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Sticky: Not Just Another Feud Book!

“The Missing McCoys,” the first in a series of books that will explore the real history of Tug Valley, which is left almost entirely out of the “feudified” history seen in the feud tales, is now available on Amazon.  The book contains much information never before published. It features more than fifty original public documents, most of which have never been published before.

The man on the book cover is Selkirk McCoy, son of Asa and nephew of Ran’l McCoy’s wife, Sally. Selkirk is not a “Missing McCoy” in the feud yarns, but he should have been. He appears twice in the stories, first as a juror in the infamous “hog trial,” and then as an indicted member of the mob that lynched his three cousins on August 9, 1882.

Here is Selkirk, at the age of sixty-one:

Kirk1892

At the time the story says that Ran’l McCoy claimed that Floyd Hatfield had his pig, Floyd Hatfield was living on land owned by Uriah McCoy. The pig was on McCoy land! Uriah McCoy was the brother of Ran’l’s wife, Sally, and a first cousin to Ran’l himself.  He was also the uncle of Selkirk McCoy.

Spinners of feud yarns never disclose this, because they know that any reader with an IQ above room temperature would ask why Ran’l didn’t go to his cousin and brother-in-law, Uriah, and say, “Hey, Brother, your renter has my pig. Make him give it back to me.”

Readers of this book will never look at the hog trial the same way again.

Selkirk and two of his sons, Albert and L.D., were indicted in September, 1882 for the murders of Ran’l’s three sons who had killed Ellison Hatfield. How in the world was the charge ever made that Asa McCoy’s son and two of his grandsons helped murder three of their cousins directly across the river from Asa’s house?

Surely the names came from either Ran’l and Jim McCoy, as there was no one else who might have talked to the Pike County authorities who had been anywhere near Tug River at that time.

I believe the three McCoy names came from Ol’ Ran’l himself and not Jim, because if Jim McCoy had seen the three McCoys with the Hatfield gang, they would surely have been tried and convicted, rather than turned loose for lack of evidence. With a year to build a case, and two men turning state’s evidence, the Pike prosecutor was unable to build a case against the three McCoys who were charged in the indictment.

This book tells the reader what really motivated the charges of murder against the three McCoys.

One of the most significant facts about the Hatfield-McCoy feud story is that neither of the two most influential Tug Valley McCoys, Uriah and Asa, lifted a finger to help Ran’l.  That was the case in 1882 when Ran’l’s three sons were lynched, and it was also true in 1888, when two more of his children were murdered, and his wife, the sister of Uriah and Asa, beaten severely.

This is necessarily ignored by the writers of the feud tales, but it is now dealt with in this book.

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Let’s Get One Thing Straight!

As of this date, no one has attacked the substance of what I wrote in my book, “The Hatfield & McCoy Feud after Kevin Costner: Rescuing History.”

At age 77, I might have trouble finding my glasses, but I remember the 1950’s very clearly. For what it is worth, I am the last person who will write a book on the Hafields and McCoys, having talked to people who actually remembered the events.

This story can be read in my book, “Lies, Damned Lies, and Feud Tales.”  https://tinyurl.com/ycqlg3oy

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West Virginia’s Tax Dollars at Work on the Hatfields and McCoys

The West Virginia Encyclopedia is extremely damaging to the study of real history, simply because it has the State’s imprimatur upon it. We saw the lack of concern for the historical record in my blog post a few months ago on the Encyclopedia’s handling of the Abner Vance story.  http://hatfield-mccoytruth.com/2014/11/24/the-west-virginia-encyclopedia-on-the-feud-tilting-at-a-big-windmill/

In response to an inquirer who offered to bring the documentary proof that the Encyclopedia’s article was in error, the editor said he didn’t need to see the evidence, because he liked the story and would leave it the way it was.

Surfing the net for “feud” stuff the other day, I again ran into the “Devil Anse had a guerrilla group that was known as The Logan Wildcats” claim. Of course anyone who has studied the real history knows that the Logan Wildcats were Company D of the 36th Virginia Infantry, and they never operated within a hundred miles of Tug River. Devil Anse was never a member of the Logan Wildcats, much less their leader. The writer, like most recent writers making that spurious claim, cited the West Virginia Encyclopedia.

What makes it doubly sad is that the writer undoubtedly thought he/she was writing history, simply because it came from a website with the name “West Virginia Encyclopedia” at the top of the page. Anyone who took the trouble to check the writer’s sources would have been doubly reassured when he looked at the Encyclopedia’s article, because it has this at the bottom:

Cite This Article: Spence, Robert Y. “Logan Wildcats.” e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 07 October 2010. Web. 10 March 2015.

The West Virginia Encyclopedia says that Devil Anse was the leader of the Logan Wildcats, and its source was the historian, Robert Spence; therefore, who can blame a researcher with no prior knowledge for accepting it as gospel? The blame lies with the Encyclopedia, not with the honest researcher who accepts what the Encyclopedia says as history, and here is why:

Robert Spence was the co-author of a book with Coleman Hatfield called “The Tale of the Devil.” That book, first published in 2003, has some 25 pages about Devil Anse and the Civil War. About half of it concerns the Logan Wildcats, which Spence and Hatfield never say was the name of Devil Anse’s guerrilla band.   All of their writing about Anse and the Logan Wildcats refers to the real Logan Wildcats, Company D of the 36th Infantry, but the name of Anderson Hatfields never appears on a muster roll for the Logan Wildcats.

There is not a single sentence in the long chapter which says that Devil Anse’s raiders during the last part of the war were known as the Logan Wildcats. Surely if it had been true, the authors would not have let such a colorful name slip by, but they never once said that Anse’s home guard was known as the Logan Wildcats. They confined the moniker to its real application throughout.

Of course this brings us to the question of why did Spence write in the Encyclopedia that Anse’s band of Tug River raiders was known as the Logan Wildcats, when he did not say it in The Tale of the Devil.

The Encyclopedia tells us to cite the article as being by Robert Spence, with a date of October 7, 2010.  I can hear my readers shouting at me: “That settles it, Dotson. Now shut your mouth!”

“Not so fast,” I respond. “Look at the date.”

Robert Spence died in 2005, but the Encyclopedia wants us to ascribe something to him that was written in 2010. Something smells about this. I am no expert on West Virginia’s Civil War units, but from what I know, the first two paragraphs of that article are correct, and were probably written by Robert Spence.

The last paragraph about Logan Wildcats along the Tug is pure Hatfield-McCoy hokum, and was likely added after Spence died—it is so dated—dishonestly retaining the claim that it was all written by Robert Spence. The editor of the Encyclopedia is obviously careful to edit his Encyclopedia to keep it up-to-date with the latest tale in the latest feud book put out by the feud industry.  As he proved when confronted about Abner Vance, he does not give a hoot in hell for our real history.

Shame, shame, Mr. Editor. You are destroying the credibility of something that the taxpayers of West Virginia are paying for. You have most likely not heard the last of it.
PS: At my age, most of my readers will outlive me by at least a decade or so. If someone tells you that I wrote something five years after I died, please do NOT believe it!

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Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid!

“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”

This quote is almost universally attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas, but Aquinas never said it. Aquinas wrote several passages which mean virtually the same thing, but the quote as presented here, and as it is usually presented elsewhere, is a 20th century invention. It might have originated from the Catholic theologian, John La Farge in the 1930’s, or it might be the brainchild of the Jewish writer, Franz Werfel. It appears following the screen credits in the movie, “The Song of Bernadette,” which was written by Werfel.

Try convincing someone who believes the quote is from Aquinas that the Saint never wrote it and you will quickly see the point I am trying to make.

Aquinas did, in fact, write: “Clearly the person who accepts the Church as an infallible guide will believe whatever the Church teaches.” (Summa Theologica, second part of the second part, question 5, article 3)

Both of the Aquinas quotes, the real and the ersatz, apply to those folks who are devoted to the fable of the Hafield and McCoy feud. I call them “The Ran’l McCoy cult.”

Where our Tug Valley history is concerned, those who have drunk the Kool-Aid originally concocted in 1888, by the New York Sun reporter, John Spears, will accept as gospel anything emitted by a writer who has the stamp of approval from the feud industry. They will never let the facts interfere with the story.

Once Dean King’s book received the approval of the feud industry, it was easy for a cultist to believe King when he wrote that a bounty hunter “read his rights” to Devil Anse in the wilds of Logan County in the 1890’s (p. 307).

You can show a cultist the Kentucky law which restricted a jury in a justice of the peace trial to a maximum of six members (Section 2252, Kentucky Statutes), and he will still say that there were twelve men on the jury which decided the ownership of a ten-dollar pig on Blackberry Creek.  One of the “historical markers” erected by the State of Kentucky to commemorate the legendary trial gives the date as 1873, while the other has it in 1878. The cultist readily accepts BOTH!

Hog trial marker     hog marker

The cultist can be shown the Logan County Court record that gives the name of the justice of the peace in the proceedings against Sam McCoy as A.W. Ferrell, and he will still believe the claims of the feud fabulists–and the concrete sign shown above–that the presiding justice was Wall Hatfield.
(Click to expand graphic)

Witnessesin_Paristrial-gail

If you click to expand the above graphic, you can probably see that five of the names of witnesses AGAINST Sam McCoy were named “McCoy.” The complete list of prosecution witnesses includes eight McCoys. Neither the appearance of eight McCoys as witnesses against Sam, nor the fact that there were only sixty McCoys of arms-bearing age in the Valley in the 1880 Census prevents King from claiming that over a hundred armed McCoys invaded Logan that year in support of Sam McCoy (p.85). Of course the cultists believe King.

Show a cultist the Pike County Court records proving that Jim Vance signed the bond for Perry Cline when Cline entered the office of Sheriff, and that Cline later appointed Vance a deputy sheriff, and they will still say that Cline believed that Vance murdered his brother-n-law, Harmon McCoy, and that Cline hated Vance because of the “murder.”

In discussing the cult, I like to consider also a quote from a notorious unbeliever, Mark Twain. In “Following the Equator,” Twain wrote: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities…” Physical impossibility is no deterrent to belief on the part of a cultist.

If a writer of fiction said that 1200 people normally attended Preacher Anse’s church (which had 28 members), he would be dismissed out of hand.  Dean King can write the same thing in a book he claims is the “True Story,” and be acclaimed by the cult as a historian whose research is exhaustive, and whose integrity is impeccable.

Show a cultist the work of Grace Dotson (Appalachian Quarterly, September, 2003, p. 40) and Barbara Cherep,  http://tgv7.tripod.com/index-12.html  proving beyond any doubt—from the record—that Abner Vance spent the entire time from his crime to his hanging in jail, and they will still believe the West Virginia Encyclopedia, which says that Vance absconded to the wilds of Tug Valley and founded a family there.  http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/279

The defining “truth” of the cult is the claim that Ran’l McCoy was a blameless victim.  Any writer who sticks to that tenet can write absolutely anything he wants to write—no matter how outrageously false—and still have the cult’s approval.

For example: Dean King wrote that Ellison Hatfield started the Election Day fight by drawing a knife on Tolbert McCoy. That lie morphs the highly-respected  Ellison Hatfield into  a would-be murderer who got only what was coming to him. It makes his brother, Anse,  a cold-blooded murderer, who killed three innocent men for no reason other than that he was a pathological killer. It also makes Preacher Anse Hatfeild a willing accessory to the murders of three innocent men. If the King lie is accepted as true, then Preacher Anse ordered the arrest of three men whom he knew–he was an eyewitness–to be innocent.

Of course it also makes Ran’l McCoy the only surviving innocent victim, and that wins the approval of the cult for anything else in the book, no matter how obviously false it is.

We see cultists who are descendants of all three—Ellison, and the two Andersons—lending their words and photos to the selling of King’s libel of their ancestors.

Because their faith is independent of the evidence, arguing with a cultist is utterly useless.  They will never state anything as a fact, thereby submitting it to examination by the record. If their opponent states a fact, they will either totally ignore it, or they will twist it into something that they can attack.

For example, I frequently make the claim that the troubles in Tug Valley during the 1880’s do not fit the dictionary definition of a “feud.” This is invariably distorted by the cultists, who say that I deny that Devil Anse killed three McCoys at the paw paw grove.

Arguing with a member of the cult is the equivalent of trying to convince a Muslim that Muhammad was not a prophet, and there is no profit to be gained in either endeavor. I frequently resolve to stop responding to them. I hope someday to be able to abide by that resolution.

 

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The Sting! The Hatfields Lose Their Land

The Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives (KDLA) has put hundreds of pages on their website pertaining to the “Hatfield and McCoy feud.  https://dspace.kdla.ky.gov/jspui/handle/10602/15610

Let’s look at one of the documents  on the KDLA site, and see if there are answers to important questions that are not even asked in the feud books. The letter from Samuel Clay, advocating a pardon for Elias Hatfield, appears in no feud book.

That letter  has caused me to spend more time in research than any other document on the site.

Why would one of the richest men in the state of Kentucky, a resident of Lexington, be writing a letter asking for a pardon for a “nobody” mountaineer from Logan County, West Virginia?

This story can be read in my book, “Lies, Damned Lies, and Feud Tales.”  https://tinyurl.com/ycqlg3oy

 

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We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us!

We Southern Appalachians are the only demographic group that can be publicly insulted with impunity in this politically correct twenty-first century. This will continue to be the case so long as Southern Appalachians continue to aid in the promulgation of lies about themselves and their ancestors.

The most damaging lie about our people is the Hatfield and McCoy feud story. I am not referring to the actual history of the two families, which is not really remarkable for violence in the context of late nineteenth century frontier America.  The problem is the story, which is largely false.

The Hatfield and McCoy feud story, whether in the slimmed down forty-page versions of John Spears and Shirley Donnelly, or in the super-sized four hundred page version of Dean King, is not true. In fact it is false in so many of its material claims—as my own books clearly prove–that it must be considered a lie on the whole.

I despise the feud tales, and I have a very good reason to do so: Every lie in every feud tale makes my ancestors look evil and barbaric. There is not a single lie in any feud book that makes them look more sane and civilized.

I use the term “lie” deliberately, to refer to material misrepresentations of fact which the writer either knew or should have known was false when he wrote it. I am not talking about simple errors like a wrong date or the confusion of similar names—the kind of mistakes every writer makes.

The feud lie, which presents ALL of our ancestors—and, by extension, all of us– as stupid and bloodthirsty cowards, is spread by three types of Appalachians:

First, there are those who believe that the super-sized feud yarn will attract tourists to an area that is virtually in its economic death throes. I try to be as kind as possible to these misguided kinsmen who honestly believe that it is profitable to be dishonest.

They can and must be approached with the power of the truth. Our real history, properly presented, would attract just as many tourists as does the feud lie.

The second group is comprised of folks who just don’t know any better. They need a history lesson or two.

The third group of home-grown aiders and abettors of the feud liars is not approachable on the same basis. Comprised of people who are enamored with the idea of being descended from pathological killers, this group is beyond reason. Rational arguments based on historical facts have no effect on these people. They will help sell a feud book that they frankly admit is false in many material particulars, so long as it presents their ancestors as bloody savages.

pogoClick on graphic to enlarge.

I am sure that most people reading this have seen Dean King’s Facebook page, which features many members of the third group.

The most egregious of the many lies in King’s book says that Ellison Hatfield started the Election Day fight by drawing a knife on Tolbert McCoy. That means that Ellison, called “a splendid man and soldier” in the definitive McCoy story by Truda McCoy, was a would-be murderer, who got only what was coming to him when the McCoys butchered him. By extension, Devil Anse was nothing but a cold-blooded murderer when he executed the three innocent McCoys.

Yet, we see direct descendants of Ellison and Devil Anse pictured with King, helping him sell his lies about their ancestors.

Of course the same lie makes Preacher Anse Hatfield a willing accessory to the triple murder of the three McCoys, but that does not keep descendants of Preacher Anse from giving the book rave reviews.

The best thing about Jim McCoy in the book is the ridiculous claim that he worked for Devil Anse at Anse’s moonshine still, at a time when a vicious blood feud between the two families was underway.  Yet, some descendants of Jim McCoy laud the book.

Asa Harmon McCoy, a warrior to the bone—by the record—is a coward who deserts his home and hides out in a cave. Yet direct descendants of Asa Harmon are shown on King’s Facebook page, grinning from ear to ear as they help him pitch his lies.

The best depiction of any Hatfield or McCoy in King’s screed is of Ran’l McCoy. He is simply a victim. There is not a single laudatory word about Ran’l or any other McCoy in the four hundred plus pages of the book. Yet King has no shortage of McCoys plugging his book.

This third group of Hatfields and McCoy descendants is beyond the reach of rational argument. Any time spent trying to enlighten them is utterly wasted.

 

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A Church house, a Smokehouse and a Cat house—and a Bounty Hunter, Too!

Once one has read my 2013 book, “The Hatfield & McCoy Feud after Kevin Costner: Rescuing History,” one can get some real laughs from reading the feud books.

Dean King’s “True Story.” has almost all of the most comical yarns from earlier feud tales, and he gives the prior author credit occasionally.

Unfortunately, some of the best guffaws in King’s book are not apparent to someone who was not raised in the hills before about 1970, or who hasn’t read the Foxfire books.

King starts out with one of those Foxfire howlers.

This story can be read in my book, “Lies, Damned Lies, and Feud Tales.”  https://tinyurl.com/ycqlg3oy

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We Got Guns! The Little Newspaper that Wasn’t

A recent post on a popular Facebook page devoted to “The Hatfield and McCoy Feud” caught my eye. The poster wrote:  “The story in its basic form will never really change despite efforts to uncover new evidence in documents.”

That is an absolutely true statement. The basic story will never change for one simple reason–it is a STORY! It has not changed materially since John Spears first wrote it in 1888.

This story can be read in my book, “Lies, Damned Lies, and Feud Tales.”  https://tinyurl.com/ycqlg3oy

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Hatfield & McCoy Feud Liars Now Have Cancer!–Von Hippel-Lindau Disease

The photo seen here is purported to be of Randolph McCoy. In the biggest feud book of all, the 430-page monster by Dean King, there is not one line saying that Ol Ran’l ever killed anyone. There is not a word about him ever physically assaulting anyone–not even a slap in the face with his open hand. Yet the writer of that big book says that Ol Ran’l probably had a genetic disease that causes its victims to want to go out and kill someone.

King says: “…the family (the McCoys) suffers from a rare hereditary condition now known as von Hippel-Lindau disease (or VHL). Those afflicted with it often have tumors on their adrenal glands that cause the excessive production of adrenaline and catecholamines, substances that trigger warrior, or fight-or-flight, reactions.  Friends and adversaries alike are subjected to a hair-trigger temper…Other symptons include a racing heart, splitting headaches, and hand tremors.”[i]

According to King, we ALL have it, because he says “the family suffers from (it).”  None of my Grandfather McCoy’s sixty-five grandchildren nor their scores of descendants have ever been so diagnosed, but that doesn’t stop Mr. King.

King gives a footnote which says that Randall McCoy might have had the disease,[ii] and continues:  “This perhaps partly accounts for Randall’s coldheartedness to Roseanna, his inability to forget a slight, and his grating habit of harping on any perceived wrong.”

The next paragraph says: “Randall, who turned sixty in the fall of 1885, had plenty of real grief and concerns to keep him crotchety.”

This a prime example of a technique used frequently by feud writers. The plant an idea in the minds of readers, but they include words like “perhaps” or “partly” to give them an out if called. A look at the customer reviews on King’s book at Amazon shows that he got the point across. Multiple reviewers are convinced that all sixty-five of my Grandpa McCoy’s grandchildren have a congenital disorder which makes them want to kill people; in fact, none of them has ever been so diagnosed.

In recent days, the Associated Press article from nearly a decade ago has been resurrected in several places around the internet as an “explanation” for the Hatfield and McCoy feud.

Readers interested in real science, as opposed to feud lies, should consult the National Institutes of Health or the VHL Alliance for real scientific information. They are much better sources than the Associated Press, which, after all, is in the business of selling newspapers.

Those who take the time to consult these real sources will see that there is not one word about the disease causing victims to stab or shoot their neighbors—or anyone else.  http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/von-hippel-lindau-syndrome

In the real world, VHL is not a condition that causes people to be crotchety, mistreat their daughters or stab people on Election Day. It is a horrible disease, which, on average, kills victims before age fifty. With the state of medical science during the feud era, I am sure that victims of the terrible malady would have normally died much earlier than age fifty. The most common tumor is in the brain (47%) with kidney cancer second. Pheochromocytomas—the ones King is talking about which affect the adrenals—appear in less than fifteen percent of the patients.

The national Institutes of Health says of pheochromocytomas:  “Pheochromocytomas are usually noncancerous. They may cause no symptoms, but in some cases they are associated with headaches, panic attacks, excess sweating, or dangerously high blood pressure that may not respond to medication. Pheochromocytomas are particularly dangerous if they develop during pregnancy.”[iii] That is ALL they say about the adrenal growths.  Does anyone doubt that if this condition was likely to cause someone to kill a neighbor next Election Day, the government would have warned us about it?

The VHL Alliance has, on the front page of its website: “VHL or von Hippel-Lindau is a genetic form of cancer. VHL patients battle a series of tumors throughout their lives. The VHL gene is involved in many other forms of cancer. Finding a cure for VHL will play a vital role in curing cancer!”   http://www.vhl.org/

In King’s description, the symptoms enumerated by the National Institutes of Health, are just afterthoughts, which he mentions only after telling us that it causes sufferers to stab folks at elections.

If Ran’l had the rare disease, he was indeed a lucky man. Whereas the average victim dies before age fifty, Ol’ Ran’l lived to eighty-nine, and might have made a hundred had he not caught his shirt-tail on fire while cooking over an open fire.

How low will the feud liars stoop? Well, their deliberate falsification of the nature of this horrible form of cancer is one indicator. I, personally, believe that there is no limit to their mendacity.

Postscript:  It is unfortunate that the Vanderbilt Magazine picked up the story, in its fall, 2007 issue, thereby giving it the gravitas of the Vanderbilt name. The story first appeared in the Associated Press several months earlier: MARILYNN MARCHIONE, Associated Press | April 6, 2007 http://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/Hatfield-McCoy-feud-fueled-by-genetic-disorder-1838496.php

[i] King, 140

[ii] King, 374, n2.

[iii] http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/von-hippel-lindau-syndrome

 

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The Scandal of the Day—It Was a Ten Dollar Pig!

One of the biggest shocks of my young manhood came the first week I was in graduate school at Cornell. A fellow student, who hailed from Queens in New York City, asked me: “What kind of people kill a hundred of each other over a pig?”

He compounded my dismay by producing the New York Times report on the death of Cap Hatfield in August, 1930, which said that the feud lasted forty-eight years and cost more than one hundred lives. Of course the report said it all started over a pig.

This essay, in its entirety, can be read in my book, “Lies, Damned Lies, and Feud Tales.”  https://www.amazon.com/dp/1977716814/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511238586&sr=1-1&keywords=Lies%2C+Damned+Lies%2C+and+Feud+Tales