Category Archives: Hatfield-McCoy Feud

Feudist Jim McCoy (1929)

29 Wednesday Jan 2025

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Jas. McCoy, Old Feudist Leader, Dies

At Four Score Years Old, Warrior Dies with Boots Off at Pikeville Home

Last of McCoy Clan who Long Fought the Hatfields

“James McCoy, 80, the last of the men who were actively engaged in the Hatfield-McCoy feud about forty years ago, passed away last Friday in Pikeville at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Stoney Amick. But one other member of the older family survives him, Mrs. Fannie Charles of Williamson.

“The Hatfield-McCoy feud was one of the most noted struggles of the mountains in the last century. And of all the men on the McCoy side one could scarcely pick a more picturesque one than James McCoy.

“Soon after the fighting started and the two families became warring factions, all over an election dispute, James McCoy was made deputy sheriff of Pike county. Acting in this capacity he, at one time, arrested some of the Hatfield family and brought them to Pikeville for trial. In most every encounter he was usually found fighting for his family, and the Hatfields learned to fear the name of James McCoy.

“But the years have wiped out the hatred that once existed, the warring families having been induced to settle their differences some twenty-five years ago by a mountain preacher.

“For a long time Mr. McCoy has made his home with Mr. and Mrs. Stoney Amick in Pikeville. About a year ago he became ill with a sickness that, at his age, proved too serious and he died last Friday. The funeral services were held in the Presbyterian church last Saturday afternoon and the body was taken to Catlettsburg where he is now sleeping beside his wife, who passed away a number of years ago.

“A number of children survive him; Mrs. Stoney Amick of Pikeville, Mrs. Crit Weddington of Mossy Bottom, Byrd Gilliam of Huntington, Mrs. Raymond Daugherty of Detroit, Mich., Miss Dollie McCoy of Huntington, W.Va., Mrs. M.A. Dunlap of New York City, and Mr. Finnie McCoy of Douglas. Three other children have preceded Jim in death.

Source: Logan (WV) Banner reprinted from the Pike County (KY) News, 20 September 1929.

***

‘Cap’ Hatfield Speaks Kindly of Late Jim McCoy

Denies, However, That Decedent was Formidable Figure in the Feud, Thus Taking Issue with Obituary Writers

“‘Neither fear nor hatred ever ran strong in the Hatfields for the late Jim McCoy,’ declared ‘Cap’ Hatfield while here Wednesday. His statement was made to a Banner reporter when the subject of the recent death of the McCoy feudist was mentioned.

“According to Cap, who is credited with knowing more about the Hatfield-McCoy troubles than anyone else, living or dead, by reason of his leading part therein and of his amazing memory, Jim McCoy was among the least active of the recognized adherents of that clan. It is not believed that he killed any of the Hatfields or their supporters.

“Cap further stated that those of the Hatfield clan never felt particularly hostile to Jim McCoy and he mentioned the fact that when Tennis Hatfield had occasion to visit Pikeville, Ky., a year or more ago, he and Jim fraternized and even posed together for a picture. ‘I had long intended,’ continued Cap, ‘to ask and urge Jim McCoy to come over and visit me. Had he come I would have done my best to be considerate and hospitable. Jim did nothing against us that caused us to harbor hatred for him; he did only what was natural for him to do under the circumstances. But I insist the Hatfields did not fear him, nor did they consider him among the more dangerous men on the McCoy side. Frank Phillips, of course, was the outstanding gunfighter of the McCoy side.’

“Jim McCoy, son of Randall, who was commonly credited with leadership of the McCoy forces, died at his home in Pikeville, August 30. He was 80 years old.

“Perhaps it should be added that contrary to the statement widely published immediately after his death, Jim was not the last survivor of his clan’s feud fighters. Lark McCoy, who was more active as a feudist, is still living. It is said that both he and Jim were in the attacking party when Jim Vance was killed on Thacker mountain and when ‘Cap’ narrowly escaped death or capture.”

Source: Logan (WV) Banner, 20 September 1929.

Ran’l McCoy’s Final Months (1914)

02 Monday Oct 2023

Posted by in Cemeteries, Civil War, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Pikeville

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Oral history relating to Randolph “Ran’l” McCoy’s final years is scant. Most historians rely upon Truda Williams McCoy’s book The McCoys: Their Story (1976) for information about his life. Here are a few news items which may in some part be reliable that provides more information about Ran’l and his final months of life.

Randolph McCoy Falls into Fireplace (January 10, 1914)

“Randall McCoy, who was a leader in the McCoy-Hatfield feud, at Pikeville, Ky., thirty years ago, fell into an open fireplace yesterday [Jan. 9] and before he could be removed he was fatally burned.”

Norwich (CT) Bulletin, 10 January 1914; “Aged Feudist Dies,” Dakota Farmers’ Leader (Canton, SD), 16 January 1914. The Leader says, “McCoy was 86 years old.”

Randolph McCoy Falls into Fireplace (January 16, 1914)

“Uncle Randall McCoy, an aged man, fell backward into the fire at the home of his grandson, Melvin McCoy, on Herald’s Branch last Friday morning [Jan. 9], and before help could reach him he was badly burned. On account of his enfeebled condition he was unable to remove himself from the flames.”

“Aged Man Burns,” Big Sandy News (Louisa, KY), 16 January 1914

Randolph McCoy Died (March 28, 1914)

Randolph McCoy died on March 28, 1914. Thomas Dotson, who was born and raised among feudists on Blackberry Creek, writes that he did not know anyone who attended Ran’l’s funeral, adding that Elias M. Hatfield knew the correct location of his grave. Ran’l’s grave remained marked with a rock for numerous decades after his death.

Thomas Dotson, The Missing McCoys, p. 28.

Randolph McCoy Obituary (March 31, 1914)

“Pikeville, Ky., March 31.—This village ‘turned out’ today to pay a tribute to Randolph McCoy, the famous feud leader, who lies dead at his home on Blackberry Creek. He was burned last fall and never recovered from the accident. ‘Ran’ McCoy, a generation ago, was a leader in the Hatfield-McCoy feud that kept the hill clans in Breathitt county, Ky., in turmoil for a dozen years. The trouble began in the early sixties, when James Vance, a marriage relative of ‘Bad Anse’ Hatfield shot and killed Harmon McCoy, a brother of ‘Ran.’ The feud was revived when one of ‘Bad Anse’s’ sons, Johnson Hatfield, eloped with one of ‘Ran’ McCoy’s daughters. ‘Ran’ said in 1907, at his mountain home in Blackberry Creek, near Pikeville, that he was ninety-six, that three of his children had been killed in the feud, two of them in 1887, and that he had killed six of his enemies, in different combats. It was estimated at that time that forty persons had been killed and more than 100 injured in the forty years that the two clans had been at war. ‘Things aren’t what they used to be,’ he said, as he greeted several of his old Hatfield foes at his birthday celebration. ‘Think of a Hatfield coming up to my front door, unarmed, walking straight in, and me a-shaking hands with him. I remember the time when I’d have got him a quarter of a mile away, or he’d have got me.’ ‘Ran’ McCoy, in 1897, led a sheriff’s posse into the Tug river wilds in search of ‘Cap.’ Hatfield who had chopped his way out of the county jail with an axe, but Hatfield got away from the posse. ‘Ran’ was shot twice, at different times, but he bore what the mountaineers called a ‘charmed life.’ One of his daughters went crazy after her brother and sister were killed in 1887.”

“Feudist Dies Natural Death: He Kept Kentucky Hill Clans in Turmoil for Years—Notorious Outlaw Lived 103 Years,” The Union (SC) Times, 3 April 1914.

Randolph McCoy Obituary (April 3, 1914)

“Uncle Randall McCoy, one of the oldest citizens of Pike county, and a participant and leader in the Hatfield-McCoy feud which brought a reign of terror to Eastern Kentucky thirty years ago, died at the home of his grandson, Melvin McCoy, on Herald’s branch, last Saturday morning from the effects of injuries he received by falling backward into an open fire place last autumn. Funeral and interment were held Sunday afternoon at the Dils cemetery across the river. At his death Mr. McCoy was 89, and he was a conspicuous figure in the most noted feud in the history of Kentucky. On New Year’s night, twenty-seven years ago, the Hatfields made an attack on his home, and in a bloody battle one of his daughters and two sons were killed. His home was also burned to the ground. But he pursued his enemies with relentless courage, and after depleting their rank he drove the remainder of them either from the state or into hiding. At the close of the bloody war he removed with his family to Pikeville, and lived here until the time of his death.”

“Randall McCoy Died at 89,” Big Sandy News (Louisa, KY), 3 April 1914

Randolph McCoy Obituary (April 3, 1914)

“Pikeville, Ky.—Randall McCoy, nonagenarian and leader in the famous McCoy-Hatfield feud, died Saturday at the home of his grandson here of burns received last fall. Twenty-seven years ago Randall McCoy’s home was burned New Year’s night and one daughter and two sons killed by the Hatfield clan. He lost two brothers in a subsequent fight, but pursued the feud so relentlessly that he eventually forced his enemies into hiding or out of the state.”

“Noted Feudist Leader Passes,” Montpelier (ID) Examiner, 3 April 1914.

Randolph McCoy Obituary (April 3, 1914)

“Randolph McCoy, nonagenarian and leader in the famous McCoy-Hatfield feud, died at the home of his grandson at Pikeville, Ky., of burns received last fall.”

The Ely (MN) Miner, 3 April 1914; Audubon (IA) Republican, 9 April 1914; The Kadoka (SD) Press, 10 April 1914.

NOTE: This post will be edited and expanded as time permits.

Interview of Dr. Leonard Roberts, Part 3 (Summer 1982)

29 Friday Sep 2023

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Truda Williams McCoy’s The McCoys: Their Story (1976) is a classic book about the Hatfield-McCoy Feud. Truda, a McCoy descendant born in 1902 who married a grandson of Ran’l McCoy, collected her stories directly from feud participants and close family members prior to and during the 1930s. Truda was unable to publish her manuscript, but after her death in 1974 Dr. Leonard W. Roberts located and edited the manuscript, then published it through Preservation Council Press. In this 1982 interview, Dr. Roberts contemplates general issues about the feud:

Was the Hatfield-McCoy Feud one in which more people were killed?

I suppose there were fewer people killed in this feud than say some others, although we don’t have any documentation of that one. But the number killed runs anywhere from 20 to 75, let’s say, Hatfields and McCoys. Some of the elements in this fight might be noted. Notice the first time there was some fighting was over a hog that had pigs and the owner Randolph McCoy had marked his ears with a mark. He found those in a pen of a Hatfield. Now rather than pulling a gun—guns on each other—they weren’t that savage, all they wanted was law to take its course. Randolph simply went to the magistrate of the district and brought out a warrant against Floyd Hatfield for the return of his hogs. The old sow had had pigs, you see, by this time. And what happened? The magistrate was a Hatfield. And he knew it. Yet he thought that everybody would play fair and square. We had just come out of the Civil War. We were righting wrongs. They were going to, if they were ever going to. And it seemed they wanted law and order to take over. But it didn’t hardly take over in this case. The fellow Hatfield [presumably, he means Preacher Anse] who brought the trial decided on a jury. Rather than just have two or three testify here or there and let him then make the decision himself, he called in twelve jurors. And then they started voting. And they came out 7 to 5 in favor of Hatfield to keep the hogs.

What should we really remember about the feud? How is it important to us today?

Well that it was simply honest men and women living in a kind of rough and tumble era, especially just after the Civil War when emotions and values were pretty badly mocked and pretty badly thrown aside. But remember that some people including Hatfields and McCoys tried to see that law was established again. Rather than simply running amuck as they had done in small groups, robbing and killing. Remember the Civil War and the conditions of the times. Coming out of the war was this idea of posse or idea of organizing a group. It was almost as if any time there was a fight going between one man and another, pretty soon he was backed by fifteen or twenty men that he’d drawn in, either through persuasion or through kinship or access to mercenary ways—they offered him a piece of land or help him build his home or something of that kind to come in and fight—and so it developed in some cases into a kind of mercenary situation. But let’s remember that there weren’t too many actually killed and eventually the governors began to try to stop it and almost got in a war themselves. Finally threw the thing in the courts and even the Supreme Court made a decision about what states could do and what they couldn’t do in handling and controlling their citizens. So law and order did begin to develop. And of course we began to have the recovery of America after the Civil War. Timber. Lots of fuel and coal, things of this kind. So pretty soon, business began to boom in the mountains where there was plenty of timber, plenty of coal, plenty of resources. And so by 1900 the thing had sort of drifted over. And nowadays when you go into the area, here’s a McCoy that’s married to a Hatfield, Hatfield married to a McCoy, and down and down the line. And unless you name it to them they have forgotten about anything like a feud.

Is there anything else you would want someone to know about the story?

Well, I guess it’s generally unknown or understood that Hatfields and McCoys are simply decent, honest, migratory people who had come into the mountains from their areas back in the east and eventually further back, you know, in Scotland and Ireland. And they settled here in the mountains and they began to pick up land in the legal and rightful ways and establish their families. And actually the first decade or the first generation, they’d married within one another. They’d lived on the West Virginia side at the time and then later on the Kentucky side. What drove a wedge between them probably was not the Civil War alone but notice what the Civil War produced. It produced a separation of Virginia from West Virginia. Now how would you feel if you were fighting for your mother country living across here on the Tug River side and all at once you were, you became another state that was with the Union? So the people was thrown into kind of a quandary. The Hatfields on the West Virginia side were largely Southern because they were for the South and their mother country immediately was changed for the North. And so they were trying to live a decent life going along with the Southerners and here these people just across the river accusing them of course of rebellion and joining and fighting against the Union. That’s one big thing that we might leave out, the historical patterns and problems that developed pretty fast on the frontier here.

Interview of Dr. Leonard Roberts, Part 2 (Summer 1982)

28 Thursday Sep 2023

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Truda Williams McCoy’s The McCoys: Their Story (1976) is a classic book about the Hatfield-McCoy Feud. Truda, a McCoy descendant born in 1902 who married a grandson of Ran’l McCoy, collected her stories directly from feud participants and close family members prior to and during the 1930s. Truda was unable to publish her manuscript, but after her death in 1974 Dr. Leonard W. Roberts located and edited the manuscript, then published it through Preservation Council Press. In this 1982 interview, Dr. Roberts recollects the story of Squirrel Huntin’ Sam McCoy and contemplates bigger questions about the feud:

Did Squirrel Huntin’ Sam McCoy ever kill anyone?

He doesn’t say that he did in his manuscript. He says that he protected people. Now outside of the manuscript, he tells a story to his grandson who was visiting that “Yes, I did kill a man. It’s not in my manuscript. I just skipped it. I didn’t like to have it in there.” Or something like that. But when he and his brother Paris were out hunting they ran into one of the Ellison [Bill Staton] boys—I can’t think of the name right quick—ran into one of the boys that was on the other side most of the time. And this boy began to shoot and pretty soon he and Paris had been shot through and had fallen to the ground and—what was his name—Ellison [Bill Staton] was on top and was trying to twist this fellow’s head off or something like that and Squirrel Huntin’ Sam said, “I saw then I just had to shoot.” And he got up and shot and killed him. But then in telling this story, he said, “The reason I don’t tell this story much, I dread that it happened.” And you ask him why and he’d say, “Well, when we went up there to him, my enemy’s gun was already empty.”

Why did this feud get such nationwide attention?

Well, about three or four things there that maybe I can’t think of… One at a time. Let’s start out with the, let’s say problems with the Civil War. It’s a long story, but one of Randolph McCoy’s brothers had gone into the army on the Union side in the State of Kentucky. Went and fought in Kentucky down around Lexington and central Kentucky. Got discharged. Come back home. By that time the rebels had been organizing posses and groups to patrol the whole situation. So they’d heard that Harmon—this was the person’s name—had come back home. Been out fighting for the Union. Now he’s come back home. So they traced him down. And it seems that he stayed with his family only one night after two years in the war until he was shot at. Nobody could go out and get wood or water. Why, they’d be shot at. So he slipped out after midnight and went to the little cave back on the hillside. Well, by then, by the time he escaped it had been snowing a bit. So this posse who had come after him traced him in the snow and found him back in that cave, dragged him out, and killed him. The war was going on then. And everybody was away from home fighting on one side the other. And that sort of didn’t take hold, didn’t cause any hard feelings, until they all came back. And then it was understood that Harmon’s—he had four sons and two daughters—the four sons seem to have sworn that they would avenge their father’s murder now or sometime else. So they started to look for the enemy and continued looking for almost twenty years almost before it broke out into fighting.

How does this feud compare to the other feuds?

When you read about… Now we’re beginning to study Appalachia really in some depth and we find out that there were probably two hundred small or large blood feuds that happened before the war, you know, fighting over which ones are going and why you’re going, during the war when the posses and the bushwhackers began to come in, and then as soon as it settled down and the South was whipped, we might say, or worsted, and they came back, those soldiers came back and began to try and establish their names, the first thing they’d try to do is run for office and then they would hear sharp criticism about what they did and how they fought for the enemy and how they were beaten and so forth. And so the feuds began to erupt soon after the Civil War all up and down the Mississippi, Ohio, and up and down the mountains and rivers and so forth of the middle area. See, we’re talking about the buffer area here. When the Civil War was going on was between Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, those are buffer states that goes between North and South.

Interview of Dr. Leonard W. Roberts, Part 1 (Summer 1982)

27 Wednesday Sep 2023

Posted by in Big Sandy Valley, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Pikeville

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Truda Williams McCoy’s The McCoys: Their Story (1976) is a classic book about the Hatfield-McCoy Feud. Truda, a McCoy descendant born in 1902 who married a grandson of Ran’l McCoy, collected her stories directly from feud participants and close family members prior to and during the 1930s. Truda was unable to publish her manuscript, but after her death in 1974 Dr. Leonard W. Roberts located and edited the manuscript, then published it through Preservation Council Press. In this 1982 interview, Dr. Roberts recollects the story behind the book and how it led him to find another manuscript written by Squirrel Huntin’ Sam McCoy:

How did you get involved in Hatfield-McCoy research?

Well, if you want me to come right down to a fine point, it happened one spring when we were putting on a little program of art exhibitions and so forth in the little park of Pikeville, near Pikeville College, where I taught. And the leader of the arts and crafts just happened to be talking you know about how he would get up and steer the county and this sort of thing and finally he said something like, “We’d like to name this road from here to Williamson, West Virginia, the Hatfield-McCoy Highway, but we don’t know much about the Hatfields and McCoys. It’s just largely hearsay.” Well almost before he snapped off, a woman called him and said, “Wait a minute now, why my mother (which most people know was a poet) wrote a pretty good history of the feud, but she sent it off and she couldn’t get it published so she willed it to my brother and he has it in his trunk right now.” Well that liked to bowled a man over. We didn’t expect that sort of windfall. So I was on the group… I was secretary, actually. And as secretary, I got to go and hunt this person and she let me have a copy of this manuscript and I was reading it before we heard from the owner who began to object by saying he “hadn’t give permission for her to give that to you.” And so after a good bit of wrangling and so forth I finally got to read the manuscript. And it was an excellent almost unheard of story of the Hatfield-McCoy Feud. Because she had been a teacher. Truda McCoy was her name. And she had walked all over Pike County teaching and that sort of thing and interviewing people in the ‘30s. And built up a manuscript of four or five hundred pages. And there it was.

It reads almost like fiction with dialect and all. You edited this book. How much did you change it?

How much did I change it? I changed it so little that you can’t tell it really. As the editor said in the preface, Leonard has taken this material and seemingly has done a good job but we can’t see his tracks anywhere. I simply touched it here and there in a matter of maybe a word or something of this kind and that’s all that I did for it. And since it’s the first story written especially with the viewpoint of the McCoys, the only one that we have, alongside numbers of books by the Hatfields, this turns out to be probably the best history now and probably the best history we will ever have of the Hatfield-McCoy Feud entirely. She didn’t just talk about the McCoys. She showed the compassion and so forth of the Hatfields in the story, too.

How important was her documentation of where she found the stories?

Well, she knew that… Since she was trying to sell it apparently as documentary material, she footnoted it herself. Her material. I think that certainly is what saved the book and made it authentic. Because she, in the early thirties and even before that, had interviewed people still alive who knew about the feud and even had been in the feud, had fought and died and sweated in the feud. And she put those names, well she footnoted the original manuscript. I simply left it out to some extent and put them in separate statements below the end of chapters. So it seems an authentic book by having those documented there by the McCoys and Hatfields themselves.

Why were the people willing to talk to her?

That was the key to the entire thing because after the feud was over and everybody had been killed off that was going to be killed off the thing settled down into kind of a limbo. The Hatfields had been put away pretty well, you see, in the novels and books that had been written about them. But the McCoys had not had that much publicity and most of it seemed bad so they simply did not talk about the feud. Didn’t want to talk about the feud. And I’ve met people who still won’t talk about the feud. But some few that I got the names of from Mrs. McCoy’s book and from inquiring, while I was at their home they did let me hear from them. And especially when they showed me McCoy artifacts that they had. And them show me pictures on the wall that had been taken back during the time. And so you see the pictures are quite authentic and valuable too that fill the book.

What are the feelings today about the feud?

Well now that we have heard from the McCoys and they have taken… When this book came out, some McCoys maybe didn’t want to buy it. But when it caught on, you might say, we began to get orders from all over the United States from both Hatfields and McCoys, and in-laws and so forth, saying they were kin to the Hatfields and McCoys. So it seems except for rare exceptions the McCoys have simply gone ahead and accepted the story and accepted the material. And some have been willing to offer their information fairly freely. After the book came out, I’ve been able to collect a good bit of stuff, including the old Squirrel Huntin’ Sam McCoy manuscript that I found with another McCoy: Orville McCoy.

Does he talk about the feud?

Squirrel Huntin’ Sam McCoy was in the feud. And here’s the only person I’ve heard from on either side that really can tell almost all of the feud. So he fled under attack as late as 1910 from people who was still picking at him and went West. And when he settled out at Joplin… He first went all around the United States. But he settled in Joplin. And there in 1931… He got a little tablet, a schoolroom tablet, and he started writing and putting chapters and verses and subject matter of the heading and he was writing an epic. Wrote page after page, handwriting. And he condensed it. And he told a pretty good story in 52 pages of manuscript. And Orville McCoy had that and was willing, after the other book had come out and after he had learned me and came and visited me, and I promised him of course them royalties, that I was able to put together the Squirrel Huntin’ Sam McCoy manuscript.

Anderson Blair Account with William A. Dempsey (1854-1855)

05 Monday Dec 2022

Posted by in Big Sandy Valley, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Timber

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On June 15, 1854, William Staton was paid $2.00. On October 10, 1854, Valentine Hatfield was paid $1.25. On April 4, 1855, Thomas McCoy was paid $4.00 for running timber. Logan County, Virginia, now Mingo County, West Virginia.

Hatfield Pioneers by Coleman A. Hatfield (1952)

14 Monday Nov 2022

Posted by in Big Sandy Valley, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Matewan

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Here is an excerpt of Hatfield Pioneers composed by Coleman A. Hatfield, grandson of Devil Anse Hatfield. It was published in 1952.

Orville McCoy Recalls “Squirrel Huntin'” Sam McCoy (1990)

22 Friday Apr 2022

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On July 24, 1990, scholar Rebecca Bailey interviewed Orville McCoy (b.1922) of Raccoon Creek, Kentucky. What follows here is an excerpt of Mr. McCoy’s memories of his grandfather “Squirrel Huntin'” Sam McCoy and his book.

RB: Okay. What kind of stories did you hear about the feud when you were growing up?

OM: Well, about such materials you’ll find in my book. I recorded just about everything I knew about it.

RB: Do you know how your grandfather came to write his manuscript?

OM: Yes, he wrote in the year, I believe it was, 1931 while he was in St. Louis, Missouri. We all also got that information recorded in the book.

RB: How come him to be in St. Louis? Do you know?

OM: Well, he went west in the year about nineteen and ten and I think he first went to California and then back to Kansas and…and then to St. Louis.

RB: Did he take his wife and children with him?

OM: Yes. He took his whole family except my dad. He was the only one stayed here at Racoon.

RB: Was he the oldest? Is that why he stayed?

OM: No, he wasn’t the oldest. Yeah. I guess he was the oldest. He was the only child by him and his first wife, America Goff.

RB: Did she die or did they divorce?

OM: Well, yeah. She died young.

RB: How old was your father when his father left to go out west?

OM: That would be pretty hard for me to figure, I don’t bet. You could go to my book and deduct and subtract a little there and come up with an answer.

RB: He was probably a young man, though, because he had twelve children by the time you were born so he was probably a young man and married.

OM: Yeah. I’d say he should have been around thirty, something like that.

RB: Did your father remember any of the events of the feud or hear about them?

OM: No, he couldn’t remember any of the incidents, I don’t think except what was told to him.

RB: Alright. Do you have much contact with any of your McCoy cousins?

OM: Oh, yeah. I correspond with them. I got some in Kansas. Joshua Tree, California, and Tacoma, Washington, Remington, Washington, Pennsylvania.

RB: We were talking off tape. You said that a lot of McCoys didn’t stay in this area.

OM: No, they was quite a few of them went out west.

RB: Did they go looking for work or…?

OM: I guess they was seeking adventure.

RB: How did you come to have the manuscript that “Squirrel Huntin'” Sam wrote?

OM: Well, I obtained it from Sam when he was out here to pay us a visit in 1937.

RB: What kind of person was he?

OM: Oh, he was quite a tall man. About six foot or better.

RB: What do you remember about him?

OM: Well, when he visited us, he came out here to visit us about three times in the thirties. First come in ’36. ’38. Maybe ’39. He died in ’40. They shipped him back here.

RB: Do you know where he’s buried?

OM: Yeah.

RB: Where’s he buried?

OM: He’s buried in Collins Cemetery in the head of Frozen Creek.

RB: Okay. Were you always interested as a child in in your family history?

OM: Well, not in the early years. I always held on to that book though and preserved it. I guess I was around fifty-eight years when I let them publish it.

RB: Would you tell me on tape again who published it for you?

OM: Dr. Leonard Roberts of Pikeville College.

RB: Why was he interested in it? Do you know?

OM: Dr. Roberts?

RB: Un-huh.

OM: Well, he was working for the college and that’s how he… Well, it benefited the college, you know, doing Appalachian study centers, they called it. He published books and so on for them.

Tom Chafin Recalls Story of Ellison Hatfield’s Killing (1989)

21 Thursday Apr 2022

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On June 21, 1989, scholar John Hennen interviewed Tom Chafin (1911-1997) of Williamson, West Virginia. What follows here is an excerpt of Mr. Chafin’s story about the death of his grandfather Ellison Hatfield in 1882 and other general memories of the Hatfield family.

JH: Okay, let’s go ahead and just follow that line. Tell me about Ellison Hatfield. And of course Ellison Hatfield was one of the participants in the early days of the so called Hatfield and McCoy feud.

TC: He’s the one that the McCoys killed. Uh, he lived up Mate Creek at the mouth of a hollow they call Double Camp Holler. He came down to Matewan here and got with some of his friends and they had a saloon here. It was called a saloon then, not the liquor store like we call it.

JH: Do you have any idea where that saloon was?

TC: Uh…the saloon was close to where the liquor store is now.

JH: Okay.

TC: I’m…I’m sure it was in the same building. That’s the Buskirk building. And he got with some of his friends and they got to drinking and was a having an election across the river in Pike County, Kentucky. Just across the river here. And he said to them said, some of his friends said, “Let’s go over and see how the elections goin’,” and when they got over there, they got into it with them and he was cut all to pieces with knives. He didn’t die in Kentucky. They loaded him up and hauled him back in a wagon. They hauled him back through the river up here at the upper end of Matewan and took him to Warm Holler. Now this is Warm Holler straight across from the bank on the right goin’ down there. You go across the railroad tracks. Uncle Anse Ferrell lived there. That was Ellison’s uncle. Uncle Anse Ferrell lived there in a big old log house. And they took Ellison there to his house that evening and he stayed there all that evening, all that night, and all day the next day and died the next evening. Just about dark. But in the mean time now, the Hatfields captured the three McCoy boys that they said did the killin’ of Ellison. Cuttin’ him up with knives. They captured them and took them up to a place they call North Matewan just out of Matewan here. They had and old school house there at the mouth of Rutherford Hollow. And they had an old school house there at the mouth of Rutherford Holler and that’s where they kept the three McCoy boys. All this evening, all night tonight, all day tomorrow, until tomorrow evening. And they brought him back down here, took him across the river and then a little drain, I call it, instead of a holler. It’s not a holler, it’s just a drain where water runs out where you go up to the radio station. That’s where they tied them to three papaw bushes. Now, we don’t have any papaw bushes around like we used to. We used to have whole orchards of them but they all disappeared. Why, they was papaws everywhere You could pick up a bushel of papaws anywhere when I was a boy. But you don’t even see a papaw tree any more. They said they tied them to three papaw bushes and killed all three of them.

JH: And this was after Ellison died?

TC: They waited until Ellison died. Say he died this evening and they went up there and got them and took them over there I believe the next morning.

JH: Who were some of the Hatfields involved in this?

TC: Well, to be exact, I’d say Cap… Cap was the head man. He was Devil Anse’s oldest son. 

JH: I’d like you to tell me a little bit more about Cap Hatfield and well, do you have a personal memory of Devil Anse? I know you have been to his house when you were a boy.

TC: No.

JH: You can’t remember anything directly about him?

TC: I’ve been to his house. I know where his house is. I knew what kind of house it was. It was a log house and it had a window in that end of it and a window in this end of it and it was across the creek. I could show you right where it is on Island Creek over there and I can remember goin’ over there with my grandfather Mose Chafin. Now, he was a brother to Devil Anse’s wife, Aunt Vicy. We’d go over and see Aunt Vicy after Uncle Anse had died. I believe he died in 1921 and I was ten years old when he died. And when I would go over there with him, probably I was twelve or thirteen or something like that, after Uncle Anse had died. And we’d ride a horse. I’d ride on the hind and my grandfather Mose Chafin. And I could tell you exactly how to go. We’d go up Mate Creek across the hill into Beech Creek and from Beech Creek into Pigeon Creek and Pigeon Creek into Island Creek.

JH: And Vicy was still living at that time?

TC: Yeah.

JH: So you knew her then?

TC: Yeah. She was a pretty big fat woman. She wasn’t too big and fat. She was about, say, hundred and sixty, something like that, I’m guessin’. I’m gonna guess it. About a hundred and sixty pound. Anyhow, she was a big fat woman.

JH: Now, Cap lived on up into…to be an old man?

TC: Yeah. Willis is the last man that…last one to die.

JH: He was the son of Devil Anse also?

TC: Yeah. I was with him at a birthday party for Allen Hatfield on Beech Creek. That was his cousin. Allen was Elias’ boy* and he was Ellison’s boy**. Willis was. That made them first cousins and Willis was the only Hatfield left on Island Creek so we got him to come to that… Allen’s boy Estil Hatfield got him to come over to the birthday party, and I believe Truman went with me. He died in seventy-eight. I can tell you when he died.

JH: Willis?

TC: Willis died. Last child that Devil Anse had died in seventy-eight. 1978.

*Should read as “Wall’s boy”

**Should read as “Anse’s boy”

Magnolia District: Justices of the Peace (1824-1895)

21 Thursday Apr 2022

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The following list of justices of the peace for Magnolia District in present-day Mingo County, West Virginia, is based on historical documents available at the Logan County Courthouse in Logan. Several things to consider: (1) The list will be expanded over time based on new research; (2) the targeted area for this research is the Hatfield-McCoy feud region; (3) some justices included in this list may have in fact been located outside of the feud region; (4) dates for justices are primarily derived from deeds and county court/commissioner records; and (5) Mingo County was formed from Logan County in 1895.

John Ferrell (1838)

April 26, 1838

David Mounts (1838-1840)

April 26, 1838

January 31, 1840

March 23, 1840

August 22, 1840

Samuel F. Varney (1861)

March 14, 1861

Ephraim Hatfield (1861)

March 14, 1861

William Tiller (1867)

October 1867

Valentine “Wall” Hatfield (1870-1885)

February 11, 1873

April 8-9, 1873

August 12-16, 1873

February 10-12, 1874

October 13-14, 1874

December 8-12, 1874

December 29, 1874

August 10, 1875

October 12-16, 1875

August 8-9, 1876

elected October 10, 1876

July 1, 1878

October 1879

July 1880

December 10, 1880

December 14, 1880

appointed June 13, 1881

January 28, 1882

July 22, 1885

Asa McCoy (1873-1876)

February 11-12, 1873

August 12-16, 1873

December 9-12, 1873

June 16, 1874

October 22, 1874

December 9, 1874

February 11, 1875

June 9, 1875

June 13-17, 1876

August 8-9, 1876

Ephraim Hatfield (1876-1878)

elected October 10, 1876

February 11, 1878

A.W. Ferrell (1880)

April 1880

referenced on February 8, 1881 as a former justice

Joseph Simpkins (1882)

appointed to fill unexpired term, October 17, 1882

Michael A. Ferrell (1888)

elected November 6, 1888

New Year’s Raid (1888): Daniel Whitt’s Testimony

23 Tuesday Nov 2021

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Daniel Whitt’s testimony in the Johnse Hatfield murder trial provides one version of the Hatfield raid upon Randolph McCoy’s home on January 1, 1888:

Q. “Do you know Randolph McCoy?”

A. “Yes sir.”

Q. “Do you know Cap Hatfield?”

A. “Yes sir.”

Q. “Do you know Robert Hatfield, Ellison Mounts, Elliot Hatfield, Charles Gillespie, Thomas Mitchell, and Anderson Hatfield?”

A. “Yes sir.”

Q. “Do you remember of the old man McCoy’s house being burned?”

A. “Yes sir, I heard of it.”

Q. “Where were you a short time before that occurred?”

A. “Three days before Christmas I was in the neighborhood of the Hatfield’s.”

Q. “Who was with you?”

A. “Ance Hatfield, Jim Vance, Johnson Hatfield, Cap Hatfield, Charles Gillespie, and Tom Mitchell, I believe about all of the bunch.”

Q. “What were you doing together and how long had you been together?”

A. “About three days and nights.”

Q. “Were all of you armed?”

A. “Yes sir.”

Q. “What were you doing armed and together?”

A. “Just traveling in the woods most of the time.”

Q. “What did you sleep on?”

A. “We carried our quilts with us.”

Q. “Who was your captain?”

A. “Jim Vance.”

Q. “What was the purpose of your getting together?”

A. “They claimed the purpose was to get out of the way of the Kentucky authorities.”

Q. “What else did they claim?”

A. “When I left them we came to Henry Mitchell’s to get dinner. They wouldn’t let me hear what they had to talk about. Cap asked me if I was going to Kentucky with them. Said they were going to Kentucky to kill Randolph and Jim McCoy and settle the racket. He asked me if I was going with them and I said that I was not. He said that I would go or I would go to hell. I said that I would go to hell. Elias came and took me off. We slept in a shuck pen. When he got to sleep I ran away and went to Pocahontas and was there when this occurred.”

Q. “Was Johnson present when Cap was talking?”

A. “He was in the yard close enough to hear, and he came up to me when Cap was talking and took Cap out and had a talk with him.”

Source: Bill of exceptions at the office of the Clerk of the Court of Appeals in Kentucky, Frankfort, KY.

Nancy E. Hatfield Memories, Part 4 (1974)

30 Saturday Oct 2021

Posted by in Big Sandy Valley, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Logan, Matewan, Women's History

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Howard B. Lee, former Attorney General of West Virginia, provided this account of Nancy Hatfield (widow of Cap) in the early 1970s:

“Mrs. Hatfield, we have talked much about an era that is gone. Feuds are ended, railroads and paved highways have come, the huge coal industry has developed, churches and schools are everywhere, and people are educated. Now, I would like to know something about you.”

This is the brief life-story of the remarkable and unforgettable Nancy Elizabeth Hatfield, as she related it to me.

She was Nancy Elizabeth Smith, called “Nan” by her family and friends, born in Wayne County, West Virginia, September 10, 1866. (She died August 24, 1942). In her early years, she lived “close enough to the Ohio River,” she said, “to see the big boats that brought people and goods up from below.” She attended a country school three months out of the year, and acquired the rudiments of a common school education, plus a yearning for wider knowledge.

While she was still a young girl her parents moved by push-boat up the Big Sandy and Tug rivers into what is now Mingo County, then Logan County. They settled in the wilderness on Mate Creek, near the site of the present town of Matewan.

“Why they made that move,” said Nancy Elizabeth, “I have never understood.”

In her new environment, in the summer of 1880, when she was 14 years old, Nancy Elizabeth married Joseph M. Glenn, an enterprising young adventurer from Georgia, who had established a store in the mountains, and floated rafts of black walnut logs, and other timber, down the Tug and Big Sandy rivers to the lumber mills of Catlettsburg, Ky., and Portsmouth, Ohio.

Two years after their marriage Glenn was waylaid and murdered by a former business associate, named Bill Smith–no relation to Nancy Elizabeth. Smith escaped into the wilderness and was never apprehended. The 16-year-old widow was left with a three-weeks old infant son, who grew into manhood and for years, that son, the late Joseph M. Glenn, was a leading lawyer in the city of Logan.

On October 11, 1883, a year after her husband’s death, at the age of 17, Nancy Elizabeth married the 19-year-old Cap Hatfield, second son of Devil Anse.

“He was the best looking young man in the settlement,” she proudly told me.

But at that time Cap had little to recommend him, except his good looks. He was born Feb. 6, 1864, during the Civil War, and grew up in a wild and lawless wilderness, where people were torn and divided by political and sectional hatreds and family feuds–a rugged, mountain land, without roads, schools, or churches.

When he married, Cap could neither read nor write, but he possessed the qualities necessary for survival in that turbulent time and place–he was “quick on the draw, and a dead shot.”

“When we were married, Cap was not a very good risk as a husband,” said Nancy Elizabeth. “The feud had been going on for a year, and he was already its most deadly killer. Kentucky had set a price on his head. But we were young, he was handsome, and I was deeply in love with him. Besides, he was the best shot on the border, and I was confident that he could take care of himself–and he did.”

Nancy Elizabeth taught her handsome husband to read and write, and imparted to him the meager learning she had acquired in the country school in Wayne County. But, more important, the she instilled into him her own hunger for knowledge.

Cap had a brilliant mind, and he set about to improve it. He and Nancy Elizabeth bought and read many books on history and biography, and they also subscribed for and read a number of the leading magazines of their day. In time they built up a small library or good books, which they read and studied along with their children.

At the urging of Nancy Elizabeth, Cap decided to study law, and enrolled at the University Law School at Huntington, Tennessee. But six months later, a renewal of the feud brought him back to the mountains. He never returned to law school, but continued his legal studies at home, and was admitted to the bar in Wyoming and Mingo counties. However, he never practiced the profession.

Nancy Elizabeth and Cap raised seven of their nine children, and Nancy’ss eyes grew moist as she talked of the sacrifices she and Cap had made that their children might obtain the education fate had denied to their parents. But her face glowed with a mother’s pride as she said:

“All our children are reasonably well educated. Three are college graduates, and the others attended college from one to three years. But, above everything else, they are all good and useful citizens.”

As I left the home of the remarkable and unforgettable Nancy Hatfield, I knew that I had been in the presence of a queenly woman–a real “Mountain Queen.”

Source: West Virginia Women (Richwood, WV: Jim Comstock, 1974), p. 153-154.

New Year’s Raid (1888): Randolph McCoy’s Testimony

11 Friday Jun 2021

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Randolph McCoy’s testimony in the Johnse Hatfield murder trial provides one version of the Hatfield raid upon McCoy’s home on January 1, 1888:

Q. “How old are you?”

A. “I was born in 1825.”

Q. “Begin in your own way, and tell all about the case that you know.”

A. “The first thing I knew about it the dogs woke me up. My boy came to the bed and said, ‘Pa, they are coming. Get up.’ And by that time I was up on the floor, and they had surrounded the house and 1 heard one of them say, ‘God damn ye, come out and surrender yourselves, prisoners of war.’ We never spoke. By that time, they had come past the upper house as we called it. We got behind that door that broke. They fired a volley each way in the house and I moved for I saw that I could not stay there. Next, I went to the fireplace. Calvin went to the back of the house. They shot cross shots from each side of the door, through the doors. I stayed there a good while. They kept shooting and, finally, I went into the loft. The firing kept up a long time. I thought it a long time. Finally, they fired the house, the room that I was in, me and my wife, Calvin, and Melvin was in the same room. I took a cup and when the blaze would come through the house I would throw water on it and it out. Finally, the water gave out. The boy had gone up in the loft and I went up where he was. We stayed in the house until three of the joists had burned and the end of the joists had fell down before we had attempted to leave the house. The boy then came to me and said, ‘Pa, ye stay here, I can out-run you and I will go to the barn and try to attract their attention in that direction and maybe I can save you.’ He started and got past the corner of the house when they began firing again. He never got to the barn. The little boy hung onto me but I shoved him loose at the door and went out among them. I stepped out of the house and saw Johnson Hatfield standing eight or ten steps from the rest of them, and just as I stepped out of the house and looked up his gun fired in the direction of Calvin. I discovered that his gun had caught fowl and he was humped down working on it. I fired into the crowd then turned and fired at Johnson. I aimed to shoot him in the neck, but I aimed too low and shot him in the shoulder. The burning house made it as light as day and I know that it was Johnson.”

Q. “What did you do when you shot Johnson, the defendant?”

A. “I ran down the creek.”

Q. “Where did you go then?”

A. “I crawled into the shuck pen.”

Q. “Did you have on your night clothes?”

A. “Yes sir.”

Q. “Where was Alafair McCoy?”

A. “She was in the upper part of the house. They did not fire that until the shots were fired at the other—the room we were in.”

Q. “What did you hear at that time?”

A. “I heard Alafair say, ‘Cap Hatfield and Hence Chambers, you would not shoot a poor innocent woman, would you?’ Then they said, ‘Shoot her, God damit, shoot her down. Spare neither men nor woman,’ and they shot her in the left breast. I heard her fall and struggle near the door. This was all before I came out of the house.”

Q. “Where did you stay that night?”

A. “In the shuck pen, I went back at daylight.”

Q. “What did you find?”

A. “I found my son lying there dead. My daughter dead with her hair froze in her blood to her heart.”

Q. “Was the house there?”

A. “No sir, it was burned up. The little girl had dragged her sister off from the house.”

Q. “How far from the house?”

A. “About thirty yards.”

Q. “How many shots did they fire?”

A. “No man could count them. They came in volleys and platoons.”

Q. “Did you have a gun too?”

A. “Yes sir.”

Q. “Was your wife in her night clothes?”

A. “Yes sir, they thought they had killed her, no doubt, or I think they would have done so.”

Source: Bill of exceptions at the office of the Clerk of the Court of Appeals in Kentucky, Frankfort, KY.