As the story's narrator points out, Murrell's activity at this period makes him a more likely historical figure to associate with the unnamed bandits of "A Name for the City" than the Harpes or Samuel Mason.

Led by Samuel Ross Mason, a militia captain during the Revolutionary War, "Mason's ruffians" were a gang of river pirates and highwaymen who operated in the Mississippi Valley frontier in the late 18th century. The narrator of "A Name for the City" rejects the idea that the unnamed bandits who were briefly held in the settlement jail were part of this gang.

During the late 18th century the two Harpe brothers - "Big" and "Little" - were notorious for their many crimes in the area of the frontier that included northern Mississippi: it is possible that they killed as many as fifty people before they were separately executed in 1799 and 1804. The narrator of "A Name for the City" rejects the idea that the Harpes were the unnamed bandits who were held briefly in the settlement jail.

These men are "a gang - three or four - of Natchez Trace bandits" captured in the woods and confined in the settlement jail just long enough to stage an escape that adds a kind of shine to their image (201). Local rumor suggests they may be associated with such historically famous bandits as the Harpes or Mason or Murrell, but the narrator seems to believe they were simply part of the "fraternity of rapine" that was a common element on the frontier (201).

During the time covered by the story, the white settlement that becomes Jefferson is occupied, first, by two men and a boy who are given names by the narrator and their own character entries in our database. This entry represents the next two generations or at least phases of inhabitants, which can called pioneers and settlers.