by Dean King
15. Truda McCoy, 75. Truda McCoy noted that Sam, Jim, George, and Martha McCoy all agreed that it was Bill and not Bud who had stabbed Ellison. She wrote: “They said it was a natural mistake, that the bystanders identified the wrong boy—since they looked so much alike” (225). Spears (“Mountain Feud”) added his own wrinkle. “Randolph McCoy, Jr.,… came running up just as Farmer was brought back to the polling place,” he wrote. “He was accused of cutting the Deacon in the legs by a Hatfield who mistook him for the young boy, Budd.” But Bud was actually the nickname of Randolph Jr.; Spears meant Bill, a mistake that would be perpetuated by others. “This fact is now admitted on all sides,” wrote Spears, “but the McCoys deny that Budd [meaning Bill] did any stabbing, and say that Talbot did it all.” Jones did not mention Bill and did not even list a child of Randall and Sarah McCoy named William or Bill in his McCoy genealogy.
While Truda McCoy added invaluable details to the history, she also made some perplexing errors, among others placing Devil Anse at the scene, to be chastised by Tolbert McCoy’s wife, Mary: “If you’d a-kept your durn set in West Virginia where they belong, this wouldn’t a-happened” (75). In her account, Anse “with the aide of relatives, raised his bleeding brother to a cot that someone had brought for the purpose” (76). In no other accounts was Devil Anse present.
16. Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Rice, 25; Sam McCoy, 66; and Waller, 73. Warm Hollow now ends at the highway outside Matewan but originally traveled to the Tug Fork, meeting it just below the mouth of Blackberry Creek.
17. “Plaintiffs Bill of Exceptions,” 1; L. D. Hatfield, 21–23 ; Mutzenberg, 38; and Waller, xv.
18. “Plaintiffs Bill of Exceptions,” 1; Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Mutzenberg, 38; Sam McCoy, 66; Rice, 25; and Waller, 73. According to Waller (xiv), Doc, Plyant, and Sam Mahon (sometimes spelled “Mayhorn” or “Mahorn”) were married to Wall’s daughters, Sarah (age twenty-two), Victoria (twenty), and Mary (eighteen), respectively, but this is incorrect regarding Sam, who was married to Mary Mounts; according to G. Elliott Hatfield (211), Mary Hatfield was married to Richard Blankenship. Among the marital intricacies in the region at the time, it was not uncommon for the siblings of one family to marry the siblings of another family and have children who were double first cousins, as was the case when Big Eph and his brother John married sisters Nancy and Isabella Vance.
19. Sam McCoy (66–67) and Waller (73–74) said that Ellison remained in Kentucky that night. Spears (“Mountain Feud”) and others said they moved him immediately to West Virginia. L. D. Hatfield (23) wrote that Devil Anse reached the Blackberry Creek polling ground at dusk on the night of the fight and “forcibly taking the prisoners away from the constable, escorted them across the river into West Virginia.” A number of works confused the sequence of events, especially the timing of Anse and Wall’s arrival and the point at which Ellison was carried across the Tug. As Spears told it, “When morning came, there were over seventy of the Hatfield family from West Virginia about the house of John Hatfield on Blackberry Creek, where the prisoners were kept over night.”
20. “Plaintiffs Bill of Exceptions,” 1; Staton, 197; Mutzenberg, 38; Rice, 25–26 ; and Waller, 36. Mutzenberg said they were overtaken by, among others, Wall, whom he called Val, and Bad ’Lias, “brothers of the wounded Ellison.” However, it was not Bad ’Lias, Preacher Anse’s brother, but Good ’Lias, Devil Anse’s and Wall’s brother, who helped waylay the Pikeville-bound contingent. Wall mentioned Dr. Rutherford in his testimony at his trial (Staton, 197). Jones (46, 50, 205) later misidentified him as Dr. Jim Rutherford. Based on Jones, Rice made the same mistake. However, it was actually Elliott Rutherford, who went by Doc, a prominent citizen and future first mayor of Matewan. Jones might have been confused by Doc’s father, James (born 1792). Howard, “Descendants of Reuben Rutherford, Sr.”
21. “Plaintiffs Bill of Exceptions,” 1–2.
22. Mutzenberg, 38–39, and Waller, 79. I have largely used Mutzenberg’s chronology here. Rice (25–26) maintained that before they could set out again, a large party of heavily armed Hatfields and their partisans, led by Devil Anse, arrived. Waller said that they encountered Devil Anse at Preacher Anse’s. Rice concurred with Spears: “After daylight appeared on Tuesday, the prisoners and their guards ate breakfast and set out for Pikesville [sic] jail. They had not traveled over a mile, however, before they met a gang of West Virginia Hatfields headed by old Bad Anse Hatfield.” Regarding Alex (Alexander Elac) Messer, he is widely held to have been a sheriff with “twenty-seven notches” on the butt of his gun (Jones, 156), but no supporting documents exist to confirm this. Documents do show that he was a former Union mounted infantryman.
23. “Plaintiffs Bill of Exceptions,” 2–3 ; Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Mutzenberg, 39; Staton, 197–98 ; and Waller, 74, 79.
24. “Plaintiffs Bill of Exceptions,” 2; Spears, “Mountain Feud”; and Rice, 25–26.
25. “Plaintiffs Bill of Exceptions,” 3; Staton, 193, 196; Woods, 28; Thomas, 68, 90, 109–10, 248; and Mutzenberg, 46. Thomas talked of rain and swollen creeks at this time, so using a skiff to cross the Tug makes sense. Others talk of fording or walking across the Tug, which is possible in places. Some say Devil Anse was on the skiff, but this contradicts two eyewitnesses, including Bill Daniels, who identified these men (see Commonwealth of Kentucky vs. Anderson Hatfield and Others, Staton, 196). In the same trial (Staton 194–95), James M. McCoy named these men, excepting Murphy and adding Ralph Steele. Wall later testified, “When I went to the mouth of Blackberry, the first thing that I saw was that they were standing on the opposite side of the river. I have no recollection of crossing the river with them” (Staton, 198). While Rutherford Branch is a mile up Mate Creek, some say that the schoolhouse where the McCoy brothers were taken was in the hollow directly across from the present-day town of Matewan, about a quarter of a mile from the Tug. A historical marker is placed there.
Chapter 8: Mountain Justice
1. Velke, 3, and Merle T. Cole, A Comprehensive History of the West Virginia State Police, 1919–1979, 2, 46. Border patrols, such as the Texas Rangers (organized in 1835), and other state agencies with law enforcement functions, like the Massachusetts State Constables (formed in 1865), were early iterations of state police forces, but it was not until after the turn of the century that such forces really took hold: the Arizona Rangers formed in 1901, the Connecticut Police in 1903, and the Pennsylvania State Constabulary and the New Mexico Mounted Police in 1905. Most state police forces were created between 1919 and 1939.
2. Dabney, 45.
3. Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Rice, 28; and Waller, 37, 267, n. 18. A decade previously, along with Big Eph, Doc Rutherford had led an effort to bring education to the area.
4. Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Rice, 28; and Woods, 31.
5. Spears, “Mountain Feud,” and Mutzenberg, 39.
6. Spears, “Mountain Feud,” and Rice, 26–27.
7. Mutzenberg, 40; Spears, “Mountain Feud”; and Truda McCoy, 309.
8. Truda McCoy, 248, 240–60. Truda heard of Sally and Mary’s trips to Mate Creek from Martha McCoy, the wife of Randall’s son Sam, and “many first-hand” sources (225, n. 9). Selkirk was married to Louisa Williamson, the stepdaughter of his grandfather Samuel McCoy, who, with his first wife, Elizabeth, had seventeen children, including Selkirk’s aunt Sally, Randall’s wife. Louisa was one of three children of Samuel’s second wife, Nancy.
9. Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Mutzenberg, 41, 46; and Rice, 26–27. At least one account maintained that Wall told the women that if Ellison died, he would personally “shoot the boys full of holes.”
10. L. D. Hatfield, 23, and Waller, 41–50.
11. Sam McCoy, 67–68. Like others, Squirrel Huntin’ Sam, who recorded his version of the feud many decades after it took place, turned Bud into a boy of fifteen, which was Bill’s age. I have adjusted the timing of Preacher Anse’s appearance, described by Sam, moving it to where it more likely occurred.
12. Mutzenberg, 41, and “Plaintiffs Bill of Exceptions.”
13. Spears, “Mountain Feud.” Spears reported that the messenger rode out on a mule while Mutzenberg (42) said it was a horse.
14. Sam McCoy, 67; Mutzenberg, 42; and Spears, “Mountain Feud.”
15. Mutzenberg, 44, 48–49. Mutzenberg also wrote, “But this good man volunteered to stand guard and prevent any interference or interruption of the butchery.” See also Hatfield and Davis, 35–37.
16. Sam McCoy, 67; Staton, 194, 198; Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Mutzenberg, 44; and Swain, 188. I have primarily followed Wall Hatfield’s court testimony as recounted in Staton. Reports of the encounter with the moonshiner Joe Davis vary. Some say the whole group ran into him and that he confirmed that Bud had shot Ellison. Others say that Wall was sent to ask Davis if Bud had stabbed Ellison. According to Sam McCoy (67): “They sent Wall Hatfield up to Joe Davis’s to see Davis if the little boy had anything to do in cutting Elison, if so he were to hoot like an owl.” Davis brought over a pint of whiskey, but Wall told him he did not want any, saying, “I come to see if that little boy had anything to do with cutting brother Elison with a knife.” And Davis gave his reply. Sam went on to say that Wall gave the signal to let the others know Bud was guilty. Whether or not he did remains a matter of controversy. Spears went as far as to say that Wall, standing on the West Virginia side, called out the execution commands, “Take aim. Fire.”
17. “Commonwealth of Kentucky v. Anderson Hatfield and others; Murder Judgment,” per Staton, 195, and Thomas, 70. In the Louisville Courier-Journal story “Hatfields Arrive,” Wall said, “The killing was done on the bridge between Blackberry and Mate’s Creek.”
18. Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Rice, 27–28 ; Anderson, 62; Sam McCoy, 67; Jones, 275, n. 11; and Staton, 194. Mutzenberg (42–44), who tended toward outrage and sermonizing, painted a particularly lurid picture: “Around them stands the throng of bloodthirsty white savages, reared in the midst of a Christian country…. Not one voice is raised in pity or favor of the victims, an unfortunate man, a youth and a child. The monsters dance about them in imitation of the Indian. They throw guns suddenly into their faces and howl in derision when the thus threatened prisoner dodges.” Spears, however, described a sober scene and one of quasi-military discipline. The depression on the banks of the Tug where it is said that the boys were killed is today marked by a roadside historical plaque, though the accuracy of this site has been questioned. Writing in the 1940s, Jones (275, n. 10) noted that the roadwork done there had severely altered the place.
19. Spears, “Mountain Feud.”
20. “Plaintiffs Bill of Exceptions.”
21. Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Staton, 193; Rice, 28; and Truda McCoy, 90, 308. Billy Anse McCoy would never forget the roar of the firing squad. He would describe it to his son Sailor, who told his daughter Mattie about it, and she repeated it to Charlotte Sanders, who reported it in “Golden Wedding” (a caption) in the Williamson Daily News in 1989, more than a century later.
22. Staton, 198.
23. In Mutzenberg (43), the Hatfields act like a ruthless gang: “Alex Messer now approaches closely to Phamer [sic] McCoy and deliberately fires six shots into different parts of his body. This is not an act of mercy, to end the man’s suffering. No, he has taken care to avoid the infliction of any instantly fatal wound. Messer steps back, views the flowing blood and pain-distorted face and laughs.”
24. Paducah Sun, “A Relic of Feudism.” Others attribute the line to Devil Anse and Crazy Jim Vance, who was not there.
25. Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Mutzenberg, 44; and Paducah Sun, “Relic of Feudism.” L. D. Hatfield uniquely maintained that Crazy Jim Vance “placed his gun close to the back of his head and fired, blowing out his brains, saying ‘A dead man tells no tales’ ” (24). No other accounts even place Crazy Jim at the scene. Messer later told a Paducah Sun reporter that his alleged murder of Bud McCoy was “false” and “that ‘they were all plague gone lies and he knew it,’ for he was ‘standing within ten feet of the boy’ when shot.” Other Messer details come from his “Declaration for Pension” and from a Bureau of Pensions questionnaire stamped Apr. 16, 1915.
26. Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Southwestern Reporter, 309–10 ; and Staton, 199. Although the record of Big Jim McCoy’s testimony (“Plaintiffs Bill of Exceptions,” 4) is somewhat confusing, it indicates that some form of oath was given. “I saw Wall with a paper,” Big Jim said, “but do not know what it contained.” Big Jim said he “heard Wall in the presence of Doc and Plyant call for signers” and “saw Plyant walk up to Wall.” He did not know whether Plyant signed or not.
27. Spears, “Mountain Feud,” and Staton, 196.
28. Truda McCoy, 89–90.
29. “Plaintiffs Bill of Exceptions,” 4–5; Rice, 28; and Mutzenberg, 46. Elias died in Anse Ferrell’s house.
30. Sam McCoy, 67–68.
31. In the fall of 1888, Elias, in answer to questions from journalist Theron Clark Crawford (“An American Vendetta,” New York World), claimed that, as Crawford put it, “a strong party came up and took possession of the prisoners and went off with them in the darkness, and the guards were in no way responsible.” As recently as 2008, in Hatfield and Spence (118–21), Coleman C. Hatfield, Devil Anse’s great-grandson and the son of family historian Coleman A. Hatfield, claimed that the schoolteacher Charlie Carpenter, whom the latter called “a convincing mob leader,” carried out the “murderous plot.” He said that Carpenter, a tall, red-haired teacher in his early forties, captured the imagination of his students by telling them stories about the world beyond their ridgetops (and managed to teach them how to read and write in the process). He exuded guilt, his “large tiger-like” eyes always nervously scanning the distance, shifting rapidly “as if he sensed danger.” He kept a .38 tucked under a loose shirt and could “shoot the walnuts out of a tree.” Soon afterward, Carpenter crossed the hills toward the south and never returned.
32. Mutzenberg, 46–47 ; Spears, “Mountain Feud”; “Plaintiffs Bill of Exceptions,” 3–4 ; and Hatfield and Davis, 35–37. Though a number of men would pay a price for the events of this day, no one can now say exactly who was part of the death squad and who was not.
33. As told by Basil Hatfield, son of John Wallace Hatfield, in Charlotte Sanders, “Hatfield Recounts How His Father Hauled the Bodies of Slain Brothers Back to the Home of Ranel McCoy,” Williamson Daily News.
Chapter 9: Life After Death
1. Spears, “Mountain Feud,” and Rice, 28.
2. Spears, “Mountain News Getting.”
3. Staton, 128–31. Until recently, these indictments had been lost.
4. Sam Hill, “Report of the Adjutant General of Kentucky”; Louisville Courier-Journal, “Hatfields Arrive”; Jones, 59; Rice, 29; Howard, “Descendants of Tolbert McCoy”; Swain, 189; and Velke, 101. While the number of men indicated is generally agreed to be twenty-three, the exact number is no longer known and is sometimes put at twenty or twenty-seven. “I have searched for years for the men actually tried,” said Pikeville genealogist Betty Howard. “The courthouse records are gone.” Twenty-two names can be found in the evidence and subsequent events.
5. G. Elliott Hatfield, 35, 177, n. 3.
6. Ibid., 71–72 ; Jones, 276; and Howard, “Descendants of Larkin Smith.” The two had no children until 1888. Hatfield and Spence (222–24) said that Nan was the daughter of L. P. Smith of Wayne County, not Rebel Bill Smith.
7. The story of Cap’s fight with Reese is told by Crawford (“American Vendetta”) and repeated in G. Elliott Hatfield (70–71). In a column of news from around the state, the Jan. 5, 1881, Louisville Courier-Journal ran a report from Catlettsburg dated Jan. 4, claiming that “Capt. Hatfield a well known bruiser” was killed in a “scrimmage” on Mate Creek. The report said that more than fifty shots were exchanged by the opposing parties and “a number” were wounded and that the clash was the result of an ongoing vendetta.
8. Jone
s, 76.
9. Spears, “Mountain Feud,” and Hill, “Adjutant General.”
10. Jones, 69–70, and Mutzenberg, 50–52.
11. Mutzenberg, 50.
12. Spears, “Mountain Feud,” and Mutzenberg, 50–52.
13. Spears, “Mountain Feud.” In Truda McCoy’s version of this ambush (95–97), the perpetrators are Cap, Elias, and Wall Hatfield; Andy Varney; and Charley Gillespie. As she told it, the three young men were on their way to have corn ground at the mill at the mouth of Blackberry Creek when they were ambushed near a “patch of sumac… in the bend of the road about a quarter mile above Randall’s house.” Her sources were Randall’s son Sam’s wife, Martha McCoy, who she said was at Randall’s house at the time of the ambush, and Bushy Scott, “when he was an old man” (225), in 1921–22, nearly four decades after the event.
14. Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Truda McCoy, 96; and Sam McCoy, 64.
15. Spears, “Mountain Feud,” and Mutzenberg, 50–52. According to Sam McCoy (64), upon realizing that they had ambushed the wrong men, the Hatfields fled, swearing that “if Scott died, which they thought he would for some time, that Randolph’s blood should stain the ground.”
16. This account comes from Sanders, “Hatfield Recounts.” The newspaper mistakenly called Cap’s intended target Ryan.
17. Sam McCoy, 64–65, 124, 152–62 ; Truda McCoy, 316; and Sanders, “ ‘Squirrel Huntin’ Sam’ McCoy.” This episode is unique to McCoy’s account. Sam Jr. would be the couple’s only child, as America, the first of Sam’s four wives, was destined to die young. He would have ten children with his next wife, Vandora. Sam said that Ellison reprimanded Johnse when he aimed his rifle at the McCoys, but given the timing, Ellison would have already been dead. I have put Elias in Ellison’s place, as he is the most likely candidate.
Chapter 10: Taking Names and Keeping a List