In Search of Ed Haley 227

17 Friday Jan 2014

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Al Brumfield, Ben Adams, Bob Dingess, Brooke Dingess, Burl Farley, Cat Fry, Dave Dingess, feud, French Bryant, genealogy, history, Hollene Brumfield, Hugh Dingess, John W Runyon, Milt Haley, moonshine, Peter Mullins, timbering, writing

I asked Bob about Milt and he said, “I don’t know too much about the first Haley. I think he was a rambler and just traveled here and there and got in with them Mullinses up there making liquor and moonshine and stuff. I’ve been told that he married Peter Mullins’ sister and he stayed there among them a long time. They was two or three clans of them Mullinses. They was a bunch of horse-thieves and stealers who come out of Kentucky. Well, they run them out of Kentucky. They aimed to kill them and they got into Harts Creek in that wilderness section back in there. They was gamblers, they was moonshiners and they was always in a fight and trouble with each other. They couldn’t trust each other. The men wouldn’t work a lick and the poor old women did the work and the men just sat in the yard or played cards or drunk liquor and that was the way they done it.”

Talking about Milt got us into the story of his feud with the Brumfields.

“See, that all happened before I was born,” Bob said. “That happened in ’89 you see and all I know is what my mother and what Aunt Cat down at Hart told me. Now, I was told this: that Al Brumfield controlled all timber that went out of Harts Creek down there and he had an apparatus put in right above the mouth of the creek to catch the timber and not let them go in the river. All right. Ben Adams up here was a millionaire nearly at that time and had all of this big poplar timber in this creek for miles up and down here. Ben Adams had a lot of timber down there and the way I got it some logs got lost. Well, he undertook to make Al pay for the timber since Al was responsible for it and taking the ten-cents-a-log to hold it in the creek for them till they got it rafted and Al wouldn’t do it. And Al went to get a gun to kill him and Ben Adams run up Harts Creek and took the Big Branch and took that ridge on back home. He got away from Al. Well, it was always figured that Ben Adams hired these two men to kill Al so he could get that timber out of here. Now, I’ve been told that.”

I asked Bob about John Runyon and he said, “I never heard of John Runyon. But, somehow, down yonder in that curve… You see, these men had done gone there and planted themselves waiting for these people to come.”

Bob said Milt and Green were laying in ambush when Al and Hollena Brumfield came riding along. Al rode one horse, while Hollena and Bob’s father Dave rode another.

“My dad was a riding behind Aunt Hollene and Al was in front and somehow when them men started he saw the gun and he fell over on the other side of his horse and hung to the saddle till he got around that point. He put his arms around the horse’s neck and had his leg up so they couldn’t… They was two shots fired. I don’t know which one of them was shot first but they shot Aunt Hollene right through the cheek. The bullet went in right on the left side of her cheek right at her ear and come out right above her nose. Dad jumped off the horse when they shot her and throwed his hand up and they shot him through his hand then they got away. And Dad took part of his shirt and tore it up and tied it and put it around her head to keep her from bleeding to death. I don’t guess he paid too much attention to that hand as long as he got her took care of.”

I said to Bob, “So, did Al gallop off at that point?” and he answered, “As far as I know, he made a get-away. He went on down the hollow, fast speed I imagine. He knowed they was a gonna kill him.”

“Well now, what about Haley and McCoy?” I asked.

“So far as we know, they run and took the mountain,” Bob said. “They was hid in the bushes, see? But Dad recognized them and knowed who they was. Aunt Hollene did, too. They never did get along in here after that. They run them men back through that country back yonder and caught them almost at Dingess on the N&W. And they was a clan of Dingesses back in there and they headed them off for them and they caught them. Ah, they was a mean bunch of men in here, then. Of course, I knew old man French Bryant — he was a ringleader in it. Old man Burl Farley. A lot of Brumfields and Dingesses and everything else involved in it. And they brought them back to Uncle Hugh’s up here.”

In Search of Ed Haley 219

07 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley, Green Shoal, Harts, Lincoln County Feud, Music, Toney

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Appalachia, banjo, Bell Morris, Billy Adkins, Brandon Kirk, Bud Workman, Bumble Bee, Charley Davis, crime, Dave Dick, Don Morris, Ed Haley, Greasy George Adams, Green McCoy, Green Shoal, Harts, history, Hollena Brumfield, Hollene Brumfield, Hugh Dingess, Irvin Workman, Milt Haley, Peter Mullins, Ranger, Route 10, Toney, writing

Back at Billy’s, the subject of the “murder table” came up again. Supposedly, the table upon which Milt and Green had eaten their last meal somehow eventually ended up in the possession of Billy’s family. He suggested visiting his aunt Don Morris, who as a child had eaten from the table many times. Taking the cue, we loaded in the car and drove up Route 10 to Don’s house. Don lived at Toney, a small residential settlement just upriver from Green Shoal.

Don was a pleasant lady — very eager to help — and was aged probably in her seventies. After all the introductions, I asked her about the table. She said her grandfather Irvin Workman must have gotten it soon after the 1889 troubles. “He had it way back when he was raising his family,” Don said. “Then my dad, Bud Workman, when he moved out with my mother, they took the table with them.”

I asked, “Who told you that table was the Haley-McCoy table?” and she said, “My dad. It was in his father’s house before it was in his.”

“And you said that people would come by to see it?” I asked. “Who would come to see it?”

Don said, “I imagine it was relatives of the people that was involved in it.”

Don seemed to remember the table well, so I asked her for some paper so I could try to sketch it based on her memories. I started out asking about the length of the table, the style of its legs, and so forth…estimating everything by comparing it to Don’s current table. It was like doing a police sketch. After I had a rough drawing of the table, I asked her about the size and angle of the bullet holes.

Satisfied, I asked Don if she’d heard anything about Milt and Green’s death.

“It was pretty complicated,” she said. “Well, they got those men in and fed them. They knew they was gonna kill them all the time and they let them eat first. I can’t remember too much about the actual thing, because they didn’t talk too much about it in the family. Grandpa did sometimes. Well, I understood they shot them around the table after they ate. But it was execution style. Now, I couldn’t swear to it.”

Don figured the only light in the room was a kerosene lamp in the middle of the table. There was a story, Brandon said, that Hugh Dingess “shot out the lights” just before the murders — which presumably meant this lamp. While this may have occurred (perhaps so no one could witness the subsequent murders and thus testify in a future trial), it seemed unlikely. I mean, the room was probably really crowded if only half the people supposedly there were actually there and shooting in the room would have seemed dangerous. Of course, shooting a kerosene lamp could have set the whole house on fire.

“Well, I have heard they did, and I’ve heard they didn’t, so I couldn’t say which is true,” Don said of the lights. “I don’t think they could have without burning down the table.”

Brandon asked, “Was one of the men supposed to have played music before they killed him?” and she said, “He sang, didn’t he? It seems to me he played the banjo and sang a song. I guess they thought since they was going out anyway they might as well go out in style.”

I said, “Now, I heard that the wives went down there to try to plead for their lives and they turned them away. Have you ever heard that?”

Don answered, “Yes, I’ve heard that, but whether or not it’s true I’m not sure. My husband’s mother Bell Morris was related to the McCoys.”

I said, “Just for the record, what happened to that old house?” and she said, “I bet it burned.”

Don wondered why I was so interested in Milt Haley and I explained that I was researching the story of his son, Ed Haley, of which he was a very important part. I asked if she ever heard Ed play and she said, “I’m not sure, seems that maybe I did a long time ago. I think Haley played with Dave Dick. Dave played banjo. He was blind.” Brandon said Charley Davis had described Dick as a “pretty good” banjo-picker who mostly played “little ditties” like “Bumble Bee”. He lived downriver around Ranger but stayed in Harts for a week or so at a time with different families, sometimes playing for dances. Kids used to imitate him by bumping into things.

After mentioning Ed’s name to Don our conversation dwindled off to me asking if she knew people like Peter Mullins, Greasy George, or Hollena Brumfield. She gave answers like, “Well, I used to know a Peter Mullins. His foot was turned back. I remember watching him go up the hill there at the house.” As for Hollena Brumfield: “I knew one down here at this big old house at Hart. They put in a restaurant and you know it didn’t do too well. She said, ‘We got hotdogs on ice.’ Yeah, I knew those people.”

In Search of Ed Haley 208

07 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Lincoln County Feud

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Al Brumfield, crime, Enoch Baker, George Fry, Green McCoy, Green Shoal, Harts Creek, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, history, Hollene Brumfield, Logan County Banner, Milt Haley, writing

On November 7, 1889, The Banner printed a Huntington story titled “Two More Victims To the Endless Hatfield-McCoy Feud/Prisoners Belonging to the Latter Faction Lynched.” This article was extremely difficult to read — some of its words were completely gone, which probably didn’t really matter since it was so error-ridden.

HUNTINGTON, W.VA., October 25 — Information was brought [here from] Hamlin, Lincoln County, that about midnight Friday, a mob surrounded the Lincoln County jail, took two of the prisoners, Green McCoy and Milton Haley, and hung them to a tree a short distance from the [jail]. Haley and McCoy are natives of Kentucky and are allied to the McCoy faction of outlaws [feuding] with the Hatfields generally familiar by the public. McCoy was engaged in a shooting scrape with Paris Brumfield about a year ago and about a month ago he, in company with Haley, ambushed and attempted to murder Brumfield and his wife. The shooting occurred on a Sunday and both victims [were] badly wounded, Mrs. Brumfield being shot in the breast and her husband in the leg. For a time it was thought the woman would die but she recovered. McCoy and Haley escaped to Hunto, Kentucky, [but] not before they made two more attempts at assassination in the county, in ____ of _____ man named Adkins was wounded. The would be murderers were arrested at Ben Postoffice, Martin county, Kentucky, and were confined in jail there. Friday they were locked up in Lincoln county (W.Va.) Jail, and in the absence of definite information it is supposed they were lynched by some of the Hatfield sympathizers.

It wasn’t clear if the Adkins who supposedly wounded in the above account was closely related to Cain Adkins or Fed Adkins. The place names given were also questionable, since Brandon couldn’t locate Hunto or Ben Post Office in any Kentucky map books.

The Huntington story apparently had little credibility since The Banner followed it with corrections:

The above is copied from the Enquirer, and is about as reliable as you find most reports about the Hatfield-McCoy feud. In the first place, the prisoners Haley and McCoy were not in jail.

Secondly. — No mob ever surrounded the jail, they went into Geo. Fry’s house and took them out without any resistance from the guards.

Thirdly. — They were not hung to a tree a short distance from the jail building, but were shot at Green Shoals some 25 miles from the C.H.

Fourthly. — Haley has no connection whatsoever with the McCoys of Kentucky.

Fifthly. — Mrs. Brumfield was not shot in the breast but in the face, and her husband was not shot in the leg but in one arm.

Sixthly. — McCoy and Haley never wounded Adkins, or even shot at him.

Seventhly. — Neither the Hatfields nor the Hatfield sympathizers had anything to do with the _____ing of McCoy and Haley.

It was done by the citizens of Lincoln who sympathized with the Brumfields and Dingess and by men who do not believe in the assassination of women by way laying and shooting them as they peacefully ride along the bank.

The Hatfield-McCoy feud had nothing whatever to do with the trouble, and from present appearances it is about over. Reports that some forty men _____ are armed and preparing for battle is without foundation.

For the next month, The Banner was silent about the Haley-McCoy trouble. Then, on December 12th, it gave this brief update: “Enoch Baker, of Harts Creek, was in town Monday, and reports every thing quiet, but thinks the Brumfield-McCoy feud is liable at any time to break out afresh.”

In Search of Ed Haley 191

02 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Appalachia, Billy Adkins, Boone County, Chloe Mullins, Clintwood, crime, Ed Haley, history, Hollene Brumfield, Imogene Haley, slavery, Solomon Mullins, writing

After talking with Lola, we walked down the street with Billy Adkins and spent a few hours filtering through genealogy books at his kitchen table. Billy, I discovered, had two large bookcases filled with categorized three-ring binders dedicated to Harts families. One of the first things we dug out were notes pertaining to Ed’s mother, Emma Jean Haley. Years earlier, Lawrence Haley had told me that someone shot her in the doorway of what I later learned to be Al Brumfield’s house. In his notes, Billy recorded her as re-marrying James Benton Mullins, a son of Peter and Jane Mullins, which we ruled out immediately: James B. was her uncle. The Emma who had actually had married this fellow was born in 1876 (about eight years after Emma Haley) and was listed in other sources with the maiden name of Johnson.

“I don’t know where I found that out but somebody told me that that woman right there was Milt Haley’s widow,” Billy said. “But that date’s totally wrong, see.”

Whether or not Ed’s mother had ever remarried anyone, based on census information, Brandon was convinced that she had died in the 1890s. In the 1900 Logan County Census, her mother Chloe Mullins listed seven of her nine children as being alive. The seven accounted for were Joseph Adams, John Adams, Ticky George Adams, Peter Mullins, and Weddie Mullins. The two who were not listed in the 1900 census were Dicy (Adams) Thomas, whose husband was listed as a widower in the census, and Ed’s mother.

We found out from Billy’s notes that Emma Haley descended from a notorious counterfeiter named Solomon Mullins.

“Money Makin’ Sol,” as he was called, was born to John and Jane Mullins on the Broad River in North Carolina in 1782. Around 1806, he married Sarah Cathey; he settled in Kentucky by 1810.

“Solomon was always ready for action,” according to photocopied papers at Billy’s house. “He served in the War of 1812 in Cpt. David Gooding’s Company of Kentucky Volunteer Militia. After the war, Solomon, evidently ready for more action, began counterfeiting coins. Family tradition has it that Solomon found one of John Swift’s ‘Lost Silver Mines’ in the hills of eastern Kentucky and ‘South of the Mountain’ in Southwestern Virginia. Thus he became known as ‘Money Making Sol’, and I might add always the ‘genius’, stayed one step ahead of his trouble. In 1837 Solomon decided to join his father and his two brothers in Russell County. He bought a farm and built a shop just a little ways from his house where he began making money again. He melted the silver down and didn’t seem to care who saw him.”

“I was born August 29, 1840, at my father’s home below Clintwood,” according to a 1926 interview with one Nancy Mullins. “The Mullins mixed with the Indians. I have heard it said that Grandpa John Mullins was about one-fourth Indian. Grandpa John had at least two brothers. One was named Sol and he owned a lot of slaves. He was a moneymaking man. He lived on the other side of the branch in a bottom near my father’s home. He had a crowd of slave wenches. He made money on Holly Creek back of Press Harris’ home. He had his work place under a cliff. Pa and Uncle John used to help him work at this business. They would ‘strike’ for Sol. While they lived there, his slave women would take guns and go hunting. They would kill deer and pack them in on their backs. The government got after Sol and he went to West Virginia where he died.”

“Solomon Mullins moved to the waters of Holly Creek, about two miles northeast of Clintwood, [Virginia,] where he lived for several years,” according to Sutherland’s The Mullins Family in Dickenson County (1967). “He owned several slaves, mostly women, who worked in the fields and hunted in the woods. He made counterfeit money for several years under a cliff near Holly Creek. The cliff is still pointed out by neighbors as ‘Sol’s Cliff.’ He was caught at work once by a detective and when he saw he was caught, he ordered the detective to help him work, saying: ‘Grab that hammer and strike this.’ He hoped this would make the detective afraid to tell on him, but it didn’t do any good. He managed to get pure silver and mixed other metal with it to make the counterfeit money. He would pay $2 of his counterfeit money for $1 of the government money. At last, he took a scare and left this country.”

In 1837, Sol and his son Peter were involved in making counterfeit coins in Russell County, Virginia. As a result, according to Boone County, West Virginia, History (1990), they moved to Marion County, Tennessee, where they renewed their counterfeiting activity. In the winter of 1841-42, after pressure from government authorities in Tennessee, Sol and Peter moved with their families and slaves to the North Fork of Big Creek in Logan (now Boone) County, (West) Virginia.

“They rode mules and walked all the way,” according to Boone County. “He died in 1858 and Sarah died about 1872.”

As Brandon flipped through the Sol Mullins notes, I could see his brain working, making connections. Suddenly, he said, “Sol was a great-grandfather to both Emma Haley and Hollena Brumfield…making them third cousins.”

Oh my.

In Search of Ed Haley 189

31 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Al Brumfield, Bill Adkins, Billy Adkins, Cain Adkins, fiddle, Green McCoy, Harts, history, Hollene Brumfield, Jackson Mullins, Lola McCann, Milt Haley, writing

That night, Brandon suggested visiting Lola McCann, a local widow of advanced age. Lola, born on the West Fork of Harts Creek in 1909, lived in Harts proper, just back of an old hardware store, a video store, and the post office. She spent a lot of time with her daughter Cheryl Bryant, who lived across the street with her family. We found Lola at her daughter’s home almost buried in the cushions of a plush couch. As everyone made introductions, I headed over and sat down beside of her.

When Brandon asked Lola about the old Al Brumfield house, she said it was haunted, that Hollena Brumfield had kept the clothes of deceased relatives in an upstairs closet (top-story front downriver side). She never would spend the night there. She said the staircase was stained with blood and five or six bodies lay down in the old well. This all sounded like folk tales, the type of stories to tell in an old cabin around the fireplace…but who knows?

As things kinda moved along with Lola, Brandon mentioned that we should be sure and visit Billy Adkins, a neighbor and expert on local history and genealogy. Lola’s daughter immediately called him and invited him over. The next thing I knew a little stocky guy with a shaggy beard arrived at the door. It was Billy, of course, holding a fiddle, which he said belonged to his father Bill Sr., an old fiddler in Harts.

I told Billy that his father just had to know Ed Haley but he said, “I asked him and his mind’s gone. He can’t remember. He’s got Alzheimer’s. His mind just comes and goes.”

Bill, Sr. had given up the fiddle in recent years, but Lola’s daughter had a short home video of him playing “Bully of the Town”, “Way Out Yonder”, and “Sally Goodin” in 1985. Bill’s style was completely different from what I pictured as Ed’s — he held the bow toward the middle and played roughly with a lot of double-stops — but I was still anxious to talk to him. Billy said we could see him the following day as he was already in bed asleep.

When we mentioned our interest in the 1889 troubles, Billy said, “Green McCoy married Cain Adkins’ daughter. Cain and Mariah. Mariah was a Vance, I think. And they lived where Irv Workman’s house is now.”

Brandon asked, “Which is near where they’re buried, right?” and Billy said, “Yeah, right across the road from it. And Milt Haley married Jackson Mullins’ daughter. Jackson and Chloe Mullins, from up on Trace. She married again.”

What? Ed’s mother remarried after Milt’s murder?

“I believe it was another Mullins,” Billy said, “but I’d have to look it up. Milt’s name was Thomas, you see.”

It was all in his notebooks at home, he said, although he warned us: “See, I didn’t document any of this stuff. I didn’t put my sources down and when I’d run across it I’d just write it down. Now, I don’t know how I found it out.”

In Search of Ed Haley 188

30 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Ben Adams, Charlie Curry, Ed Haley, feud, French Bryant, history, Hollene Brumfield, John Martin, Mae Brumfield, Robert Martin, Tom Brumfield, Wesley Ferguson, writing

Brandon asked Mae what else she’d heard from the family about Al’s trouble with Milt and Green.

“All I’ve ever heard them talk about is going and getting them fellers that shot him and her, over in Kentucky,” she said. “They was just a posse went — I don’t know who they were — they rode horses and went to Kentucky and hunted these men. They caught them and they brought them back I guess and put them on their horses. I think that’s the way Granny told it to me. The river was up, and they tied them to horses and had somebody on the other side to catch them when they come across. Run them horses across that river with them to the other side. That’s how they got them and brought them up here to Fry.”

Now how did they get possession of them?

“Wasn’t some of the law men with them?” Mae asked. “I think now they was some law had them, and they claimed they took them away from the law. They never did discuss it too much to me. I’ve just heard outsiders talk about it.”

Mae said the Brumfields and Dingesses made life hard on Ben Adams after hearing that he’d been the one who hired Haley and McCoy. One night, they set his house on fire and tried to flush him out into the yard so they could shoot him. His wife, hoping they wouldn’t hurt her, ran outside repeatedly and extinguished the blaze. She begged the Brumfields and Dingesses to leave them alone for her sake and that of her children, and promised to take the family away the next morning if they were spared. The attackers were apparently satisfied because they left Ben Adams alone afterwards.

I asked Mae if she knew French Bryant and she said, “Yeah, I knew French Bryant. He was one of the gang, they said, I don’t know. I wasn’t acquainted with him — seen him pass here.”

Brandon asked Mae what it was like at Hollena’s house in her time there.

“Well, the family just practically came in and out all the time,” she said. “Tom’s mother lived here in a little old three-room house, and she stayed down there. Ward was a manager — that was her husband — Tom’s daddy. He managed her till he got killed. They all just practically lived at home. Hendricks lived up in the bottom over in Harts. At daylight, him and his family come down here — every day, they never missed a day. The family helped cook. Just always a big crowd there.”

Brandon asked if Hollena ever did any cooking.

“Oh, no,” Mae said. “She couldn’t work. She was crippled up too bad. She hired people to stay with her, and then Tom’s mother stayed there and done the work a lot. I never seen her cook none but one Sunday. Everyone had gone somewhere and me and Tom had come over there. And me and her and Wesley — her husband — and Tom was the only ones there. And she said, ‘Me and Mae’s gonna cook dinner. Tom go out there and kill me one of them big fat hens. Gonna make me some homemade dumplings.’ I’d never made no dumplings. That’s just right after we’d got married. I said, ‘Granny, I don’t know how to make dumplings.’ ‘I’ll teach you. I know how.’ Buddy, she did. She made the finest pot of dumplings you ever ate. She’d tell you how to cook. She knew all about it.”

I wondered if Hollena liked to have music in her home.

“I never did see no music,” Mae said. “I don’t know whether she liked it or not. She didn’t even have records probably. Had an old organ. I guess some of her girls mighta played it, you know. They was married and gone when I come into the family.”

Two local fiddlers, Bob and John Martin, sometimes came around and played for Hollena’s boarders. At these gatherings, there was moonshine for everyone (including Hollena, who liked to nip).

Mae heard that Milt Haley’s son — a blind fiddler — once had dinner there.

“His son, Ed Haley, come down there at Granny’s,” she said, catching me totally by surprise. “He played music, and he’d been around here playing music. He was down there around the mouth of the creek somewhere around her home, and she made them bring him in and feed him dinner. She didn’t hold no grudge. I’ve heard them tell it. I think maybe he stayed around in the community here. They used to have — I’ve heard them talk about it — them old dances around on Saturday nights. See all I know I’m telling you is just hearsay, something that somebody told me.”

Brandon asked Mae about Hollena Brumfield’s death. Mae wasn’t sure exactly what killed her.

“Supposed to been old age,” she said. “I don’t know whether she had any other problems or not. She was sick. Not long — one or two weeks.”

Brandon asked, “Did Hollena make any confessions or give any advice on her deathbed?”

Mae said, “I wasn’t a Christian at that time and I never asked her no questions like that. I don’t know whether she ever belonged to any church or not.”

Brandon said, “Somebody told me that right before she died she wanted a preacher named Charlie Curry to see her.”

“Probably did,” Mae said. “I don’t know. She may have.”

Charlie Curry, I remembered, was the preacher who once refused to baptize Ed Haley because he was drunk and wouldn’t give up playing the fiddle.

In Search of Ed Haley 187

28 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Al Brumfield, Ben Adams, Charley Brumfield, feud, Green McCoy, Harts, Hollene Brumfield, Jane Thompson, John W Runyon, Mae Brumfield, Milt Haley, timbering, writing

After a brief rest at Mr. Kirk’s, Brandon and I drove to see Mae Brumfield at her little yellow house just up the creek from the bridge at Harts. Mae was one of Brandon’s special friends, a woman of advanced years and closely connected to the Brumfield family. As a girl, she was a close friend to Charley Brumfield’s daughters. Later, she married Tom Brumfield, one of Al’s grandsons, and settled near his widow — “Granny Hollene” — at the mouth of Harts Creek. Just back of her house was the former site of the old Brumfield log boom, as well as the spot where Paris Brumfield killed Boney Lucas.

Mae welcomed us inside as soon as she saw Brandon. She was very thin and frail — a wisp of a woman — but she seemed to be very independent and self-sufficient. Her house was tidy and there were several crafty-type dolls in sight as evidence of her fondness for crocheting and knitting. Almost right away, Brandon asked her about Hollena Brumfield — the woman supposedly shot by Milt Haley.

“Granny Hollene?” Mae said. “Why, I’ve combed that old gray head many a time. I loved her better than anything. She wasn’t afraid of nothing. She’d cuss you all to pieces if you done something to her but she was a good person. Everybody was welcome at her table. She didn’t turn nobody away. You know that hole was in her face where those men shot her. It never was worked on. They didn’t have plastic surgery like they do now. And after all that, a sawmill blew up and broke her leg. That was why she was crippled. And she still run everything on.”

Mae told us what she knew about Al Brumfield.

“I’ve heard Grandpa talk about him. Grandpa liked him. Al Brumfield, my grandpa said, was an awful smart man. He told me he was a good-looking man. He was sort of blonde-headed and had blue eyes. People said he could take a dollar and turn it into a hundred in no time. Al Brumfield today woulda been a millionaire. He owned up to Margaret Adkins’ farm where the Ramseys used to live around there. Back this way, he owned all that property over in yonder where the Chapmans lived. He owned up this creek to Big Branch, all back this way, all them bottoms up through yonder and where I live and clear on down to Ike Fry Branch — maybe to Atenville. He had sold that to Charley, I think, his brother.”

We asked about Al’s trouble with Milt Haley and Green McCoy.

“People timbered then for a living, you know,” she said. “Well, Al put that dam in across the creek here or on down there somewhere — a boom. These people drifted their timber down here when they come a raise to they could get it out. Al went to the government and got a charter to put this dam in and caught the timber. He’d catch the logs and charge people so much for catching their timber. I don’t know whether it was ten cents or a quarter. It wasn’t very much. They’d come down here then and raft them and then run them on down to Huntington and sell them. That’s what the startation was, I think, of this killing. A lot of these men up the creek, you know, they was like today. They was prejudice in families and jealousy and he was building up good, you know. Had plenty. And they didn’t want to pay that toll. And they didn’t like him. They was the ones that hired this Haley and Green McCoy.”

Brandon asked Mae who specifically hired Milt and Green and she said, “I think it was Adamses. Now I won’t tell you for sure. Old Ben Adams was one. They didn’t like him. They called him ‘Old Ben Adams.’ He lived way up this creek somewhere. Them Adamses shot at Al’s gang up here somewhere back in the beginning about this timber. I think they tried to kill him out then. That’s why they wanted rid of him was on account of him catching timber and they was enemies. But Adams wouldn’t do it hisself — he hired these two men — and that’s what caused it, so I understood.”

So John Runyon wasn’t the one who hired them?

“No, I believe he owned the mouth of this creek, didn’t he, and Al bought it from him? He’s the man that owned the store… I don’t know how much of this land he owned — just the mouth of this creek, I’ve heard them say. I guess Al bought all this other property.”

At the ambush, Hollena hollered for Al to run because she knew he was the target of the men shooting at them. Al retreated for a short time before coming back up the creek firing a pistol toward his would-be assassins, but was unable to hit them due to heavy growth on the trees. Milt and Green fled into the woods, at which time “old Jane Thompson” came to Hollena and “got her up.”

In Search of Ed Haley 185

21 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Culture of Honor, Ed Haley

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Bill Brumfield, Bob Adkins, Brandon Kirk, Charley Brumfield, crime, Eustace Ferguson, Harts, history, Hollene Brumfield, John Hartford, Lincoln County, Paris Brumfield, Wesley Ferguson, West Virginia, writing

In thinking about the old Brumfields, Bob mentioned the name of Paris Brumfield, the patriarch of the clan. Brandon quickly pulled out Paris’ picture and reached it to Bob saying, “He was my great-great-great-grandfather.” Paris, we knew, was murdered by his son Charley in 1891.

“Son, he was a mean old man, I’ll tell you that,” Bob said, turning the picture upside down in his hands and slowly studying it under a magnifying glass. “He’d kill anybody. He beat up on Charley’s mother and she went down to Charley’s for protection. He went down to get his wife. He got up to the top of that fence and Charles told him, ‘You beat up on Mother the last time. You’re not coming in here.’ Paris said, ‘Ah, you wouldn’t shoot your own father.’ Drunk, you know. And Charley said, ‘You step your foot over that fence, I will.’ Directly he started in and that there ended it, son. Charley killed him right there.”

I said, “Now there was another Brumfield father-son murder later on. Who was that?”

“Ah, that was Charley’s brother,” Bob said. “Bill Brumfield, up on Big Hart. He’s a mean old devil. He ought to been killed. He had a way… He never shot anybody. He’d beat them to death with a club. He’d hold a gun on them and make them walk up to him and then take a club and beat their brains out. He come down there to Hart to get drunk once in a while and he’d run everything away from there. And Hollene set on that front porch of that little old store she had out there with that pistol in her apron and she cussed him. He knew she had that gun — he wouldn’t open his mouth to her. It was his sister-in-law, you know. He just set there and chewed his tobacco and spit out in the street. She’d tell him how mean he was, you know. But his own son killed him. He was beating up on his mother and you can’t do that if you got a son around somewhere. I don’t give a damn who you are, they’re gonna kill ya. He didn’t miss a thing there, that boy didn’t. I don’t think they did anything with him about it.”

This Bill Brumfield, I remembered, was Brandon’s great-great grandfather. As Bob spoke of his departed ancestor, I noticed how Brandon just sat there without taking any offense, as some might want to do. Gathering the information seemed more important than family pride — at least for the moment. Brandon asked Bob if he remembered anything about Charley and Ward Brumfield’s murder in 1926.

“What they got into was very foolish,” Bob said. “Charley would come up there — and Ward was his nephew — and they’d ride up into the head of Harts Creek and get them some whisky and they’d drink. They went up around them Adamses — they was kin to the Dingesses and Brumfields — and bought them a bottle of whisky from this guy and they got his wife to cook them a chicken dinner. She cooked them up a nice chicken dinner and, of course, they drank that liquor and was pretty dern high, I expect. They was sitting there eating and they was a damn fella… Who was that killed them? They’s so dern many of them a shooting and a banging around among each other that I couldn’t keep track of them. He was just kind of a straggler.”

Bob thought for a moment then said, “Eustace Ferguson. Now, Eustace Ferguson was a brother to Hollene’s second husband, Wesley. They had asked him to go with them and he caught an old mule or something and followed them. He was mad at them ’cause he didn’t like the Dingesses and Brumfields anyway. He followed them up there and they was eating dinner. He come in there and told them if they had anything to say they better say it ’cause he was gonna kill them. And Charley raised out of there and he said, ‘Well, by god, I’d just as soon die here as anywhere,’ and he started shooting and they just shot the devil out of each other. And he killed Charley and Ward and Charley shot him but he got somebody to get him to the doctor before the Brumfields got up there ’cause he knew them Brumfields would kill him if they got up there in time. He begged them not to report it till he had time to get to Chapmanville to get into the hand of the law. And those people wasn’t too friendly to the Brumfields and they kept it hid for about an hour or two before they reported that.”

I asked Bob if there were any dances around Harts in his younger days and he said, “Not in my time. They had a few dances ’round here and yonder but I was too young to go.”

Were there any dances at Al and Hollena Brumfield’s store?

“I don’t think so. They wasn’t the dancing type. I never was around her too much. Sometimes I’d be there and play with her grandchildren, Tom and Ed Brumfield. They were about my age.”

In Search of Ed Haley 184

19 Saturday Oct 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Al Brumfield, Bob Adkins, Charlie Conley, crime, Green McCoy, Henderson Dingess, history, Hollene Brumfield, Hugh Dingess, John Brumfield, Lincoln County, Milt Haley, writing

A few days later, I picked Brandon up at his apartment in Huntington and we drove to see Bob Adkins in Hamlin. We parked on the street in front of Bob’s house (just past the red light) and walked up onto the front porch where his wife, Rena, a very friendly and cordial lady, met us at the door. She welcomed us inside to the living room. We listened to Bob speak of Milt Haley’s death. It was clear that his memory had faded somewhat since my last trip to see him in 1993.

“Well, what the trouble was there, that fella Runyon, he had a saloon and a little old grab-a-nickel store right across the creek there at the mouth of Harts,” Bob said. “And Aunt Hollene and Al Brumfield, they had a big store over there on the lower side of the creek. They was competitors in a way, you know. And that fella Runyon, he wanted to get rid of them, see. He hired these two thugs to kill them. These fellas Milt Haley and Green McCoy were two characters. And a fella by the name of Runyon gave them a side of bacon and a can of lard to kill them…each.”

Bob laughed, fully aware of how it would all turn out and seemingly amused.

“They got in a big sinkhole up above the road with a high-powered gun — a .30.30 Winchester.”

According to Bob, Haley and McCoy waited in that sinkhole for Al and Hollena Brumfield to pass by.

“Ever Sunday, Aunt Hollene — she was my mother’s aunt — she’d go up to the forks of Big Hart about ten miles up there to visit her father, old Henderson Dingess. Al had a fine riding horse and he’d get on the horse and she’d ride behind him. They’d go up there on a Sunday and have dinner with her father. And they’d been up there — it was a pretty summer day — and they came along about three or four o’clock in the evening. They shot at Al’s head and that high-spirited horse jumped and that bullet missed his head and hit Hollene in the side of the jaw — knocked her teeth out. That knocked her off’n the horse. Of course, that horse sprang and run. But they had come down off’n the hill and they aimed to shoot Aunt Hollene again. And she a laying there in the road — her eyes full of blood. She couldn’t see hardly who it was. She begged them not to shoot her anymore — she told them she was dying anyway.”

So where was Al Brumfield at that time?

“Al got offa the horse down below there and come back under the creek bank and got to shooting at them see and they took off,” Bob said. “Hollene got over that. She was my mother’s aunt. I was around her home a lot. She lived in that big white house in Hart. Burned down now.”

How did they figure out who ambushed the Brumfields?

“Well, they didn’t know who it was,” Bob said. “But they noticed they weren’t around home, the Brumfields and Dingesses did. They was watching all around to see who it was. And these two guys just left their families and went into Kentucky. Just deserted their families. Then they knew who it was. After they got a hold of them, the Dingesses and the Brumfields, they told them the whole story. That was at my grandfather’s home. They took one guy out there in the yard and gagged him so he couldn’t make a noise and stuck a gun in his back and told him if he made any noise they’d shoot him. So he listened to that other fella inside the house. That other fella broke down and cried and he told them the truth about it. And they killed both of them over at Green Shoal. Took them out in the yard and shot them all to pieces. Walked off and left them. I was born and raised about three quarters of a mile below there.”

I asked Bob why the Brumfields did not avenge John Brumfield’s murder with the same ferocity. John, I knew from Brandon, was killed by Charlie Conley at a Chapmanville Fourth of July celebration in 1900.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’ll tell you, John Brumfield, he was mean as a snake anyway. He treated them fellers pretty rough. And they killed him up there in the head of Hart in an association ground. They just walked up to him in that association ground — a whole bunch of people there — and shot his brains out.”

An association ground?

“They had them once a year near an old schoolhouse,” Bob said. “People’d all gather in and they had a place where they traded horses. Half a mile away, an old country preacher would preach to them. It was kind of a rough place up in there at that time.”

In Search of Ed Haley 180

09 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Al Brumfield, Appalachia, Brandon Kirk, feud, Green McCoy, Harts, Harts Creek, Henderson Dingess, Hollene Brumfield, James V. Henderson, John W Runyon, Milt Haley, Wild Bill, writing

Having satisfied my thirst for Brumfield family history, Brandon pulled out some great newspaper articles pertaining to the 1889 troubles. He began with one from the Ceredo Advance dated Wednesday, October 2, 1889, and titled “Disappointed Love Leads to a Desperate Double Crime in Lincoln County:”

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. September 27 – Word has just reached here of a sensational crime on Big Hart’s creek, in Lincoln county, 90 miles up the Guyandotte River. Al Brumfield, a newly married man, and his bride had spent the day with his wife’s parents some distance up the creek. Just at dusk, on their return, and when near their home, they were fired upon by a man who sprang from the bushes by the road-side. Mrs. Brumfield was shot in the head and fell to the ground unconscious. Her husband was shot in the right lung but managed to crawl to a neighbor’s for assistance.

The nearest physician, twenty-five miles distant, was summoned, but arrived too late to render the woman any assistance and she died in a few hours. The latest information is that Brumfield is also dying. He claims he recognized the assassin, but refuses to say who it was. It is the belief of the neighborhood that a suitor of Mrs. Brumfield, who failed to win her, is the assassin.

The article was full of errors but its implication of a single “assassin” with a personal attachment to Hollena Brumfield was interesting.

On Wednesday, October 9, 1889, Ceredo Advance ran a letter from “WILD BILL,” written on September 27. Wild Bill gave his address as Warren, West Virginia — a now extinct post office on Harts Creek below the mouth of Smoke House Fork.

ED. ADVANCE: — As you have had no communication from this place for some time I will give you a few items. There have been several cases of flux in this vicinity and two or three deaths. Farmers are busy saving fodder and cutting up corn. Our neighborhood was thrown into a state of confusion last Sunday evening about 3 o’clock. One mile from this place some low down villain attempted to assassinate Mr. Brumfield and wife. They had been on a visit to Mrs. Brumfield’s father, Mr. Henderson Dingess, and as they returned home they were shot from the brush, one ball striking Mrs. Brumfield just in front of the right ear and ranging around the cheek bone and striking her nose producing a serious but not fatal wound, and one ball striking Mr. Brumfield in the right arm below the elbow producing only a flesh wound. They were cared for and dressed by Drs. Moss, of Cabell county, and Hudgins, of Logan county. They will recover. Mr. Brumfield is a prominent merchant living at Hart, W.Va., and is a good citizen, highly esteemed by his neighbors. His wife is a noble and kind-hearted lady and beloved by all her acquaintances. They have a large train of friends who sympathize with them in their distress. The object of the attempted murder is believed to be robbery. The good and law-abiding citizens should unite and rid the earth of such miserable miscreants.

Based on this September 27 letter, written a week after the ambush at Thompson Branch, there were two theories regarding the motive for the crime: one, it was done by a jealous suitor; two, it was an attempted robbery. In either case, this second article again referred to the attacker in the singular sense…sort of.

By October 24, locals had deduced Haley and McCoy’s guilt, captured them in Kentucky and murdered them at Green Shoal. WILD BILL was apparently unaware about this latter act because on October 25 he again sent a letter to the Ceredo Advance (printed on November 6).

ED. ADVANCE – Mr. Allen Brumfield, who was shot in the arm near this place about a month ago, has got about well. His wife, who was shot at the same time, is improving very slowly, but she will get well. The perpetrators of the awful crime — Milton Haley and Green McCoy — have been arrested. Haley did the shooting and McCoy is accused of being an accomplice, but the latter will be released by turning state’s evidence against Haley. The law should be enforced against such persons to the utmost extent. Our neighborhood is in a state of intense excitement and may terminate in a deadly feud between two parties…

[Since the above was written a mob took Haley and McCoy from the officers and killed them. — ED]

God only knows what our country will come to, as the deadly Winchester is fast becoming the ruling factor in our land.

Well just who was this WILD BILL? He seems to have access to a lot of information regarding the growing feud on Harts Creek. Maybe it was “Detective Wild Bill,” who history records as a participant in the Hatfield-McCoy Feud in the nearby Tug Valley.

A story featured in the Ceredo Advance titled “A Visit to the Lincoln County Battle Field” and dated Wednesday, November 13, 1889, was most interesting:

Mr. J.V. Henderson, editor of the Charleston Nonpareil, was in this city today [Nov. 7], having just returned from the scene of the recent trouble in Lincoln county. He went to get a full description of the places and the causes which led to the trouble for the metropolitan dailies. Mr. Henderson went into the house where Green McCoy and Milton Haley were murdered, and made a map of the house and its surroundings. He also made a map of the Hart’s Creek country, giving the location of each faction — the Brumfields and the Runyons. While going up Hart’s Creek he was met by two men acting as pickets, armed with Winchester rifles, who asked him where he was going and what was his business. Mr. Henderson told them that he was a newspaper man and wanted to get information regarding the trouble in that vicinity. They told him that they would give him one hour to get off the creek and leave the country.

Mr. Henderson took the hint and left at once. He says he learns that both factions are heavily armed and are expecting an attack at any time. Each side has pickets out ready to give the alarm in the event of hostile movements by the other side. The road up Hart’s Creek is blockaded, and travelers through that region avoid the place.

Unfortunately, few issues of the aforementioned Charleston Nonpareil survive in libraries today. Brandon later located copies of the Nonpareil for February and May of 1889 and February and June of 1890 — the times just prior to and just after the trouble — but none for the fall of 1889, which would have maybe mapped the murder site and the location of the feudists’ homes. There was one interesting development: according to The Cabell County Record, Mr. J.V. Henderson, “one of the best known figures in West Virginia newspaper work,” died at the Spencer insane asylum in 1898 at the ripe age of 43.

In Search of Ed Haley 178

29 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Al Brumfield, Boney Lucas, Brandon Kirk, George Fry, George W. Ferrell, Green McCoy, Henderson Dingess, history, Hollene Brumfield, John Hartford, John W Runyon, Milt Haley, Paris Brumfield, The Lincoln County Crew, writing

After a few hours of digesting this material, I met Brandon Kirk in the hall near the copier. Brandon, a neatly groomed young man wearing a tie, was freighted down with satchels. We introduced ourselves and were soon in the study room where Brandon started fishing through his bags and pulling out letters, notebooks, folders and photo albums. Within a few minutes, the table was covered. It was as if someone had walked up with a giant garbage bag full of papers and dumped it all out in front of me.

One of the first things Brandon showed me was a small account of Milt Haley’s murder titled “The Brumfield-McCoy Feud”, which was originally published in a 1926 edition of Lambert’s Llorrac.

The Brumfield-McCoy Feud took place in the month of September, about 1888, some three miles up Hart’s Creek. Hollena Brumfield and her husband, Allen Brumfield, had been visiting Henderson Dingess, father of Mrs. Brumfield, one Sunday and were about two miles below Mr. Dingess’ on their way home. Green McCoy and Milt Haley laid in wait for them. Mr. and Mrs. Brumfield were riding down the creek, Mrs. Brumfield being on the same horse behind her husband. McCoy and Haley began shooting at them, one bullet striking Mr. Brumfield in the arm, and the other tearing away a portion of Mrs. Brumfield’s face, disfiguring her for life. Mr. Brumfield jumped from his horse and ran, and in that way escaped further injury. McCoy afterwards told that they were bribed by John Runyons with a barrel of flour and a side of bacon to McCoy, and twenty-five dollars in money to [Haley]. The murderers escaped into Kentucky but were captured a little later and brought back. Allen Brumfield supplemented the reward offered by the state with one of his own.

It seems the cause of the trouble was bad feeling between John Runyons and Al Brumfield. Runyons had a store and saloon at the mouth of Hart’s Creek. Brumfield had a store on Guyan River about a fourth of a mile below Hart, on the south side of the Guyan and sold whiskey on a houseboat. John Dingess [Mrs. Brumfield’s brother] was a bartender.

McCoy and Haley were brought back and kept over night at the house of George Fry. The next morning a number of men, presumably Brumfield’s friends came in, and the two prisoners were shot and killed.

Along with the above article was another version of “The Lincoln County Crew”, which gave George (and not Tom) Ferrell as the author.

Come all young men and ladies, come fathers, mothers, too;

I’ll relate to you the history of the Lincoln County crew.

Concerning bloody rows, and many a thieving deed,

Dear friend, pray lend attention to these few lines I say.

It was in the month of August all on a very fine day;

Allen Brumfield he got wounded they say by Milt Haley.

But Brumfield couldn’t believe it, nor hardly thought it so;

He said it was McCoy who shot that fatal blow.

They shot and killed Boney Lucas, a sober and innocent man,

And left his wife and children, to do the best they can.

They wounded Rufus Stowers, although his life was saved;

And he seemed to shun the grog shop, since he stood so near his grave.

Allen Brumfield he recovered, some weeks and months had past;

It was at the house of George Fry, these men they met at last.

Green McCoy and Milt Haley, about the yard did walk;

They seemed to be uneasy and no one wished to talk.

And then they went into the house, and sat down by the fire,

And little did they think, dear friends, they had met their final hour.

The sting of death was near them, _________________________

A few words passed between them concerning a row before.

The people some got frightened, began to rush out of the room;

When a ball from some one’s pistol laid the prisoners in the tomb.

Their friends then gathered ’round them, their wives to weep and wail;

Tom Ferrell was arrested, and soon confined to jail.

The butchers talked of lynching him, but that was all the fear;

And when the day of trial came, Tom Ferrell he came clear.

And then poor Paris Brumfield, relation to the rest,

He got three balls shot through him, they went straight through his breast.

The death of these few men have caused great trouble in our land;

Men to leave their wives and children to do the best they can.

Lincoln County’s still at war, they never, never cease;

Oh, could I only, only see my land once more in peace.

I composed this as a warning, a warning to all men;

Your pistols will cause trouble, on that you may depend.

In the bottom of the whiskey glass, the lurking devil dwells;

It burns the hearts of those who drink, and sends their soul to hell.

In Search of Ed Haley 122

02 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Al Brumfield, Bill Fowler, Charley Brumfield, genealogy, George Ward, Guyandotte River, Henderson Dingess, history, Hollene Brumfield, John Brumfield, Paris Brumfield, West Virginia, writing

Allen Brumfield — the man Milt Haley supposedly ambushed — was born in March of 1860 at Harts, in what was then Logan County, Virginia. His parents were Paris and Ann B. (Toney) Brumfield. Paris was a Confederate veteran, storekeeper and local politician — and one of the most notorious figures in the early history of Harts. Ann was a red-haired orphan raised by a property-rich school-teaching aunt. In 1880, 20-year-old Al Brumfield was listed in census records as living with his cousin, W.T. “Bill” Fowler, the chief businessman in Harts. Al was recorded as a farmer but was likely watching Fowler’s business closely, learning everything he could. His father, meanwhile, a heavy-drinking violent sort, had recently moved his mistress (and her illegitimate children) near the family home.

Upon reaching manhood, Brumfield was relatively tall with sandy-colored hair. He was a Democrat in politics. He married Hollena Dingess around 1881, presumably in Lincoln County. Hollena was the daughter of Henderson and Sarah (Adams) Dingess, somewhat wealthy residents of the Smoke House Fork of Big Harts Creek. Al and Hollena had six known children: Henry Beecher Ward Brumfield (born April 1883), Grover Cleveland Brumfield (born January 1884), Hendrix Brumfield (born November 29, 1886), George Brumfield (born c.1888), Belle Brumfield (born January 19, 1892), and Shirley Brumfield (born May 1, 1894).

Soon after marrying, Al built a small, boxed house on the bank of the Guyandotte River at the Shoals just below Harts. Nearby, he ran a whiskey boat. He and his wife were equally ambitious in their desire to accumulate wealth and political power. In a bold move to corner the timber market in Harts, Brumfield constructed a boom at the Narrows on Harts Creek to catch all logs coming out of the creek. Each logger was assessed a ten-cent per log tax. In a short time, he was on his way to amassing a small fortune.

In the early 1890s, he forced his cousin Bill Fowler to sell him his important property at the mouth of Harts Creek, where he began construction of a beautiful two-story white home. It was completed in two years and was a real mansion in its day. Illuminated with carbide lighting at a time when few people in the valley had the monetary power to afford such a luxury, it was dubbed “The Light House” by loggers who plied the river.

Throughout the 1890s, Brumfield was the business kingpin in Harts. He complemented his timber business by operating a store, saloon, ferry, sawmill and gristmill — and protected his entire business interest by serving as leader of the local vigilante group. In 1899, he successfully petitioned the government to reinstate the Harts post office, which had been discontinued in 1894, and served as its postmaster from 1900 until 1905.

“There is a postoffice in Hart’s creek now, and Al Brumfield is the postmaster,” wrote The Cabell Record on Thursday, April 5, 1900.

Almost simultaneous with Brumfield’s successes were his personal tragedies. On November 3, 1891, his brother Charley murdered his father, which had numerous implications within the family. In that same time frame, Al took on a mistress who bore him two illegitimate children and caused a great deal of spousal grief. And poor Hollena — who had already been shot in the face — was severely crippled when a steam-operated gristmill exploded with her inside, throwing her sixty feet into the air and breaking her hip. A little later, around 1900, Brumfield’s son George died of stomach trouble. And on July 4, 1900, his brother John was murdered by Charley Conley at a Fourth of July celebration in Chapmanville.

Just after the turn of the century, Al began to suffer from some debilitating disease, which eventually caused him to go blind. “Al Brumfield, of Hart, recently returned from Cincinnati, where he had his eyes treated, says that his sight is better,” according to The Cabell Record of Thursday, May 2, 1901. “He was almost blind.” Hollena hired George Ward, a local Negro, to care for him. In 1904, perhaps sensing that he might not survive the sickness, he deeded much of his property to his wife.

In Search of Ed Haley 115

23 Thursday May 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Harts Creek, Ed Haley, Spottswood, Warren, Whirlwind

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Andrew Jackson, Ben Adams, Bill Abbott, Bob Mullins Cemetery, Buck Fork, Chloe Mullins, civil war, Confederate Army, Dicy Adams, Ed Haley, Elizabeth Mullins, Enoch Baker, genealogy, Harts Creek, Henderson Dingess, history, Hollene Brumfield, Imogene Haley, Imogene Mullins, Jackson Mullins, Jane Mullins, Jeremiah Lambert, John Frock Adams, John Gore, John Q. Adams, Joseph Adams, Kentucky, Logan County, Margaret Gore, Mathias Elkins, Peter Mullins, Riland Baisden, Spencer A. Mullins, Tennessee, Ticky George Adams, timbering, Trace Fork, Turley Adams, Van Buren Mullins, Weddie Mullins, Weddington Mullins, West Virginia, writing

Ed Haley’s grandfather, Andrew Jackson Mullins, was born about 1843 to Peter and Jane (Mullins) Mullins. Jackson, as he was called, was named in honor of President Andrew Jackson, that early American icon. Like many folks in those days, Peter and Jane Mullins appear to have been caught up in the Jackson mystique. They even named one son Van Buren, after his vice president. Jackson Mullins was the first child born to Peter following the family exodus from Kentucky or Tennessee to Logan County, (West) Virginia. The 1850 Logan County Census listed him as seven years old. In 1860, he was eighteen. During the Civil War, Jackson served in the Confederate army. Brothers Weddington and Van Buren served as Confederates. In the late 1860s, Jackson married the slightly older Chloe Ann (Gore) Adams, a widow. Chloe had been born around 1840 to John and Margaret (Dingess) Gore, pioneer residents of Harts Creek. She had first married John Quincy “Bad John” Adams, a first cousin to Jackson, with whom she had four children: Dicy (born 1857), Joseph (born May 1858), John C. “Frock” (born c. 1861) and George Washington “Ticky George” (born 15 Jul 1864). She and Jackson had three children: Imogene Mullins (born c.1868), Peter Mullins (born May 1870), and Weddington Mullins (born April 10, 1872). Jackson and Chloe are thought to have lived on Trace Fork, perhaps at the present-day site of the Turley Adams home where they certainly lived in later years.

What little is known of Jackson Mullins — the man who partially raised Ed Haley — comes through deed records and census records. On February 13, 1869, his uncle Spencer A. Mullins wrote him a note that read: “Mr. A.J. Mullins and wife: you will pleas Come down and git your Deed for the Buck fork Land. I will not pay the taxes any longer.” In 1869 he purchased 200 acres of land on the creek from Riland Baisden. The next year he was listed in the 1870 census as 27 years old with 700 dollars worth of real estate and 200 dollars worth of personal property. His daughter — Ed Haley’s mother — first appeared in that record as “Em. Jane Mullins,” age two. An April 1871, Justice Jeremiah Lambert provided a receipt to him for $2.80 “in the cost of the peace warrant in favor [of] him against Benjamin Adams.” An 1871 Logan County tax receipt listed A.J. Mullins as a resident of “Hearts Creek.” On February 28, 1877, the Logan County Court appointed him as “Surveyor of Roads in Precinct No. 76 in place of Weddington Mullins for the time of two years commencing April 1, 1877.” On December 17, 1877, the Logan County Clerk provided a receipt to him for recording a deed from Henderson Dingess and wife (parents to Hollene Brumfield). An 1878 tax receipt shows him in charge of six tracts totaling 244 acres under the ownership of “John Adams Heirs.”

The 1880 Logan County Census listed Jackson as 37 years old, while his wife was 40. Children in the household were John C. Adams (aged eighteen), George Adams (aged 15), “Emagane Mullins” (aged 12), Peter Mullins (aged 9), and Weddington Mullins (aged 6). That same year, Jackson sold five tracts of land totaling over 200 acres to brother-in-law Mathias Elkins for 3,000 dollars. He also sold 50 or so acres on Buck Fork to his father Peter and stepmother Elizabeth for 600 dollars. In February 1881, the Logan County Court reappointed him to relieve his brother Weddington as Surveyor of Public Roads for Precinct No. 76 “commencing April 1st, 1881.” That same year, he secured land from the John Q. Adams estate and bought 100 acres on Trace Fork from A.A. Low, attorney. On August 7, 1883, Enoch Baker, a timber boss on Harts Creek, provided a receipt to him for fifteen dollars “in payment for a Stove.” In 1886, Jackson deeded 37 tracts on Trace Fork to stepsons Joseph and John Adams. On April 2, 1888, he signed a promissory note agreeing to pay William Abbott $41.75 plus interest within a year. Because he was illiterate, he signed the note with an “X.”

In March 1891, Jackson and Chloe Mullins deeded their property on Trace Fork to their three children: Imogene Haley, Peter Mullins, and Weddie Mullins.

In the 1900 Logan County Census, Jackson gave his birth date as March of 1845, while Chloe gave hers as July 1834. Ed Haley first appears in the 1900 Logan County Census as “James E. Haley, born August 1885,” and living in their home. His birth date of 1885 was two years later than what was given by the Haley family records. By 1910, Jackson lived with son Peter Mullins, while Chloe was in the home of Weddie Mullins’ widow, Mag. Ed was absent from the census entirely, indicating that he was gone from Harts by that time. A few years later, in 1915, Jackson Mullins died and was buried in an unmarked grave at the Bob Mullins Cemetery on main Harts Creek. His widow died in 1919.

In Search of Ed Haley 90

16 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Harts Creek, Ed Haley, Lincoln County Feud, Music

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Appalachia, Clyde Haley, Ewell Mullins, fiddler, Harts Creek, Harts Mountain, history, Hollene Brumfield, John Hartford, Liza Mullins, Logan County, Milt Haley, music, Peter Mullins, West Virginia, Zack Williams

I asked Clyde if Ed ever talked about his early life on Harts Creek and he said, “He didn’t talk to us kids too much. My dad’s folks were from all around Logan County, West Virginia. I didn’t know who they were. I remember his Aunt Liza and Uncle Peter Mullins. ‘Club-Footed Peter’ Mullins, they called him, and ‘Reel-Footed Peter’ Mullins. That was his uncle. I remember them because I was the one that went with him when he went up that way. As a matter of fact, I went up there one time and stayed just for a whole year.”

I said, “Your grandfather Milt Haley was involved in an attempted murder…” before being cut off. “Yeah, Hollene Brumfield. I know about that. I know things about it, because I’ve been up there. He killed this guy and in the process of trying to kill this guy, he shot Hollene Brumfield in the face and mutilated her pretty bad. It was a accident. Hollene was riding behind her husband on a horse down Harts Creek. He missed him and shot Hollene — killed her. That’s the way I always got the story from my dad.”

Clyde seemed to have Milt’s story down better than any of Ed’s other kids, so I pressed him for more details about Harts Creek. I asked him about the musicians in that vicinity and he said, “They didn’t play the kind of music my dad played. There was one old fiddler up there, lived up in the head of Harts Creek. Not off on one of the branches — right straight up Harts Creek past Ewell Mullins’ store. This guy’s name was Zack Williams. Him and my dad used to fiddle together. Never went out on big sprees or anything like that, but he’d go up to Zack Williams’ house up on the top of the mountain — head of Harts Mountain — and they’d make music up there. Zack was a pretty good fiddle player.”

In Search of Ed Haley 80

15 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Al Brumfield, Appalachia, feud, Harts Creek, Hollene Brumfield, John Hartford, Lawrence Haley, Lawrence Kirk, Peter Mullins, timbering, West Virginia, writers, writing

Mr. Kirk hopped in the car with Lawrence Haley and I and guided us to “Presto’s garden,” a small corn patch located just off of the hill from the Haley-McCoy grave. It was late afternoon: the air was clear and the remains of the sun slanted through the trees on the hillside. Lawrence Haley chose to stay at the garden due to his heart condition, but I made the steep climb toward the grave with Mr. Kirk just behind me. A few minutes later, we stopped at an indentation — a round shallow crater about seven feet in diameter. It had a little pile of stones on each end and was just as Bob Adkins had said it would be. We walked back and forth studying the “bowl” and the markers and I took some pictures.

At the bottom of the hill, we got back in the car and rode up Low Gap Road to the site of Milt Haley’s murder. On the way, I told Mr. Kirk what we’d heard about Ed’s mother Emma Jean Mullins being shot in the face.

“See, I hadn’t heard that part of it,” he said. “Well now, you know them Adamses and Mullinses up there on Hart married back and forth for generations. That’s quite possible. Of course, them Brumfields and them Adamses had trouble over that log boom they had had there at the mouth of Hart. It’d catch water and hold it back like a dam. They’d float them logs all out of Harts Creek back in yonder, then when the backwater come up in the spring of the year they’d make them into a raft and float them out of here and take them to the town of Guyandotte. That’s the market. They claimed the Brumfields got to sawing the ends of them logs off and re-branding them. I don’t know what the extent of their trouble was but they had some misunderstanding over that lumber and then Runyon and whiskey got involved in it down on that houseboat where they’s selling whiskey. All of them drinking, you know. They’d all go down there and get drunk and talk this shit up, you know, and get it started, get it going, down there where the booze was. Things were getting out of hand. Whiskey’s destroyed an awful lot of people in this country. A lot of my relatives.”

Mr. Kirk said, “They’s supposed to killed them at daylight or immediately after daylight. The story that I’ve heard on it has been that they were both knocked in the head with the flat side of a double-bit axe. Killed them separately. Hit them right in the top of the head there. And I’ve heard people say they was shot up you know, and some said they were chopped up with an axe. But my grandmother, she was awful critical of the Brumfields and their conduct. She was an Adkins — part Dingess. Bill Brumfield’s widow. By her being pretty critical of them, I feel like she handed me what she had as being true. But now they was organized into kind of a posse. She said they called theirselves ‘The Night Riders.’ Vigilante group. Operated all the time at night. They were pretty sneaking in what they did.”

They must’ve had some serious shortcomings, because Mr. Kirk said they “tried to organize themselves into the Klan, but the Klan wouldn’t have them.”

After surveying the site of Milt’s murder, we drove down to the mouth of Harts Creek where Mr. Kirk pointed out the site of the recently burned Al Brumfield house.

“Except being a landmark, it wasn’t worth much,” he said. “They used to have a meal-house out there to ground meal for people. Had a store in here. That’s Al Brumfield and Aunt Hollene. He was in his fifties when he died of typhoid fever. Watson Adkins later bought his house and lived there. Had a store over here for years. Now, Runyon had a boat down yonder — great big boat — barge built in there and had a store in it. He run poker games. Selling whiskey. Had a few groceries in there. Al and his bunch trying to do the same thing over here.”

All during our ride with Mr. Kirk, he kept pointing out spots where murders had taken place. As we made our way back up West Fork, I asked him why there’d been so many killings around Harts Creek. He didn’t hesitate in saying, “Whiskey. Whiskey’s caused it. This section of country up through here — this West Fork section — has had a few killings. It wasn’t as bad as back yonder. Whiskey involved in every bit of that.”

Lawrence Haley agreed that whiskey was the primary cause of trouble in the old days, even mentioning how one of Uncle Peter Mullins’ boys once killed a “revenue man” around Trace Fork. He said it “it took just about everything Uncle Peter had to keep him out of jail.”

Mr. Kirk said, “Is that the one they called ‘Reel-Footed’ Peter? Ewell’s daddy?”

Lawrence confirmed that it was — and that it was his great-uncle — and Mr. Kirk said, “I can remember old man Peter. I believe it was his right foot that was curled in. Man, he’d work in the woods, draw a team…”

In Search of Ed Haley 79

10 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Al Brumfield, Ben Walker, Burl Farley, feud, French Bryant, Green McCoy, Hollene Brumfield, Lawrence Kirk, Melvin Kirk, Milt Haley, Stella Abbott, timbering, Victor Shelton, writing

Mr. Kirk had heard a lot about Milt Haley’s trouble with the Brumfields. His version of events, along with that of Roxie Mullins, Bob Adkins and the Goldenseal article, comprised the bulk of what I knew of Milt’s death.

“I feel like that I’ve got pretty much the base of what happened, but there’ve been add-ons and deletions and so on along the way,” he said. “It was a tragic thing.”

The whole trouble had nothing to do with John Runyon, as we’d previously heard.

“The real thing behind it, them Adamses over in yonder and the Brumfields, they got into it over the timber,” Mr. Kirk said. “What they’d do, them people’d cut that big timber and put it in them creeks. Then they’d get spring floods and float them out. Brumfield had what they called a boom in down there to catch that timber. Then they’d make them into rafts and raft them down the river to the town of Guyandotte. There was a log market there. And Al got to stealing their logs.”

That was an interesting new development in the story, I thought. I mean, maybe Al Brumfield wasn’t completely innocent in the trouble. And maybe Milt was, in the eyes of at least some locals, justified in ambushing him.

“Word of mouth that’s come down to me from my mother and grandmother, some of the Adamses was supposed to hired McCoy and Haley to shoot Aunt Hollene, old man Al Brumfield’s wife. I remember her well. She had a hole in her jaw there. When she’d eat or talk, spit would work up in it. Or if she would eat candy or something, you could see the candy. She was a tough old lady. She’d been blowed up in a sawmill and had a short leg — walked with a cane. Cussed like a sailor every time she made a step. But they shot her.”

Now where did this shooting take place?

“The shooting was supposed to took place up on Big Hart there at the mouth of Thompson Branch,” Mr. Kirk said. “They was coming down the creek. They’d been up there visiting Hollene’s parents. She was one of them Dingesses from up there.”

Mr. Kirk said Al was shot in the arm and fell from his horse, while his wife was shot in the face.

Surprisingly, there were rumors of Milt and Green’s innocence, but Mr. Kirk “never did hear that expounded on.”

“I’ve heard it said a time or two, ‘Well, I doubt them being the ones that did it.’ I never would get into a discussion ’cause — not that it mattered either way to me in one sense — but I was convinced that they did it.”

Once Milt and Green were captured in Kentucky, a lynch mob formed in Harts consisting of Hugh Dingess (Hollena’s brother), French Bryant and several Brumfields. They joined up with Victor Shelton, a local lawman.

“You see, old man Victor Shelton was a constable or JP down here and he was a friend to them Brumfields,” Mr. Kirk said. “He went over there to Kentucky with them and they turned them over to Victor Shelton. When he come back across the river into West Virginia he just turned them over to the Brumfields and he come on back. They had horse roads all through these mountains and creeks everywhere. He probably left them over in there around Twelve Pole somewhere and went on back down in here around Ranger someplace where he lived. But that’s the way they got in charge of them.”

After taking possession of Milt and Green, the mob re-crossed the Tug River at the present-day town of Kermit in Mingo County and went up Jenny’s Creek (or possibly Marrowbone Creek) to Twelve Pole Creek. They entered Harts Creek at the head of Henderson Branch and made their way to Hugh Dingess’ home on Smoke House. At that location, they ate a big meal and spent the night. The next day, they headed up Bill’s Branch and crossed a mountain onto Piney Creek. They rode down Piney to the West Fork (just above Iris Williams’ home), went a short distance up Workman Fork, turned up Frank Fleming Hollow and dropped down off of the ridge to a home near the Guyandotte River. (Mr. Kirk was very adamant about this home being on the west side of the river, not at the mouth of Green Shoal where Bob Adkins had said.) By that time, “Dealer Dave” Dingess, Charley Brumfield, Burl Farley, Will Adkins and “Black John” Adkins had joined the gang.

At this home, the mob questioned Milt and Green separately and tried to secure a confession. As one was led out the door, he hollered to his friend, “Don’t tell ’em a damn thing!” — but his partner told it all, thus deciding their guilt in the eyes of the mob. (Based on what we’d heard from Bob Adkins, I figured that it was Green McCoy who made the confession.)

A host of young local ladies, including Stella Abbott, cooked a chicken supper as Milt and Green’s last meal. Either Milt or Green (undoubtedly an emotional wreck) said he wasn’t hungry, so his partner replied, “Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow ye may die.” Supposedly, a Brumfield nearby them then said, “Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow ye shall die.”

Mr. Kirk said French Bryant supposedly killed Milt and Green, although he’d also heard that Burl Farley, a timber boss from Harts Creek who was connected to the Dingess family, “gave the order” to shoot them.

“Old man French Bryant was a big old mountaineer-type fellow,” Mr. Kirk said. “Rough talking, grouchy. Most people liked him pretty good. French Bryant was married three times, I reckon. Yeah, that old man, I went to his funeral. He’s buried right at the head of Piney there.”

There was a lot of confusion over the murders. Word was spread through the community that Haley and McCoy were killed by a mob who’d taken them from the Brumfield posse. Mr. Kirk dismissed that notion, saying, “The ones who got them in Kentucky were the ones who killed them.” He was certainly a good source for that statement considering his family connection to the Brumfields.

Lawrence and I hung onto Mr. Kirk’s every word as he described Milt Haley’s burial, which he said occurred the day following the murders.

“The next morning, Melvin Kirk, who was my father’s father, and several other people — I don’t know who else — went with Ben Walker and got them either in a sled or an old wagon and hauled them around there,” he said. “My grandfather helped them take them around there and clean them up. Back then they didn’t take them to a funeral home — they just wrapped them and made a rough burial preparation. I think they made a coffin for them and buried them on the old man Walker’s property. Of course, there was a preacher at the burial because old man Ben Walker was an ordained preacher. He’s the one that married my father and mother in 1911.”

Mr. Kirk turned our attention toward a mountain across the creek.

“See that gap yonder in the hill? Right over there, they call that the Walker Branch. That’s where old man Ben Walker lived. He was an old preacher. He owned all of this land in here. You can go right over there and turn right and go up that side of the river right over to where they were killed.”

I asked Mr. Kirk whose decision it was to bury Milt and Green at that location and he said, “The old man Ben Walker decided where to put them. I never did go to their grave. A lot of people thinks it’s down in the lower end of that garden. There are some graves down there, but that’s not it.”

He wasn’t sure why they chose to bury them in a single grave.

“I guess it was just maybe the work involved. I think they’ve been quite a little bit of that done here where there was multiple deaths. Whenever I was young, my daddy and I would ride down that creek. He’d tell me, ‘Right up on that hill is where Haley and McCoy’s buried.’ He called his daddy ‘Paw.’ Said, ‘Paw and Ben Walker took them up there and buried them.’ Just got a rock for a marker.”

Bob Adkins Interview, Part 2 (1993)

18 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Breeden, Ed Haley, Guyandotte River, Hamlin, Harts, John Hartford, Lincoln County Feud

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Al Brumfield, Appalachia, Bob Adkins, Breeden, Cincinnati, crime, feud, feuds, Green McCoy, Guyandotte River, Harts Creek, Henderson Dingess, history, Hollene Brumfield, John Dingess, John Hartford, John W Runyon, Kentucky, Lincoln County Feud, Milt Haley, Norfolk and Western Railroad, Thompson Branch, Tug River, Twelve Pole Creek, West Virginia

Wow. So what about Al Brumfield, the guy who got into the feud with Milt?

“Well, he was a little more tamer fellow than old Paris but he was kind of a rough character — mean as a snake,” Bob said. “All those Brumfields were, you know. They was a tough outfit, all of them was.”

Al and his wife Hollena lived in a large white house at the mouth of Harts Creek, which Bob said had recently burned. They had a store and log boom nearby and kept a boat tied up at the riverbank for easy access across the Guyandotte. Things were going great for them until John Runyon (who Bob called “the root of all evil”) moved in from Kentucky.

“That fellow Runyon, he had a saloon and a store right across the creek there at the mouth of Harts, you know — a shebang,” Bob said. “And Aunt Hollene and Al Brumfield, they had a big store over there on the other side of the creek, over on the lower side of the creek. They was competitors in a way, you know. This fellow Runyon hired these two thugs to kill them, so as to get rid of their competition. And he hired Milt Haley and Green McCoy to kill them. They got a side of bacon and a can of lard and five dollars to do that…each. And these fellows, Milt Haley and Green McCoy, were two characters. I don’t know why they ever took a chance on that. Them boys got into that before they knew what they was into. Them Brumfields was mean as the devil up there.”

Bob spun out the details of Milt and Green’s ambush of Al Brumfield.

“Every Sunday, Al and Hollene would get on their horse and they’d ride up to the Forks of Big Hart about ten miles to visit her father. He was old Henderson Dingess, my great-grandfather. Al had a fine riding horse and he’d get on the horse and she’d ride behind him, see? And they’d been up there on a pretty summer day, and they’d done had dinner with her father.”

Haley and McCoy, meanwhile, laid in wait for them in a sinkhole at Thompson Branch with a .30/.30 Winchester.

“And Al and Hollene came along about three or four o’clock in the evening and those thugs laywaid them on the side of the hill up there as they came back down Harts Creek. They shot at Al’s head. That horse jumped and that bullet missed his head and hit Hollene right in the face right there and the bullet knocked her teeth out and came out this side here. It knocked her off of the horse.”

Al was carried on down the creek by his horse, which “sprang and run” so Milt and Green came off the hill toward his wife.

“They aimed to shoot Aunt Hollene again — and she a laying there in the road, her eyes full of blood. She couldn’t see hardly who it was. But she begged them not to shoot her anymore, because she figured they’d already killed her. She told them she was dying and begged them out of it.”

At that point, Al came back up along the creek bed shooting toward them “and they got scared and they run.”

Bob said, “Well, the Brumfields didn’t know who it was so they watched all around to see who it was. They watched Runyon like a hawk but he changed his name and walked right off. He left his store, his saloon and his family and went back to Kentucky. They hunted for years for him but they never did find him. He never poked his head around there anymore, not even to contact his family.”

Milt and Green also disappeared from the neighborhood — which caused locals to assume that they were guilty of some role in the trouble.

“And these two guys just left their family and went into Kentucky and just deserted their families,” Bob said. “Then they knew who it was. And they started looking for them.”

Al Brumfield put out a $3,000 reward for their capture. Detectives were told to search in river towns, as both men had run rafts out of the Guyan River.

A detective caught Green McCoy first in a Cincinnati restaurant. He identified him by noticing a nick in one of his ears. Just before apprehending him, the detective walked up and said, “I think you’re the man I’m looking for.” Once caught, Green gave the whereabouts of Milt, who was found working a butter churn on a steamboat at the river. Both men were jailed. Al Brumfield was informed of their capture by letter.

Brumfield organized two of his brothers-in-law and perhaps one of his brothers into a posse and rode to the rendezvous point (presumably in the vicinity of Cincinnati). He posed as a sheriff, paid the reward, took possession of the two men, then headed across eastern Kentucky and up the Tug River to Williamson. He and his gang rode a train on the N&W across Twelve Pole to Breeden, where they crossed the mountain and spent a night at the home of John Dingess, Hollena’s brother. Dingess ran a large country store and saloon, Bob said, but “nothing exciting happened around there.”

In Search of Ed Haley 46

05 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Al Brumfield, Appalachia, Bob Adkins, feud, Green McCoy, Harts Creek, Henderson Dingess, history, Hollene Brumfield, John Hartford, John W Runyon, Lincoln County, Milt Haley, West Virginia, writing

Several months later, I spotted a follow-up article about Milt Haley’s murder in the Spring 1992 edition of Goldenseal titled “Settling Family Differences.” It was based on an interview with Bob Adkins, a Lincoln County gas driller born just after the turn of the century at Ferrellsburg, West Virginia. It was rough country in there during his childhood.

“I know of 18 murders within ten miles of where I grew up,” Bob said. “Never knew of anyone to kill a stranger. They were settling their own family differences. People lived by the gun. Never saw but one fistfight. I made it a point to tend to my own business.”

Bob’s great-grandfather Henderson Dingess was the father of the Hollena Brumfield (spelled “Haline” in the article) shot in the face by Milt Haley and Green McCoy. Henderson and his wife Sally (Adams) Dingess lived on the Smoke House Fork of Harts Creek in what was then Lincoln County (but is today Logan County).

“The Dingesses made part of their living floating logs downstream,” Bob said. “They also had an orchard and a federal licensed brandy making operation.”

Al and Hollena Brumfield were wealthy businessmen at the mouth of Harts Creek on the Guyandotte River. Al’s father Paris Brumfield “lived half a mile below there on good bottom land,” Bob said. Al and Hollena “built a boom across [Harts] Creek to catch logs that were floated into the Guyan in the spring. Al charged by the log and prospered. They built an eight-room house and put in a store. Haline ran the store and offered food and lodging to travelers.”

There was a picture of the Brumfield home in the article — it was the same place where Lawrence had said his grandmother was shot in a feud.

Bob gave a great account of Milt’s murder, expounding on what I already knew while opening up a few new leads.

A fellow named Runyan [spelled “Runyon” in other sources] came in from Kentucky and put in a store and saloon and made competition for Haline and Al Brumfield. Well, when that fellow came and put in a store it was believed that he would like to get rid of Al.

Every Sunday Al and Haline rode up the hollow to Harts Creek to see her daddy, Henderson Dingess. They both rode on one horse. Runyan gave some men a side of bacon and a barrel of flour to kill them. They got in a sinkhole and shot at Al on the way back. Al jumped off, but they hit Haline in the cheek and the bullet went out the other cheek. Al ran and got away and then came back for Haline. She knew there were two men but she didn’t know who they were. Thought it was Burl Adams but became convinced it wasn’t him.

The men got away, but when it was found out that Milt Haley and Green McCoy had disappeared suddenly that night everyone agreed that they had been hired by Runyan to kill Al Brumfield. Runyan also left Harts that night. Runyan just left, and they looked for him the rest of their lives. Then they missed Milt Haley and Green McCoy. They just left their families and disappeared. Figured it was by steamboat on the Ohio.

News got to Cincinnati that $1,500 was offered for Haley, Runyan, and McCoy. A detective there found [Haley and McCoy] and when Al heard they had his men he went down posing as sheriff, paid the reward, got them on the N&W train to Wayne County by Kenova, then up Twelve Pole Creek to Tug River. Breeden was a railroad stop and they walked from there to Harts by Left Fork of Twelve Pole.

Haline’s brother, John Dingess, had a saloon at Dingess on the way. They stayed there and stayed the next night at Grandpa’s [Hugh Dingess]. His daughter Brooke was 14 at the time. That night they took Milt Haley out, told McCoy they had hanged him, then McCoy told the whole story. Haley was held and made to listen to McCoy. Then they brought Haley in and he called McCoy yellow and still denied all of it.

Next day they went along West Fork of Harts to Fry. Stayed at Aunt Catherine Fry Adkins’s house at Fry. She was in the kitchen with the two men tied together, everyone drinking. Someone shot the lamp out over her head. Then they shot the men and took axes to their heads. This wasn’t much strange. They took the law into their own hands but made sure it was the right people.

Al Brumfield come to Grandpa [Adkins]’s that night but slept up the hollow. [They] took the bodies to West Fork of Harts and buried them in the same grave. Their relatives kept quiet.

After repeatedly studying Bob Adkins’ story in Goldenseal, I concocted a theory about Ed’s mother that coincided somewhat with Lawrence’s story about her shooting at the Brumfield place. Bob told in the article how his father Albert Adkins met his mother Brooke Dingess while boarding at Hollena’s in the 1890s. They were married after Albert’s first wife Emma Jane Hager died of tuberculosis in 1901. Well…what if this Emma Jane Hager had been Emma Jean Haley? Had Emma Haley abandoned Ed and changed her last name so as to lose her identity as the widow of a man accused of attempted murder? Was the transportation slow enough and the memories of locals distorted enough by time to make such a transition of identity? It seemed a plausible enough theory, so I resolved to explore it by contacting Bob the next time I was in West Virginia.

In Search of Ed Haley 44

01 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Al Brumfield, crime, George Fry, Green McCoy, Harts Creek, history, Hollene Brumfield, John W Runyon, Kentucky, Lincoln County, Lincoln County Crew, Milt Haley, Paris Brumfield, West Virginia, writing

Meador’s article was my first real glimpse into the story of Milt Haley’s death since talking with Roxie Mullins. I read it carefully and often.

“In 1889, around the time the Hatfields and McCoys were killing each other along the Tug River, another less known family war was occurring, not too far away, in Lincoln County. The details of the feud are sketchy today, and would be all but forgotten had its events not been recorded in a ballad known as ‘The Lincoln County Crew.’ In 1923, the text of the ballad, attributed to George Ferrell, and a brief explanation were published in The Llorrac, a Lincoln County historical journal published by the students and faculty at Carroll High School in Hamlin.”

Meador began with a somewhat interesting description of Harts at the time of Milt’s death.

“The community of Harts, isolated in southern Lincoln County near the Logan County line, was one of the places where citizens occasionally had to take the law into their own hands. Harts, on the Guyandotte River about midway between Huntington and Logan, was a convenient stopping place for travelers journeying between the two towns. Also it played host to the teams of rough-and-tumble men who rafted logs down the river to ports on the Ohio. Because of its location and because whiskey was sold there, Harts attracted more than its share of troublemakers. Differences were often settled with a gun, and killings sometimes avenged by the family of the murdered person.”

The impetus for the feud that claimed Milt’s life, according to Meador, was trouble between Allen Brumfield and John Runyon, two merchants at the mouth of Harts Creek.

“In Harts, in the latter decades of the 19th Century, lived a man by the name of Allen Brumfield. According to Irma Butcher, Brumfield lived in a large white house near the Guyandotte River bridge. The Llorrac relates that Brumfield operated a store near Harts and sold whiskey from a houseboat in the river. Allen Brumfield, according to The Llorrac, was not the only whiskey merchant in Harts. At the mouth of Harts Creek, a man by the name of John Runyons operated a store and saloon. For some reason there were hard feelings between Runyons and Brumfield, and Runyons is reported to have hired Milt Haley and Green McCoy to kill Brumfield. Payment for the two men is supposed to have been a barrel of flour, a side of bacon and $25.”

Now that was a real interesting twist to the story — no mention of Milt’s wife getting shot at the Brumfield place. Milt was apparently a hired gunman. In a way, I wasn’t surprised. From the very beginning, I had the impression that Milt was a bad character. Roxie Mullins had said he was “awful bad to drink and kept a Winchester loaded and sitting right by the side of his door. A whole mob killed him. They was afraid of him because he had a pretty bad name.” Lawrence had said, “When my dad was very young he didn’t like the whiny way my dad was acting so to make him more of a man he took him out and dropped him in a rain barrel through the ice.” And then there was the poverty aspect: I mean, to kill someone for a barrel of flour, a side of bacon and twenty-five dollars?

According to Meador’s article, Milt and Green supposedly ambushed Brumfield, a very common thing to do in those days.

“The day chosen by McCoy and Haley for their grim deed was a Sunday afternoon in mid-August of 1889. Allen Brumfield and his wife, Hollena, were returning on horseback from a visit to Mrs. Brumfield’s father, Henderson Dingess, who lived on Harts Creek. Mrs. Brumfield was on the same horse, behind her husband. From ambush and without warning, McCoy and Haley fired at the couple as they rode down the river. Their aim was good but not fatal. Allen Brumfield received a bullet in his arm and his wife was shot in the face. Brumfield jumped from his horse and by running was able to make his escape. Mrs. Brumfield also survived but was disfigured for life. Irma Butcher, who knows little about the history behind the ballad, remembers as a young girl visiting in the home of Allen Brumfield’s widow, Hollena, at Harts. Mrs. Butcher relates that widow Brumfield had a hole ‘the size of a quarter’ in her nose, where she had been shot during the feud.”

After the shooting, Milt and Green fled across the Kentucky state line to escape from the law.

“Haley and McCoy fled to Martin County, Kentucky, but in mid-October of that same year were captured and lodged in the Martin County jail. Their captors were no doubt attracted by the reward offered by the state of West Virginia and supplemented by Allen Brumfield.”

A posse fetched Milt and Green and brought them to Lincoln County.

“The accused gunmen were returned to West Virginia by way of Logan County, which was then a border county including what is now Mingo County. There they were turned over to a party of Lincoln County men headed by the aggrieved Brumfield himself. The group journeyed as far as Chapmanville by mid-afteroon and tried to find lodging for the night among the families there. No one would take them in, evidently because of a fear of mob violence. Still looking for overnight shelter, the party continued down the Guyandotte River. For some reason, the guard split so that a portion crossed to the other side, leaving but an officer and three men in charge of the prisoners. A few miles below Chapmanville this small company entered into Lincoln County, soon finding lodging at the house of George Frye. The Frye house was located near the mouth of Green Shoals at Ferrellsburg.”

At Green Shoal, Milt and Green were brutally murdered by a mob.

“About eight o’clock that evening, according to the Logan County Banner of October 31, 1889, an armed mob estimated at 20 or more men surrounded Frye’s house and demanded that the prisoners be turned over to them. Frye and his family were ordered into the kitchen and the guards were allowed to leave the house. The mob then rushed in, firing their guns. McCoy and Haley were dragged out into the front yard and shot several times. The angry crowd then took rocks and smashed in the skulls of the two men. Their bloody work accomplished, the mob disappeared into the darkness, leaving the neighbors to take care of the bodies.”

No one was brought to justice for the killings.

“The Logan County Banner, in relating the story of the murders of Haley and McCoy, said that there had been no arrests in connection with the killings even though it was generally well known in the area who had been involved. The paper also gave the impression that most local people were in agreement in condoning the action of the lynch mob. The paper itself seemed to justify the unlawful treatment of Haley and McCoy on the grounds that they had shot an innocent woman.”

At the end of Meador’s article was an interesting note about Paris Brumfield, father to Al, hinting at past trouble between the Brumfields and McCoy.

“Another mystery concerns a man by the name of Paris Brumfield, who is mentioned in Professor Cox’s version [of the song] as being murdered by his own son. A story quoted in the November 7, 1889, edition of the Logan County Banner, says that Paris Brumfield was engaged in a shooting scrape with Green McCoy about a year before the attack on Allen Brumfield.”

Brandon Ray Kirk

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

Tag Archives: Hollene Brumfield

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Bob Adkins Interview, Part 2 (1993)

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