On a recent trip to the hills, I was asked by a descendant of one of the “feud” families who I thought was the hero and who I thought was the villain of “the feud.” I told him to define for me what he meant by “the feud” and who were the main players in it, and I would see if I could find a hero or a villain.
He said that the feud was between the Hatfields and the McCoys, and that it started when Asa Harmon McCoy was killed in 1865, and ended when Ellison Mounts was hanged in 1890. I told him how the New York Times described the feud, reporting the death of Cap Hatfield: “Whenever a McCoy head showed out of a window a Hatfield gun would bark; whenever a Hatfield gazed from his home at the surrounding hill country a McCoy gun would bark.” (The New York Times obviously knew the definition of the word, “feud,” and they gave the reader one in which 100 Hatfields and McCoys were slain).
I then asked him to tell me when, during the quarter century he ascribed to “the feud,” the conditions described by the Times existed in Tug Valley. Of course he couldn’t, so he resorted to the old canard:”You deny IT happened!”
I asked him what he thought I was denying, and he said you are denying that “the feud” happened. I said, “I deny that there was ever a situation prevailing in Tug Valley that fits either the dictionary’s definition or the New York Times description of a “feud,” but I certainly don’t deny the things that actually happened, which form the germ for the “feud story.” I don’t deny that Harmon McCoy was killed in 1865, according to the sworn statement of his widow, “by rebels.” I don’t deny that there was an argument about a hog–or hogs– in 1878. I do deny that Preacher Anse Hagtfield tried a case over it, because he wasn’t even the JP at the time. I deny that there was a 12 man jury, and at least that many more people in Preacher Anse’s front room, because Kentucky law restricts a Justice of the Peace jury to a maximum of SIX. I was in that room many times, and I know that it would never hold the number placed there in most of the feud stories.
“I don’t deny that Bill Staton was killed by Sam and Paris McCoy in 1880, but I believe that it was far more likely precipitated by Staton’s adulterous affair with a McCoy woman, as evidenced by many entries in the Pike county Circuit Court records, than by his purportedly swearing a lie about a pig.
“I don’t deny that Tolbert McCoy arrested Johnse Hatfield in 1880, and that Devil Anse “sprung” Johnse free, because the court record supports it. I don’t deny that the sons of Ran’l McCoy killed Ellison Hatfield on Election Day, 1882, and Devil Anse lynched the three McCoys two days later. I don’t deny that either Cap Hatfield or Tom Wallace killed Jeff McCoy in 1886. I don’t deny that Frank Phillips raided into West Virginia in December, 1887 and January, 1888, which was answered by a raid on the McCoy home that cost two young people their lives, and led to the murders of Jim Vance and Bill Dempsey by the Frank Phillips gang.
“What I do deny is that there was ever a time when the conditions described by the New York Times existed in Tug Valley. Of course that means that I deny all the stories of events for which no proof exists which are used to tie the actual happenings together in the “feud story.”
Then he swung what he evidently thought was a real “haymaker” at me, saying, “I bet you that Tolbert, Pharmer and Bud McCoy thought there was a feud going on when they were held in that schoolhouse for two days, then taken across the river and shot.”
I asked him why he thought Devil Anse did that, and he said, “To get even with them for killing his brother.”
I said, “So, it was revenge, then?” and he answered, “Yes.”
I then told him that the answer to my next question was very important, and I asked him: “Are you saying that Devil Anse killed the three because they killed his brother, and NOT because their name was McCoy?”
He began to squirm a little, and I pressed him with, “If those three had had the surname “Smith,” would Devil Anse had done the same thing?”
He said, “I’m sure he would have.”
I then said, “Well, you have just denied the existence of a “feud” between the Hatfields and McCoys on the bloodiest day of the entire quarter century. You have admitted that Devil Anse killed the three because they had killed his brother, and not because their name was “McCoy,” so how could their deaths be part of a “Hatfield and McCoy feud?” Did other McCoys fear to show their heads in a window, as the New York Times said? Or, were other McCoys totally unconcerned about their safety around Hatfields on that fateful day?”
He feigned ignorance, saying, simply, “I don’t know.”
I said, “Well, I’ll tell you enough to prove that the killings on August 7 and 9, 1882, were stand-alone incidents, having nothing to do with any blood feud between the Hatfields and McCoys. Acording to his own sworn testimony in the trial of Wall Hatfield, Jim McCoy, the eldest son of Ran’l McCoy, and the man Truda McCoy said was the actual leader of the family, spent the day of August 9, on Mate Creek, in West Virginia, just outside the schoolhouse where his three brothers were prisoners. Not only did Jim McCoy “show his head in a window,” he actually spent the entire day right in the middle of more than a dozen armed Hatfields, who were holding his three brothers prisoner. And he was not harmed at all! Then, he swore that when word came that Ellison had died, he left the school house where his brothers were being held. He did not flee to safety by crossing the river into Kentucky—going rather to the West Virginia home of his uncle, Asa McCoy, a short distance from the Mate Creek school, at the mouth of Sulphur Creek.
“Asa McCoy was the brother of Jim McCoy’s mother, Sally, and also a first cousin of Ran’l McCoy. Asa McCoy lived in West Virginia, with Hatfields all around him. In 1883, only months after the triple slaying across the river from his house, Asa McCoy bought 200 acres of land on Mate Creek, which bordered the land owned by Ellison Hatfield. In 1888, only months after the raid on the home of his sister and cousin, he combined his land with a bordering tract owned by Devil Anse Hatfield, and the partners sold it in July, 1889, to Cotiga Land Co.
“Obviously neither the eldest son of Randolph McCoy nor the brother of Sally McCoy thought that there was a Hatfield and McCoy feud ongoing on August 9, 1882, the bloodiest day of the decade.”
He looked at me with the queerest little grin on his face, as if he thought I should be be committed, and walked away. I have no doubt that he still believes that there was a blood feud between the Hatfields and McCoys underway on August 9, 1882. That Jim and Asa McCoy were unaware of it means nothing to him.
He is representative of millions of Americans, who will never let go of a good story, no matter what the historical facts are. I labor under no illusions of ever being able to disabuse anyone of their belief in legends and folklore. You can argue about facts, but you cannot argue against a “belief.” I shouldn’t waste so much time trying, but I have both Hatfield and McCoy blood, which makes me stubborn as hell.