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Tag Archives: feuds

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

23 Tuesday Nov 2021

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Sandy Valley, Hatfield-McCoy Feud

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Appalachia, Bob Hatfield, Cap Hatfield, Charles Gillespie, Christmas, Court of Appeals, crime, Daniel Whitt, Devil Anse Hatfield, Elias Hatfield, Elliot Hatfield, feuds, Frankfort, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Henry Mitchell, history, Jim McCoy, Jim Vance, Johnse Hatfield, Kentucky, Pike County, Pocahontas, Randolph McCoy, Tom Chambers, Tom Mitchell, true crime

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 Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Sandy Valley, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Logan, Matewan, Women's History

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Appalachia, attorney, attorney general, Big Sandy River, Bill Smith, Cap Hatfield, Catlettsburg, Devil Anse Hatfield, feuds, genealogy, Georgia, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, history, Howard B. Lee, Huntington, Jim Comstock, Joe Glenn, Kentucky, Logan, Logan County, logging, Mate Creek, Matewan, Mingo County, Nancy E. Hatfield, Ohio, Ohio River, Portsmouth, Tennessee, timbering, Tug Fork, University Law School, Wayne County, West Virginia, Wyoming County

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.

Elias Hatfield (1888)

12 Wednesday May 2021

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Hatfield-McCoy Feud

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Appalachia, Elias Hatfield, feuds, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, history, Logan County, West Virginia

From T.C. Crawford’s “An American Vendetta” (1889).

Cap Hatfield Property in Logan County, WV (1886-1894)

18 Thursday Feb 2021

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

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Appalachia, Big Sandy River, Cap Hatfield, feuds, Grapevine Creek, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, history, J.D. Sergeant, Logan County, Nancy E. Hatfield, Philadelphia, Reece Browning, Tug Fork, West Virginia

The following land information is derived from Land Book 1880-1886, Land Book 1887-1892, and Land Book 1893-1899 at the Logan County Clerk’s Office in Logan, WV:

Anderson Hatfield, Jr.

No property listed in 1865-1885.

1886: Magnolia District

400 acres Grapevine Creek $1.25 per acre no building $[blank]

300 acres Grapevine Creek $1.25 per acre $30 building $315 total

[The 300-acre tract contained this additional note: “redeemed for 1884.”]

1887: Magnolia District

400 acres Grape Vine $1.25 per acre no building $500 total

300 acres Grape Vine $1.25 per acre no building $375 total

1888-1890: Magnolia District

No property listed for Cap.

[Note: In 1888, he transferred with others two tracts on Grapevine Creek, Sandy River worth $1.25 per acre with total value of $875 to J.D. Sergeant of Philadelphia, PA.]

1891: Logan District

Nancy E. Hatfield

75 acres Island Creek $2 per acre no building $150 total

[Note: This property was “transferred from Reece Browning.”]

1892-1893: Logan District

Nancy E. Hatfield

75 acres Island Creek $2.50 per acre no building $187.50 total

1894: Logan District

Nancy E. Hatfield

75 acres Island Creek, $2.50 per acre no building $188 total

Subpoena for Sam McCoy (1882)

18 Thursday Feb 2021

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Sandy Valley, Hatfield-McCoy Feud

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Amos Acord, Appalachia, Bill Staton, county clerk, crime, feuds, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, history, John Chafin, Logan County, Mingo County, murder, Sam McCoy, true crime, West Virginia

Amos Acord subpoena (1882). Sam McCoy was accused of murdering Bill Staton in 1880.

Hatfield-McCoy Feud Radio Spot

16 Tuesday Feb 2021

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Sandy Valley, Hatfield-McCoy Feud

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Appalachia, Big Sandy River, Elias Hatfield, feuds, fiddle, Floyd Hatfield, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, history, Johnse Hatfield, Kentucky, Randolph McCoy, Roseanna McCoy, Tolbert McCoy, Tug Fork, West Virginia

Randolph McCoy-Floyd Hatfield hog trial…
Romance between Johnse Hatfield and Roseanna McCoy; Ellison Hatfield’s Killing…

Nancy E. Hatfield Memories, Part 2 (1974)

02 Saturday Jan 2021

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Sandy Valley, Civil War, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Women's History

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attorney general, Battle of Gravepine, Battle of Scary Creek, Cap Hatfield, Charleston, civil war, Confederate Army, crime, Dan Cunningham, detective, Devil Anse Hatfield, Ellison Mounts, feuds, Frank Phillips, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Howard B. Lee, Jim Comstock, Johnse Hatfeild, Kentucky, Logan Wildcats, Nancy Hatfield, Roseanna McCoy, Tug Fork, Union Army, West Virginia, West Virginia Women

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

Our next stop was at the home of Nancy Elizabeth, the same home where I visited with her and Cap during my campaign. For nearly three hours I asked questions and listened to that remarkable woman recount many of her experiences as the wife of America’s most celebrated feudist.

Nancy Elizabeth’s home also held a number of guns, pistols, and other relics of the feud days. But the most interesting item was Cap’s bullet-proof, steel breastplate, designed to cover the entire front half of his body from his beck to his lower abdomen.

“Mrs. Hatfield,” I said, “judging from the three bullet marks on it, this breastplate was a great protection to Cap; but what was to prevent an enemy from shooting him in the back?” Her eyes flashed as she replied: “Mr. Lee, Cap Hatfield never turned his back on an enemy or a friend.”

“I have read two stories, Mrs. Hatfield, each purporting to give the true cause of the feud: One book stated that it was the result of a dispute between a McCoy and a Hatfield over the ownership of a hog. Another book said that it grew out of the seduction of a McCoy girl by Johnson Hatfield, oldest son of Devil Anse. Is either one of these stories true?”

“No, neither story is true,” she replied. “The McCoys lived on the Kentucky side of Tug River, and the Hatfields lived on the West Virginia side. Hogs don’t swim rivers. I never heard the girl story until I read it in a book, written long after the feud was over. Both stories are pure fiction.”

“The truth is,” she continued, “in the fall of 1882, in an election-day fight between Ellison Hatfield, a younger brother of Devil Anse, and three McCoy brothers, Ellison was shot and knifed. He died two days later. In retaliation, Devil Anse and his clan captured and shot the three McCoy brothers. It was these four senseless killings that started the feud.”

In answer to my inquiry, Nancy Elizabeth said: “Yes, there had been ‘bad blood’ between the two families since the Civil War. In that struggle the Hatfields were ‘rebels’,–loyal to their State, Virginia. Devil Anse organized and was the captain of a company of Confederate sympathizers called the ‘Logan Wildcats’. They were recruited for local defense; but they left the county long enough to take part in the battle of Scary, fought along the banks of the Kanawha River, a few miles below Charleston.

“The McCoys, and their mountain neighbors, were pro-Union; and to protect their region against invasion by ‘Virginia rebels’, they organized a military company called ‘Home Guards’. There were occasional border clashes between the two forces, with casualties on both sides. The war ended only seventeen years before the feud began, and the bitterness still existed in the minds of the older generation, and they passed it on to their children. It was the old sectional and political hatreds that sparked the fight between Ellison Hatfield and the McCoy brothers.”

Nancy Elizabeth declined to estimate the number killed on either side of the feud.

“It was a horrible nightmare to me,” she said. “Sometimes, for months, Cap never spent a night in our house. He and Devil Anse, with others, slept in the nearby woods to guard our homes against surprise attacks. At times, too, we women and our children slept in hidden shelters in the forests.

“But these assaults were not one-sided affairs. The Hatfields crossed the Tug and killed McCoys. It was a savage war of extermination, regardless of age or sex. Finally, to get our children to a safer locality, we Hatfields left Tug River, crossed the mountains, and settled here on Island Creek, a tributary of the Guyandotte River.

“No, there was no formal truce ending hostilities. After a decade or more of fighting and killing, both sides grew tired and quit. The McCoys stayed in Kentucky and the Hatfields kept to West Virginia. The feud was really over a long time before either side realized it.

“Yes, Kentucky offered a large reward for the capture of Devil Anse and Cap. The governor of West Virginia refused to extradite them because, said he, ‘their trials in Kentucky would be nothing more than legalized lynchings’. It was then that Kentucky’s governor offered the reward for their capture–‘dead or alive’. Three attempts were made by reward seekers to capture them.

“Dan Cunningham, a Charleston detective, with two Cincinnati detectives, made the first attempt. They came through Kentucky, and crossed Tug River in the night; but the Hatfields soon captured them. A justice of the peace sentenced them to 90 days in Logan County jail for disturbing hte peace. When released, they were told to follow the Guyandotte River to Huntington, a distance of 60 miles, and ‘not to come back’.

“Next, a man named Phillips led two raids from Kentucky into Hatfield territory. In the first, he captured ‘Cottontop’ Mounts, a relative and supporter of the Hatfields, and took him to Pikeville, Kentucky, where he was hanged. But the second foray met with disaster at the ‘Battle of the Grapevine’. Phillips, and some of his followers escaped into Kentucky, but some where buried where they fell.

“This was the last attempt of the reward seekers. However, Kentucky never withdrew the reward offer, and that is why Devil Anse and Cap were always alarmed and on the alert.”

Source: West Virginia Women (Richwood, WV: Jim Comstock, 1974), p. 151-152

Nancy E. Hatfield Memories, Part 1 (1974)

28 Monday Dec 2020

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Cemeteries, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Logan, Women's History

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Appalachia, attorney general, Betty Caldwell, Cap Hatfield, cemeteries, Devil Anse Hatfield, feuds, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, history, Howard B. Lee, Jim Comstock, Logan, Logan County, Nancy Hatfield, politics, Republican Party, Robert Elliott Hatfield, Sarah Ann, Tennis Hatfield, West Virginia, West Virginia Women, Willis Hatfield

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

HATFIELD WOMEN.

Over the years, much has been written about the male members of the Hatfield clan who took part in that early orgy of blood-letting–the Hatfield-McCoy feud. But nothing has been said concerning the indomitable wives of that stalwart breed of men.

My purpose is to pay a richly deserved tribute to one of those pioneer women–the late Nancy Elizabeth, wife of William Anderson Hatfield, common known “Cap,” second son of Devil Anse, and the most deadly killer of the feud.

More than 30 years have passed since I last talked with her; but I still regard Nancy Elizabeth Hatfield as the most remarkable and unforgettable woman of the mountains.

In the spring of 1924, I was a candidate in the primary election for the Republican nomination for attorney general, and I wanted the Hatfield influence. Devil Anse had died in 1921, and his mantle of leadership of the clan had fallen to his oldest living son, Cap–a power in Logan County politics.

I had met Cap, casually, in 1912, but I had not seen him since that meeting. But his sister, Mrs. Betty Caldwell, and her husband, lived in my county of Mercer, and were among my political supporters. To pave the way for my later meeting with Cap, I had Mrs. Caldwell write and ask him to support me.

Later, when campaigning in the City of Logan, I engaged a taxi to take me the few miles up Island Creek to Cap’s home. The car stopped suddenly and the driver pointed to a comfortable-looking farm house on the other side of the creek and said:

“That’s Cap’s home, and that’s Cap out there by the barn.”

I told him to return for me in two hours.

Cap saw me get out of the car, and, as I crossed the creek on an old-fashioned footlog. I saw him fold his arms across his chest and slip his right hand under his coat. Later, I noticed a large pistol holstered under his left arm. Even in that late day, Cap took no chances with strangers. When I got within speaking distance, I told him my name, and that I had come to solicit his support in my campaign for attorney general. He gave me a hearty handclasp, and said:

“My sister, Mrs. Caldwell, wrote us about you. But, let’s go to the house, my wife is the politician in our family.”

Cap was reluctant to commit himself “so early.” But Nancy Elizabeth thought otherwise. Finally, Cap agreed to support me; and, with that point settled, we visited until my taxi returned.

Meanwhile, with Cap’s approval, Nancy Elizabeth gave me the accompanying, heretofore unpublished photograph of the Devil Anse Clan. In 1963 I rephotographed it and sent a print to Willis Hatfield (number 22 in picture), only survivor of Devil Anse, who made the identification. Nancy Elizabeth is number 16, and the baby in her lap is her son, Robert Elliott, born April 29, 1897. Therefore, the photograph must have been made late in 1897, or early in 1898.

A few months after Cap’s death (August 22, 1930), the West Virginia newspaper publishers and editors held their annual convention in Logan. I was invited to address the group at a morning session. That same day, Sheriff Joe Hatfield and his brother, Tennis, younger brothers of Cap, gave an ox-roast dinner for the visiting newsmen and their guests. The picnic was held on a narrow strip of bottom land, on Island Creek, a half-mile below the old home of Devil Anse.

I ate lunch with Nancy Elizabeth and her sister-in-law, Betty Caldwell. After lunch, at the suggestion of Mrs. Caldwell, we three drove up the creek to the old home of her father–Devil Anse. It was a large, two-story, frame structure (since destroyed by fire, then occupied by Tennis Hatfield, youngest son of Devil Anse).

The most interesting feature in the old home was Devil Anse’s gun-room. Hanging along its walls were a dozen, or more, high-powered rifles, and a number of large caliber pistols, ranging from teh earliest to the latest models. “The older guns,” said Nancy Elizabeth, “were used in the feud.”

As we returned, we stopped at the family cemetery that clings uncertainly to the steep mountainside, overlooking the picnic grounds. There, among the mountains he loved and ruled, old Devil Anse found peace. A life-size statue of the old man, carved in Italy (from a photograph) of the finest Carrara marble, stands in majestic solitude above his grave. On its four-foot high granite base are carved the names of his wife and their thirteen children.

Source: West Virginia Women (Richwood, WV: Jim Comstock, 1974), p. 149-151

Perry A. Cline v. James Vance, Sr. et al. (1876)

15 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Sandy Valley, Hatfield-McCoy Feud

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Appalachia, county clerk, crime, Ephraim Hatfield Branch, feuds, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, history, James Vance Jr., Jim Vance, John Dils Jr., Kentucky, Lick Rock Hollow, Perry Cline, Pike County, Pounding Mill Branch, R.M. Ferrell, Tug River, William Daniels, William Daniels Branch

IMG_7901

James Vance to Perry A. Cline, 1874-1875.

IMG_7898

James Vance promissory note to Perry A. Cline, 1 February 1875.

IMG_7897

Perry A. Cline petition, 8 May 1876.

IMG_7902

Perry A. Cline petition, 8 May 1876.

IMG_7907

Perry A. Cline petition, 8 May 1876.

IMG_7915

Perry A. Cline petition, 8 May 1876.

IMG_7916

Perry A. Cline petition, 8 May 1876.

IMG_7890

Perry A. Cline affidavit, 8 May 1876.

Levicy Hatfield Indictment (1882)

04 Wednesday Mar 2020

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Hatfield-McCoy Feud

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Ambrose Mullins, Appalachia, feud, feuds, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, history, Levisa Hatfield, Logan County, Mingo County, moonshine, moonshining, Vicy Hatfield, West Virginia

Vicy Hatfield 1882 1

Levisa “Vicy” Hatfield indictment for selling spirituous liquors based upon information by Ambrose Mullins, Logan County, WV, 1882.

Lawlessness in the Mountains (1915)

19 Saturday Oct 2019

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Huntington, Logan

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Appalachia, crime, feuds, history, Huntington Advertiser, Kentucky, Logan, Logan Democrat, New York City, West Virginia

From the Logan Democrat of Logan, WV, comes this editorial originally printed by the Huntington Advertiser regarding mountain violence. The item is dated January 7, 1915.

LAWLESSNESS

From the Huntington Advertiser–

Every time neighbors fall out in the West Virginia or Kentucky mountains, and one of them is killed, the New York newspapers discover a feud, and discourse upon the lack of civilization that permits such things to be.

Yet in this same New York, the constituted authorities have proven themselves helpless in dealing with gangs of “gun men,” and there is more flagrant defiance of the law in certain sections of New York today than anywhere in the Kentucky or West Virginia mountains.

So complete has been the failure of the New York authorities to deal with the problem of the “gun men” in any effective manner, that the business men of the east side are organizing a citizens police force to accomplish the work the New York police have been unable to accomplish. This organization of citizens is no more, no less, than a revival of the vigilance committees in the hurly-burly days in the western gold fields, and that the greatest city on the western continent should be compelled to resort to the methods of the mining camp in dealing with offenders against the law and against the decency is a sorry comment upon the metropolis.

But the New York newspapers will remember nothing of this the next time there is a lynching in the south, or there is a “feud” outbreak in the mountains.

Hatfield-McCoy Feud: Schools in 1882

23 Tuesday Jul 2019

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Matewan

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Albert Simpkins, Ambrose Guzlin, Anderson Ferrell School, Blackberry Creek, Bob Williams, Charles Carpenter, Coon Branch School, Delorme School, Devil Anse Hatfield, Dials Branch School, Dick Bachtel, education, Elias Hatfield, Elias Hatfield School, Ella Hatfield McCoy, feud, feuds, Hatfield School, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Head of Blackberry School, Henry D. Hatfield, history, Homer Claude McCoy, Jackson County, Johnnie Rutherford, Kate Ray, Kentucky, Lee Rutherford, Logan County, Mate Creek, Mate Creek School, Matewan, Mike Clingenpeel, Mingo County, Mud Fork, Pharmer McCoy, Pike County, Ransom, Sam Jackson, Scott Justice, teacher, Tolbert McCoy, Tug River, Upper Mate Creek School, W.A. McCoy, West Virginia, Will Bachtel

From “The Rise of Education and the Decline of Feudal Tendencies in the Tug River Valley of West Virginia and Kentucky in Relation to the Hatfield and McCoy Feud” by Homer Claude McCoy (1950):

The following list of school houses are given to determine the location of schools at the time of the feud. Most of the information obtained in regard to the existence of schools and their teachers have been received from interviews. These people were actual students at the schools or had brothers or sisters who went to school there. This information has been verified when possible from different interviews.

Mate Creek School: Mate Creek School was located about a mile up Mate Creek from Matewan which is located at its mouth. It was a log structure and had only one room. The schoolhouse was used during the feud as a prison to retain the three McCoy boys in. David Ross was the teacher of the school during the time of the feud, 1882, just a few days after the boys were held there, and there is a possibility that there was school there before the incident and that David Ross was the teacher.

Upper Mate Creek School: It is believed that there was a school at the head of Mate Creek, but the information is not strong enough to be substantiated.

Coon Branch School: Coon Branch School was located in Kentucky across from the site of Matewan. The teacher of the Coon Branch School was Ambrose Guzlin, and was attending in 1887.

Anderson Ferrell School: This school was located on Anderson Ferrell’s farm a mile below Matewan and came into use when the Mate Creek School was closed about 1883. The teacher of this school was Johnnie Rutherford.

Hatfield School: This school was located on the farm of Elias Hatfield in a hollow behind his home. It was a log structure and came into use when the railroad made it necessary to eliminate the Anderson Ferrell School.

Delorme School: The Delorme school was located near the home of Devil Anse, it was believed, for Charles Carpenter mentioned as a schoolteacher taught in that neighborhood. It is doubtful that there was a school there, for no definite record has been found. Charles Carpenter was said to be a teacher in that locality.

The Dial’s Branch School: This school is not substantiated by any strong evidence as being in operation during the early days of the feud, but was known to exist in the latter days of the feud.

Head of Blackberry School: This was at what is known today as Ransom. This school was some distance (about 15 miles from the mouth of Blackberry). Bob Williams taught school there. Dr. H.D. Hatfield attended school at this school.

Kate Ray who was a teacher at the Elias Hatfield School in 1893, says that she went to school there and when she graduated from the fifth grade she took an examination and taught the next year. She says the examination was not hard, and all the teachers gathered at Williamson. Other teachers that taught there were Albert Simpkins, Dr. Rutherford, Lee Rutherford. Scott Justice taught school at Mud Fork. Mike Clingenpeel was another teacher at Mud Fork.

Mrs. Ray stated:

I went to my first school on Mud Fork in 1888. I was only four years old. They didn’t mind for I didn’t give them any trouble. I learned a little at that age. Lee Curry was the teacher that year. He made improvements in the log school. His first improvement was to put backs on the seats. We did not have any desks or any blackboards. Dick and Will Bachtel also taught school at Mud Fork. They came from Jackson County. They stayed at Sam Jackson’s. They paid about $8.00 a month for board. Scott Justice, now a resident of Huntington, West Virginia, taught school on Mud Fork. So did Mack Clingenpeel. Every one liked Mack. He could explain the lessons so well.

When I was in the fifth grade I went to the Hatfield School below Matewan. When I graduated, I took the teachers examination and taught the next year there at the school on Elias Hatfield’s farm about the year 1895.

Sources:

Derived from these interviews by Mr. McCoy:

Ella Hatfield McCoy interview (she “lived on Blackberry Creek during the time of the feud”) (c.1949)

W.A. McCoy interview (c.1949)

Kate Ray interview (c.1949)

William Anderson McCoy’s Recollections of the Hatfield-McCoy Feud (1949)

23 Sunday Jun 2019

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Sandy Valley, Hatfield-McCoy Feud

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Anderson Ferrell, Appalachia, crime, David Ross, education, Ferrell School, feud, feuds, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, history, Homer Claude McCoy, Johnnie Rutherford, Kentucky, Logan County, Mate Creek, Mate Creek School, Mingo County, Nona McCoy, Pike County, Tug Fork, West Virginia, William Anderson McCoy

From “The Rise of Education and the Decline of Feudal Tendencies in the Tug River Valley of West Virginia and Kentucky in Relation to the Hatfield and McCoy Feud” by Homer Claude McCoy (1950):

Appendix A

I attended school in the school house on Mate Creek just a few days after the McCoy boys was taken out and killed. The kettles and pans that they used to cook their grub in was still in the school house yet. This was my first school. This was about 1882. My next school was in the school house on the Anderson Ferrell farm about one mile below Mate Creek on the W.Va. side of Tug River. The teacher of Mate Creek School was David Ross and teacher for the Ferrell School was Johnie Rutheford.

William Anderson McCoy

Dec. 4, 1949

Note: Homer Claude McCoy (b. 1904) was the son of William Anderson and Nona (Jackson) McCoy. William Anderson McCoy was born in 1873 and died in 1960. To see William’s family in the 1880 Logan County, WV, Census, follow this link: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9YB2-97NB?i=7&cc=1417683

Interview of Jean Hatfield at Sarah Ann, WV (2001), Part 4

01 Saturday Jun 2019

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Cemeteries, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Matewan

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Allen Hatfield, Altina Waller, Appalachia, Beckley, Beech Creek, Brandon Kirk, Cap Hatfield, Coleman Hatfield, Delorme, Devil Anse Hatfield, Dutch Hatfield, Ellison Mounts, Ephraim Hatfield, feuds, genealogy, Hatfield Cemetery, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Henry Hatfield, history, History Channel, Jean Hatfield, Jim Vance, Johnson Hatfield, Levisa Hatfield, Logan Banner, Logan County, Matewan, Mingo County, Nancy Vance, Otis Rice, Randolph McCoy, Red Jacket, Route 44, Sarah Ann, Stirrat, Tennis Hatfield, The Hatfield and McCoy Feud After Kevin Costner, The McCoys: Their Story, The Tale of the Devil, Thomas Dotson, tourism, Truda Williams McCoy, Valentine Wall Hatfield, West Virginia

In 2001-2002, I wrote a series of popular stories for the Logan Banner that merged aspects of well-known Hatfield-McCoy books written by Otis Rice and Altina Waller in the 1980s. I had previously enjoyed Rice’s narrative and Waller’s analysis; I did not conduct any new research. Even though I believed the definitive Hatfield-McCoy Feud book remained unwritten, my purpose in writing these stories was not a step toward writing a book; my purpose in writing these stories was to revisit the narrative with some analysis for Banner readers. My hope was that readers would see what I saw: first, fascinating history (or folk story) for its own sake; second, the power of history to create a popular type of tourism.

I was fortunate during this time to meet Jean Hatfield. Jean, born in 1936, operated a Hatfield family museum at Sarah Ann, WV. Jean was not a native of West Virginia but had lived her entire adult life locally and had personally known several of Anderson Hatfield’s children. I really appreciated her desire to promote regional history. She “got it.” She inspired me. Anytime that I drove up Route 44, I stopped to visit Jean at the museum. She was always welcoming. Knowing her reminded me that every Hatfield (and McCoy) descendant is a source of information–-and that for the most part they have yet to tell the story in their own words. Three notable exceptions include The McCoys: Their Story by Truda Williams McCoy (1976), The Tale of the Devil (2003) by Coleman Hatfield and Bob Spence, and The Hatfield and McCoy Feud After Kevin Costner: Rescuing History (2013) by Thomas Dotson.

What follows is Part 4 of my interview with Jean, which occurred on August 7, 2001:

What kind of house did Johnse have?

Probably just a frame house.

I don’t know much about what he did for a living.

I really don’t know either. There’s not that much on him. Maybe he just spent his time chasing ladies. I don’t even know what type of work he did. But he had to work. He worked for his father, for one thing. But now there’s some of his grandchildren still living. But I’m like you, he’s not as good looking as most of the other boys were. But then when you’re like eighteen years old, everybody’s good looking at eighteen.

I wonder what Devil Anse thought about people taking his photo?

There was just always somebody wanting to take his picture. Now this is by Life magazine. They done a story.

I love the one in his hat.

That’s a very rare one. And the one with the long rifle. Because most of the time in the pictures you see him with his little shotgun. But that has the long rifle. I think that’s the muzzle-loading type.

Not nearly as many photos of Randolph McCoy.

This one here, when we did the McCoy monument, they didn’t have any pictures. We had gathered up quite a few of the McCoys and we made a collage picture and that one was in it. That’s the one mostly you see of him is that one. But I have a couple here somewhere when he was younger but it’s not a very clear copy. But he looks very sad and very old and very sick in that one. But he was like thirteen years older than Grandpa, though.

Did your husband hold any grudges?

No.

Was he raised to?

Oh no. He says on the History Channel tape that he went to school with McCoys and he never did have any animosity towards any of them. In fact, our postmaster down here, she was a McCoy before she married. And she and I get along real good.

So not all of Devil Anse’s brothers were involved in the feud…

Well now, like Wall Hatfield, he wasn’t concerned in it nowhere and they took him before a jury and found him guilty of murder, which he didn’t do. And he died in the pen just not long after he got in because he just couldn’t handle penitentiary life. And he’s buried down under that highway. The highway went over the graves of the prisoners that were buried there. Isn’t that terrible? That’s what the family said. Uncle Allen Hatfield from Beech Creek was one of his children. That’s where that come from.

Where did they bury Ellison Mounts?

I think he’s buried over at Hatfield Cemetery at Matewan. That’s where Grandma and Grandpa’s mother and father is buried. Ephraim. He was buried there.

Are they marked?

Yeah. I think they have a small marker is all. Devil Anse’s father was Big Eph Hatfield and she was Nancy Vance. That’s where Uncle Jim come in at. That was her brother. So that would have been Grandpa’s uncle. He loved Grandpa so well, he would kill for him, that was all there was to it. And Grandpa didn’t have to tell him. He went out on his own and done it. I think that had a lot to do with it. In all that I read, Grandpa’s personality just didn’t seem like he was that type of a person.

Did they ever talk about him doing things like singing or whittling?

He was a joker. Like my mother-in-law said, Tennis had give her a new diamond ring. And she was out helping Grandpa milk the cow and she was showing him her pretty ring and he said, “I’d just soon have a pewter button.” He was always joking with people and things like that. Now my mother-in-law was a very scary person. And if he’d a been a mean person she wouldn’t have stayed around him. But her and Tennis lived with them until they had two children. He couldn’t have been very threatening.

Who had the home when it burned?

Tennis. He inherited it from his momma. It burned after she passed. That was on the land that he inherited. All of the children got a certain amount of land.

Did Devil Anse sell out in Mingo County?

Yeah. Cline got it. He just let him have it all and he moved over here.

Who owned the old property where the cemetery is in Mingo County?

That’s part of the other estate, I’d say, Ephraim. That would be part of his. Delorme and up in that area was where they were all at mostly. Delorme, Red Jacket. I don’t know a whole lot about Mingo County. And we lost one of our good little relatives over there: Dutch Hatfield. He used to be chief of police of Matewan and he knew everybody. And him and Henry was really close together and they passed within a year of each other. But he was pretty well up on all of the relatives and who was whose child and all of that.

Why was Cap’s family not buried with the other Hatfields?

Cap and Grandpa and the boys, seems like there was a rift there all the time. He was at Grandpa’s funeral but they hadn’t had much dealings from what I can understand. So when he died he just wanted to be buried on his own land. They started their own little cemetery down there. They may have had some people die before that and buried them there.

Where is Johnse buried?

Johnse is buried up here.

Any of his wives buried with him?

No.

That’s sad that he had so many wives and none are buried with him.

Yeah. That’s a lesson to those men. Better find one and be loyal to them.

I hope someone can figure out how to make this tourism work here.

If you happen to see them down at the Chamber of Commerce, you ask ‘em about a road up here. See if we can get it changed some way. Because if they’re going to use this for tourism they’re going to need to be able to locate it. This is 44. 18 miles from the boulevard to the top of the mountain—that’s as far as 44 goes. And they’re advertising it through the rest stop areas. And Sarah Ann’s not even on the map. Stirrat is.

They don’t have it together in the county seat either.

No. I think it’s one group pulling against another group and if they don’t get together nothing gets done.

Have you ever seen that play in Beckley?

No. I’ve had people say it’s good. I don’t like to stay overnight away from home. I’m a home body.

***

Jean died in 2011. I miss seeing her when I drive up Route 44.

Rowan County Feud in Morehead, KY (2019)

29 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Cemeteries, Rowan County Feud

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Appalachia, Craig Tolliver, D.B. Logan, Daniel Boone Tolliver, feuds, Floyd Tolliver, Hiram Pigman, John Martin, Kentucky, Lee Cemetery, Martin-Tolliver Feud, Morehead, Rowan County, Rowan County Feud, Tolliver-Martin Feud

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Historical marker providing some details of the Rowan County Feud, Morehead, KY. 24 June 2017. For a little more history about the feud, go here: https://brandonraykirk.com/2013/07/06/in-search-of-ed-haley-140/

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Historical marker providing some details of the Rowan County Feud, Morehead, KY. 20 May 2019

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Memorial to the casualties of the Rowan County Feud, Morehead, KY. 20 May 2019

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Lee Cemetery, Morehead, KY. Feudists are buried here! 20 May 2019

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Daniel Boone Tolliver was father to Craig Tolliver. Lee Cemetery, Pikeville, KY. 20 May 2019

Interview of Jean Hatfield at Sarah Ann, WV (2001), Part 3

29 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Cemeteries, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Pikeville

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Altina Waller, Appalachia, Brandon Kirk, Cap Hatfield, Coleman Hatfield, Democratic Party, Devil Anse Hatfield, Dyke Garrett, feuds, Frank Phillips, genealogy, Hatfield Cemetery, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Henry Hatfield, history, Jean Hatfield, Jim Vance, Joe Hatfield, John Ed Pearce, Johnson Hatfield, Kentucky, Levisa Hatfield, Logan Banner, Logan County, Otis Rice, Pikeville, Republican Party, Rosa Browning, Roseanne McCoy, Sarah Ann, Tennis Hatfield, The Hatfield and McCoy Feud After Kevin Costner, The McCoys: Their Story, The Tale of the Devil, Thomas Dotson, Truda Williams McCoy, West Virginia

In 2001-2002, I wrote a series of popular stories for the Logan Banner that merged aspects of well-known Hatfield-McCoy books written by Otis Rice and Altina Waller in the 1980s. I had previously enjoyed Rice’s narrative and Waller’s analysis; I did not conduct any new research. Even though I believed the definitive Hatfield-McCoy Feud book remained unwritten, my purpose in writing these stories was not a step toward writing a book; my purpose in writing these stories was to revisit the narrative with some analysis for Banner readers. My hope was that readers would see what I saw: first, fascinating history (or folk story) for its own sake; second, the power of history to create a popular type of tourism.

I was fortunate during this time to meet Jean Hatfield. Jean, born in 1936, operated a Hatfield family museum at Sarah Ann, WV. Jean was not a native of West Virginia but had lived her entire adult life locally and had personally known several of Anderson Hatfield’s children. I really appreciated her desire to promote regional history. She “got it.” She inspired me. Anytime that I drove up Route 44, I stopped to visit Jean at the museum. She was always welcoming. Knowing her reminded me that every Hatfield (and McCoy) descendant is a source of information–-and that for the most part they have yet to tell the story in their own words. Three notable exceptions include The McCoys: Their Story by Truda Williams McCoy (1976), The Tale of the Devil (2003) by Coleman Hatfield and Bob Spence, and The Hatfield and McCoy Feud After Kevin Costner: Rescuing History (2013) by Thomas Dotson.

What follows is Part 3 of my interview with Jean, which occurred on August 7, 2001:

What kind of shape is the [Hatfield] cemetery in?

Pretty rough right now because Henry’s been gone two years and he was sick two years before so he didn’t get to take care of it the way he normally did. It’s pretty well growed up. The main part of the cemetery, the family part, is pretty good. It’s just where the hill’s growed up.

There are unmarked graves in there.

There’s a bunch in there. Well, the main part of the cemetery is just the Hatfield people. And there’s a lot of graves up there, neighborhood people that couldn’t afford to buy grave plots and things like that. They just let them be buried up in there. So they’re not all Hatfields. I think all of the Hatfields now are marked up there, because we put Aunt Rosie’s up last fall and she was the last one in the family not to be marked. And we got that done. But there’s a lot of neighborhood people up in there and a lot of friends that Tennis and Joe made and they died off and they wanted to be buried close to the family.

What about Devil Anse’s politics?

Well, Henry’s father [Tennis] changed. Grandpa [Devil Anse] was a Democrat. The way I can understand it, the Democrat Party was so closed they wouldn’t let Tennis in when he wanted to run for sheriff so he ran for sheriff on the Republican ticket and won. Surprised the heck out of them, I imagine. And then Joe carried on as a Republican. But my husband was a Republican until he died. Me, I vote for both sides. Depends on the person that’s running. You know how politics is. Once you’re out of favor then you live a pretty rough life. And that happened in the family, too. Kind of wild back in those days. Even back 30-40 years ago, it was wild. I think we’re about to get civilized.

There’s hope.

I don’t know. If they don’t get a handle on these drugs there’s not going to be much hope. We’ve got problems here with the drugs. I just wish they could get them settled so people could get back to normal. When we built our house up there… We went on vacation we left the house wide open. Nobody bothered anything. Neighbor went in and let my little dogs run for a while, fed ‘em, put ‘em back in the house. Never even thought of locking the door. But you wouldn’t do that now. I think there’s been like five break-ins up here in the last couple of weeks. I think you can probably trace it right back to drugs. People trying to get stuff to sell for drugs. Which is pitiful.

What about Dyke Garrett?

Uncle Dyke? He was with the family most of the time, off and on. He done the burying and the marrying. Of course, the picture back there shows him baptizing Grandpa. He was a circuit preacher. He traveled everywhere.

Do you have a favorite character in the story? Anyone you feel attached to?

Well, all of them.

Even on the McCoy side?

Well, I think Roseanne is my favorite on the McCoy side, of course. And I think Grandma. Because think of what she went through. How many nights did she set up worrying about those reckless boys of hers? And every picture you see of them together, they look like love. Their body language shows it. They care for each other. And I think he took a lot of her advice and things like that. And if he was half the man that the people he helped and things like that, I think he must have been a pretty great person, too. There’s one of the pictures there… There was a Chafins boy that they just took in and raised. He didn’t have no family. Evidently his mother and father died when he was young and they took him in and raised him. They done several people that way. If they didn’t have a job, he’d work them, timbering and things like that so they could have a little bit of money along. That’s another thing about Altina Waller’s book I liked because she told the people who worked for him. There was a lot of McCoys who worked for him, too.

Have you read John Ed Pearce’s book about feuds in eastern Kentucky? I think he was unfair to Devil Anse.

Well, maybe he had ties to the McCoys or something.

I think Cap and Uncle Jim Vance are the two who…

They were the instigators.

Devil Anse, he really didn’t…

He wasn’t in the major things. If you notice, all the incidents that happen, he wasn’t there. But Uncle Jim and Cap were. So I think they kind of pushed it and Frank Phillips pushed it on the other side. Frank Phillips was the type of man who would kill you for fifty cents bounty. He was a bounty hunter. Back at that time, five dollars was a big bounty. They had a five-hundred-dollar bounty on Grandpa and Johnse’s head back in 1887. Usually like Jesse James and them, theirs didn’t go over one hundred dollars.

Was that in Kentucky?

Uh huh, right.

I’m hoping someone will link all of these historical sites together…

Well, that’s what they’re trying to do out in Pikeville but Logan County is not interested in it. There’s no driving force behind it, more or less. I was reading in the paper where the county commission was talking about taking over the cemetery, but it won’t do no good unless they clean it up and fix it so people can get up there. There’s a lot of people who can’t walk up the hill. And we need a road and a bridge up through there so people can get up there.

I was told the Cap Hatfield cemetery is not supposed to be visited. Is that true?

I don’t know. Neighborhood people go up in there so I really don’t know.

How would you describe his ‘set’ of the family?

They were more private people. They didn’t mix with the public like… Well now, Henry’s father [Tennis] was always in the public so I think it just come naturally for his children to be that way, too.

Interview of Jean Hatfield at Sarah Ann, WV (2001), Part 2

28 Tuesday May 2019

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Civil War, Hatfield-McCoy Feud

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Altina Waller, Appalachia, Asa Harmon McCoy, Betty Caldwell, Bob Hatfield, Bob Spence, Brandon Kirk, Cap Hatfield, Cincinnati, civil war, Coleman Hatfield, crime, Devil Anse Hatfield, Don Chafin, Ellison Hatfield, feud, feuds, Frank Phillips, genealogy, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Henry Hatfield, history, History Channel, hunting, Jack Hatfield, Jean Hatfield, Joe Hatfield, Johnson Hatfield, Levisa Hatfield, Logan Banner, Logan County, logging, Mingo County, Nancy McCoy, Otis Rice, Perry Cline, Preacher Anse Hatfield, Rosa Browning, Roseanne McCoy, Sarah Ann, Tennis Hatfield, The Hatfield and McCoy Feud After Kevin Costner, The McCoys: Their Story, The Tale of the Devil, Thomas Dotson, timbering, tourism, Truda Williams McCoy, West Virginia

In 2001-2002, I wrote a series of popular stories for the Logan Banner that merged aspects of well-known Hatfield-McCoy books written by Otis Rice and Altina Waller in the 1980s. I had previously enjoyed Rice’s narrative and Waller’s analysis; I did not conduct any new research. Even though I believed the definitive Hatfield-McCoy Feud book remained unwritten, my purpose in writing these stories was not a step toward writing a book; my purpose in writing these stories was to revisit the narrative with some analysis for Banner readers. My hope was that readers would see what I saw: first, fascinating history (or folk story) for its own sake; second, the power of history to create a popular type of tourism.

I was fortunate during this time to meet Jean Hatfield. Jean, born in 1936, operated a Hatfield family museum at Sarah Ann, WV. Jean was not a native of West Virginia but had lived her entire adult life locally and had personally known several of Anderson Hatfield’s children. I really appreciated her desire to promote regional history. She “got it.” She inspired me. Anytime that I drove up Route 44, I stopped to visit Jean at the museum. She was always welcoming. Knowing her reminded me that every Hatfield (and McCoy) descendant is a source of information–-and that for the most part they have yet to tell the story in their own words. Three notable exceptions include The McCoys: Their Story by Truda Williams McCoy (1976), The Tale of the Devil (2003) by Coleman Hatfield and Bob Spence, and The Hatfield and McCoy Feud After Kevin Costner: Rescuing History (2013) by Thomas Dotson.

What follows is Part 2 of my interview with Jean, which occurred on August 7, 2001:

What year was your husband born in?

He was born in ‘25. Grandpa died in 1921. He didn’t remember him but he remembered his grandmother. Grandma died in ’28.

Where did Devil Anse’s house sit here?

It’s up above the cemetery. There’s a ranch-style house there now. There’s a concrete bridge going over there. And a big bottom. And where the ranch style house is, that’s where the old homeplace was.

Is it still in family hands?

No. It’s been out of the family for I guess fifty years or more.

Now, Devil Anse having that many kids, do the grand-kids mingle pretty well?

They’re scattered. We really need to get back to the tradition of having a family reunion where they could all come in. But they’re scattered all over the country. Some in Florida, some in Ohio.

Are there other pictures like this that other branches of the family have?

I would say they all have some. There’s always pictures hidden back in attics and things like that. You never know. There’s one… Bob Hatfield from Cincinnati, he has an extensive family also. He’s through Anderson Hatfield. Preacher Anderson.

Do you know any stories about Anse and bear?

He was a bear hunter. And he killed a momma bear and brought the baby cubs home and raised them. They had them for years. A male and a female. Their names was Billy and Fanny. And Grandma would have to go out and run them out of the well house because they was out there slurping all of the cream off of the milk. They were down-to-earth people. They planted their gardens and things like that.

What about Don Chafin?

He was distant relation to the Hatfields. Grandma was a Chafin so he would have come in on her side. Maybe cousins. There’s a picture over there of Grandpa and him together.

The pictures of Johnse that I’ve seen, I don’t think he’s the best looking of the boys.

Well, I don’t either. Some of the pictures doesn’t do him justice either. This is the one that I like of him. It’s a little bit better. As he got older, he didn’t age very well. But then he had about five wives, too. That has a tendency to age you a bit.

If you have just one wife and she’s no good that can be enough.

I was lucky in that respect. We had 47 good years together. Now that top picture there is Joe and Cap and one of the deputies. His name was Lilly.

Devil Anse’s home burned, right? Did they lose a lot of things in it?

Uh huh. It had a lot of things in it. Somebody said Tennis had stored a lot of guns and ammunition and things like that in it. People were afraid to go by there for a week afterwards because the shots was going off. I would say it was something else because at that time there was no fire departments or anything. It probably just burned out.

Did you ever hear what year it was built?

1889. That’s a replica of it there. It was a seven-room two-story. Cap’s was built on the same pattern.

Did your husband read a lot about the feud?

Mostly, but he disagreed with a lot of it. The Altina Waller book, he liked that. It was a good one. They interviewed him on the History Channel. She never interviewed anyone. She went with public record on everything. And I think a lot of it was Perry Cline pushed a lot of it. Grandpa had sued him because he got on Grandpa’s land and timbered it. Grandpa won 5000 acres of land off of him. After that, all the warrants and the bounty hunters started looking for Grandpa and the boys. Grandpa decided all of a sudden that he was just going to sell him the land and get rid of it and when he did that everything just stopped. She thought in the book too that Perry Cline was the one really instigating the Hatfields and the McCoys and he was taking money off both sides of the family for things. He would buddy up to one side and then do something for someone and they’d pay him and then he would go to the other one and do the same thing.

Did you say you had something of his?

No. Frank Phillips. A pocket knife. We got it through one of our friends way back there. And he didn’t want it because he said it was too grisly. And it is rusty but you know the blade is razor sharp. And it has to be way over 100 years old.

Didn’t he marry Nancy McCoy?

She was Johnse’s first wife. She left Johnse for Frank Phillips. Well now, Asa Harmon McCoy was her father. And he was the one… Grandpa wounded him in the Civil War. And when they all come back from the Civil War he was found dead in the Hatfield territory and they blamed the Hatfields for the killing. But I think years later on they found out that one of his own people had killed him and just throwed him in the Hatfield territory. But now it was his daughter that married Johnse and from what I can understand she made Johnse live pretty rough, which he probably deserved for treating Roseanne the way he did. But now, I talked to Aunt Betty and Aunt Rosie both about Roseanne and they were living at the house with her and they loved her. They said she was a beautiful person. She had coal-black hair, she had a good turn. She was just a nice person. And I think they kind of got mad at Johnse because he was running around and chasing women and things like that.

Now, I’ve heard that Devil Anse wouldn’t allow them to be married.

He wouldn’t. But years later he said he wished he had’ve because Roseanne saved Johnse’s life a couple of times there. That is true. And he did say that he wished he had let them marry. But back at that time there was so much hatred going on between the families. Her father, as far as I know, never spoke to her again. Just because she did take up with Johnse.

What about the shirt that Ellison wore when he was stabbed?

As far as I know, it’s in a museum in New Orleans. There’s a picture there. Uncle Joe had it and he sold it to one of his sister’s grandsons and he passed away and his wife has it. I heard that it was on display in a museum. Henry tried to buy it back after his cousin died but we never did get an answer back from them. I would still like to have it back. Actually, it belonged to Henry’s father and he left it in storage at Uncle Joe’s and Uncle Joe sold it. It should have come down to Henry or Jack. But that’s life.

Interview of Jean Hatfield at Sarah Ann, WV (2001), Part 1

26 Sunday May 2019

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Timber

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Altina Waller, Appalachia, Beech Creek, Ben Creek, Betty Caldwell, Bob Spence, Brandon Kirk, Catlettsburg, Coleman Hatfield, Devil Anse Hatfield, Elias Hatfield, feuds, genealogy, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Henry D. Hatfield, history, Jean Hatfield, Joe Hatfield, Johnson Hatfield, Kentucky, Levisa Hatfield, Logan Banner, Logan County, Matewan, miller, Mingo County, Otis Rice, Randolph McCoy, Red Jacket, Rosa Browning, Roseanne McCoy, Route 44, Sarah Ann, sheriff, Tennis Hatfield, The Hatfield and McCoy Feud After Kevin Costner, The McCoys: Their Story, The Tale of the Devil, Thomas Dotson, tourism, Troy Hatfield, Truda Williams McCoy, West Virginia, Willis Hatfield

In 2001-2002, I wrote a series of popular stories for the Logan Banner that merged aspects of well-known Hatfield-McCoy books written by Otis Rice and Altina Waller in the 1980s. I had previously enjoyed Rice’s narrative and Waller’s analysis; I did not conduct any new research. Even though I believed the definitive Hatfield-McCoy Feud book remained unwritten, my purpose in writing these stories was not a step toward writing a book; my purpose in writing these stories was to revisit the narrative with some analysis for Banner readers. My hope was that readers would see what I saw: first, fascinating history (or folk story) for its own sake; second, the power of history to create a popular type of tourism.

I was fortunate during this time to meet Jean Hatfield. Jean, born in 1936, operated a Hatfield family museum at Sarah Ann, WV. Jean was not a native of West Virginia but had lived her entire adult life locally and had personally known several of Anderson Hatfield’s children. I really appreciated her desire to promote regional history. She “got it.” She inspired me. Anytime that I drove up Route 44, I stopped to visit Jean at the museum. She was always welcoming. Knowing her reminded me that every Hatfield (and McCoy) descendant is a source of information–and that for the most part they have yet to tell the story in their own words. Three notable exceptions include The McCoys: Their Story by Truda Williams McCoy (1976), The Tale of the Devil (2003) by Coleman Hatfield and Bob Spence, and The Hatfield and McCoy Feud After Kevin Costner: Rescuing History (2013) by Thomas Dotson.

What follows is Part 1 of my interview with Jean, which occurred on August 7, 2001:

You were telling me some of the things you have. Family things.

Like the guns and gun molds and knives and things like that that belonged to the Hatfields. And of course as you can see here in the shop I’ve got all kinds of photographs. Still have more. I just don’t have the room to display all that I have.

You mentioned a gun specifically.

I have three of the pistols that belonged to Grandpa [Devil Anse]. The last one that he carried in his pocket. And then I have a large .38/.40. I also have a little silver pearl handle squeezer that my husband’s father gave him when he was running for sheriff before he died.

Which one of those boys was your father-in-law?

Tennis. That was Devil Anse and Levisa’s youngest son. He was just like 6 years old, seven years old when the feud was going on. I think he was born in 1889. And the feud actually started around 1886. So he was just a little boy, him and Uncle Willis both. Willis, if you remember the old picture of them in front of the old log house, Willis was sitting on one side and Tennis was sitting on the other side. Both of them was small boys.

Is that the one where they have the little coon skin caps?

Uh huh. It’s a very common picture. I think about everybody has that one.

Did you say you had an axe, too?

Yeah, I’ve got a little axe that they called their kindling axe. They chopped their wood up to start their fires with. Little short handle. Maybe the handle on it is like 28, 29 inches long. And it’s got two cutting sides so it would be a double-bitted axe. And I have gristmill rocks that they used to use to grind their meal up from their corn that they raised. They were pioneer people. They had to do everything on their own because there was no convenience store at that time. Anything they had… They floated their logs down to Catlettsburg in the fall and then they’d take a train back with their flour and sugar and things like that they needed for winter. And the rest of the things I would imagine they canned and dried so they had plenty of food the winter.

So they had their own mill?

Oh yeah. They’d grind their own corn into meal.

Where did it sit?

Uncle Joe had one over here across the road but now they had one earlier over ___. That was the area that they were in when the feud was going on. That’s where they done a lot of their timbering back over in that area.

What little town is there now that’s close to where they lived?

Red Jacket, over in that area. Close in around Matewan.

So you remember your father-in-law pretty well?

Well no. He died two weeks after my husband and I met. But I knew Willis and I knew Rosie [Browning] and Betty [Caldwell] and Uncle Joe. They were all Devil Anse’s children.

A lot of these things I read about, you don’t get a good idea of what they were like. Do you know anything that would make them seem like real people? Any stories? Things you’ve never seen in print?

Well, like Johnse. He was the ladies’ man. He was the one that fell in love with Roseanne and they wouldn’t let them marry. Now Tennis and Willis and Joe pretty well hung together. They were more buddies than the rest of them. Aunt Rosie was a nurse. So she nursed everybody. She was like a mother figure to all of them.

Did she nurse in a hospital?

I think she did nurse at one time in one of the hospitals. Probably one of Big Doc’s hospitals. Dr. Henry D. But she was always the type to go to the homes and take care of them, more or less. And Aunt Betty was very religious, so she was like the minister to the family.

Do you know what her religion was?

I would say Baptist. What was the older one? Probably United. But she was religious all of her life. They were human. I have a lot of people in the years that I’ve been here tell me that their grandfather and grandmother stayed at Grandpa and Grandma’s house because he wouldn’t let nobody go by if it was getting dark because they had wild bears and panthers and things like that. He was afraid people would get hurt. So he would make them come in the house and they would feed them supper and they’d sleep and the next morning at daylight they could go on. He’d done took care of their horses and everything. I would have give anything if he would have had some kind of a register that people could have signed that they have stayed all night with him. Because I still have people telling me, “My grandma, my great-grandma did this” and “My great-grandma did that.” And they took a lot of people in that didn’t have homes and let ‘em work and live with ‘em. They were kind people. But I think that they just didn’t like to be pushed around. Right now, everybody’s that way. They’ll give you anything they got, but just don’t try to take it off of ‘em. Now my husband, he was a very large man. He was like 6’2” when I met him. And I always called him my gentle giant because he was just as gentle as he could be. But you didn’t want to make him mad. He did have a temper. But I very seldom ever saw it. And they loved people. They liked dealing with people. Most of them were storekeepers. Two of Grandpa’s sons were doctors. Of course, Tennis was sheriff, Joe was sheriff. Lias and Troy, they were storekeepers. So they always were dealing with the public. You don’t deal with the public without repercussions if you’re mean.

Did you say something about having a chifferobe?

Yes. A handmade chifferobe and it has a little hidey-hole in the top of it where you could hide guns or money or whatever you want in it.

Do you know where the fort was?

I have never figured that out. I don’t know whether it was… There may have been one over on Beech Creek or Ben Creek, over in that area. But as far as I know from the family telling me, it didn’t exist. But I know their house was built back off of the road. Well, back at that time, there wasn’t a road. You had to go down through the creek to get anywhere. And trespass on other people’s property to get to Logan. I think this road went in here in 1932 or 1938. But even when Henry’s father put the monument up for Grandpa, there was no road here. That was in 1928. And they had to use mules and sleds and everything else to get that stone up on the mountain.

Paw Paw Incident: Floyd Mounts Deposition (1889)

04 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Sandy Valley, Hatfield-McCoy Feud

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Tags

Appalachia, Bud McCoy, crime, Doc Mayhorn, Don Whitt, feud, feuds, Floyd Mounts, genealogy, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, history, Jeff Whitt, Logan County, Mingo County, Pharmer McCoy, Plyant Mahorn, Tolbert McCoy, Tug Fork, Valentine Wall Hatfield, West Virginia

The killing of Tolbert, Pharmer, and Bud McCoy by a Hatfield-led gang on August 8, 1882 represented one of the most sensational events of the Hatfield-McCoy Feud. What follows is Floyd Mounts’ deposition regarding the affair:

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Floyd Mounts

I know Don and Jeff Whitt. Jeff said at the Jail Door Just after the __ of Wall Hatfield that if he swore Wall, Plyant and Dock Mahorn went across the river where the boys were killed he was mistaken, and that he was served and didn’t know what he was doing and that they were not there.

Devil John Wright Saber (2018)

09 Saturday Mar 2019

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Culture of Honor

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Tags

Appalachia, Big Stone Gap, crime, Devil John Wright, feuds, history, photos, Southwest Virginia Museum, Virginia

IMG_7023

Devil John Wright saber (1901), Southwest Virginia Museum, Big Stone Gap, VA. 26 August 2018

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Devil John Wright saber (1901), Southwest Virginia Museum, Big Stone Gap, VA. 26 August 2018

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If you had lived in the Harts Creek community during the 1880s, to which faction of feudists might you have given your loyalty?

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Do you think Milt Haley and Green McCoy committed the ambush on Al and Hollene Brumfield in 1889?

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Feud Poll 3

Who do you think organized the ambush of Al and Hollene Brumfield in 1889?

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Ed Haley Poll 1

What do you think caused Ed Haley to lose his sight when he was three years old?

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OtterTales

Writings from my travels and experiences. High and fine literature is wine, and mine is only water; but everybody likes water. Mark Twain

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This site is dedicated to the collection, preservation, and promotion of history and culture in Appalachia.

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A site about one of the most beautiful, interesting, tallented, outrageous and colorful personalities of the 20th Century

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