LOYAL AND AGGRESSIVE SUPPORTER: FEUDING FRENCH ELLIS LOGAN, W.Va. - This rare image, a tattered newspaper clipping, is of feudist French Ellis. He was born in 1857 at Logan Courthouse (now known as Logan, WV) and, as a young man, became a member of the Hatfield Gang. He worked on the Hatfield logging crew in the Tug Valley and eventually married the daughter of Devil Anse Hatfields sister. Historian Altina L. Waller, author of Feud: Hatfields, McCoys, and Social Change in Appalachia, 1860-1900, called him one of Devil Anses most loyal and aggressive supporters, one of the young men like Cap and Johnse that Devil Anse had difficulty restraining. Waller also said that French was one of the rowdy types who most annoyed and frustrated H.C. Ragland [community leader, attorney, and publisher of The Logan County Banner]. French and his cohorts repeatedly showed up in the village of Logan Courthouse drunk and ready for action. Starting fights directly in front of mercantile establishments, shouting profanities outside the church on Sunday, and insulting candidates on election day were all part of the repertoire of rebellion. Although he was known as the village rabble-rouser and a heavy boozer, he was protected (and occasionally bailed-out of jail) by Devil Anse or his brother, Elias, mostly due to Frenchs undying loyalty to the Hatfield clan. Ellis, also handy with a rifle, was a forceful and violent participant in the New Years Night Massacre at the Randall McCoy Tug Valley cabin in 1888, which resulted in the burning of the cabin, the death of Randalls children, Calvin and Alifair McCoy, and the senseless beating of Randalls wife, Sarah Sally McCoy. In later years, he had a number of run-ins with Devil Anses oldest son, relating to Johnses bitter dispute with a Gilbert, WV, businessman Humphrey E. Doc Ellis who was a first cousin of French Ellis and had a rival timber camp along the Guyandotte River region of Mingo County. This photograph of Ellis, hamming it up and clenching a knife blade between his teeth, was taken at happier times in Logan County, and later published as part of a larger feature story in the The Evening Standard (Ogden City, Utah), December 31, 1910, which included an interview with Cap Hatfield. In 1888, T.C Crawford wrote, Jim Vance was a powerful man, beyond the medium point of life. He was a vindictive fighter, and it is related by one of Philip’s men that when they found him with his right forefinger clasped around the trigger of his pistol, trying with his last dying strength to shoot one more shot. Philips and his crowd, after they killed Vance, robbed him of a number of his personal effects, which they carried back with them to Kentucky. This I have learned from several Pike County people and from one of the magistrates of that neighborhood. The people who are supposed to be responsible for this [Randall McCoy] house-burning and the crimes connected therewith are Jonce Hatfield, Cap Hatfield, James Vance, Tom Mitchell, FRENCH ELLIS, Bob Hatfield, Elliot Hatfield, Charles Gillespie, an Ellis Mounts. — French M. Ellis, (1857 - 1924)
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 20:01:52 +0000
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