The “Paw-paw tree incident” was not part of an ongoing feud, as the feud books claim. There had been no violence between the two families before August 7, 1882. Jim McCoy, under oath in Johnse Hatfield’s trial, testified that the trouble began “at the 1882 election.” The Paw-paw incident was a classic lynching, of which there were … Continue reading In Hatfield Country–Blackberry Creek in the 1880s