FATE PLAYED A STRANGE AND VIOLENT GAME WITH RANDAL MCCOY AND ANSE HATFIELD Between 1880 and 1882, Johnson Hatfield had a love affair with Roseanna McCoy and did not marry her. In 1882, the election day murder of Ellison Hatfield and the killing of the three McCoy brothers began the feud in earnest. In 1887, the governments of West Virginia and Kentucky came close to war when they were unable to settle the troubles. On January 1, 1888, the Hatfield fighters led by Jim Vance and Cap Hatfield assaulted the McCoy home, killed Calvin and Allifair McCoy, and beat Sarah McCoy so harshly she nearly died. Also in 1888, fighters clashed on the banks of Grapevine Creek and Jim Vance was killed. In 1889, Ellison (Cottontop) Mounts and members of the Hatfield family were tried for their crimes. Mounts was hanged and Valentine (Wall) Hatfield was sent to prison. By 1892, the feud was over. Hundreds of pages have been written to explain these matters. Yet it has been difficult to find an underlying reason for it. It has been written that there was practically no formal law in the valleys of the Tug and Guyandot at the time. It has been written that the Hatfield and McCoy families were intensely proud and capable of taking care of themselves. And it has been written that it was difficult to stop the feud because the mountaineers were mistrustful of courts. None of that rang true. Admittedly, the courts of the region were not the best then. But it should be remembered that the Hatfields and the McCoys tried to use legal machinery to bring each other to justice. It should be remembered that men had been killed in the mountains before 1882 without the mountaineers erupting in a prolonged feud. In 1988, a century after the worst violence of the feud era, Altina L. Waller of New York State University at Plattsburg wrote a fine book which explains much of the troubles. In her careful research, it becomes clear that murder and revenge was only the first stage of the feud. It became an unending sequence of violence because Anse Hatfield, who was involved in the timbering industry that took root in the 1870s, had won a lawsuit against Perry Cline and had taken a valuable land tract from Cline. Cline, a relative of Randolph McCoy, then used the feud as a means to strike back at Anse Hatfield and kept stirring up more trouble. In that light, the feud was one result of the changing economy and the changing society of Appalachia during that era. It was, Altina Waller wrote, the result of “two worlds in conflict.” Those worlds were traditional mountain life and the emerging Victorian era consciousness in the region. By the end of the feud, both families were sick to death of violence. It is generally conceded now that the feud ended by exhaustion. One local historian said that several men warned him never to ask Cap Hatfield about the feud during Hatfield’s later years. The simple truth about the feud—unless Altina Waller’s creditable explanation of it is accepted—is that no other reason for it makes sense. Shirley Donnally, for example, threw up his hands and claimed fate played a strange and violent game with Randal McCoy and Anse Hatfield. Yet the feud did have important results. In Logan County, men like James A. Nighbert and his friend, Henry Clay Ragland, sought to give their community a better reputation. That desire, coupled with the construction of the Norfolk and Western Railroad through the Tug Fork Valley in the 1890s, set the foundation for the industrial era in Logan County. It is vital to understand that process before Logan County history can be understood. — Excerpt from historian Robert Y. Spence from the book, LAND OF THE GUYANDOT: THE HISTORY OF LOGAN COUNTY (Woodland Press, LLC); © Robert Y. Spence; posted by permission. — Photo, Devil Anse Hatfield, patriarch of the feuding Hatfields
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 02:58:17 +0000
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