In the years after I graduated from Belfry High School in 1958 and left Blackberry Creek, I read every book that had been published on the Hatfields and McCoys, and searched the records. All the books had many bloody and exciting events of which Ransom Hatfield and his brother, Jeff, sons of Preacher Anse, had no knowledge. I found NOTHING in the records which supported all the extraneous events in the feud tales.
For many years I wrestled with the question of whether it was possible that ALL those writers had made up stuff, or if the men who lived it were either not recalling correctly, or if they were dissembling. Then I got the microfilm of the trial of Johnse Hatfield for the murder of Alifair McCoy from the Kentucky Archives, and found the answer:
Jim McCoy, the eldest son of Ran’l McCoy, was the star witness for the prosecution against Johnse Hatfield. So important was Jim that the judge allowed him to testify first and then take a seat at the prosecutor’s table, helping frame the questions asked of the defense. Of course Jim McCoy had the strongest possible motive to make the “Feud” as big and bloody as possible.
On direct examination by his friend, the prosecutor, Jim McCoy’s testimony was as follows:
Q: “When did the trouble between your two families start?”
A: “It started at the August, 1882 Election.”
Jim McCoy, with the strongest possible motive to enlarge the tale, had nothing to say about the Hatfields killing his uncle, Asa Harmon McCoy, and nothing at all about a pig trial, the killing of Bill Staton, or a Romeo and Juliet affair involving his sister and the defendant. He stated very clearly: “It STARTED at the August, 1882 Election.”
Anyone can get this microfilm from the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives in Frankfort, for thirty dollars. Just ask them for “Kentucky Court of Appeals, Roll J00009 and J00010.”
The prosecutor then asked Jim McCoy: “From the events of August, 1882 until the crime of New Year’s, 1888, did anything happen between the two families?”
Jim McCoy, under oath, said: “We tried to get them arrested, but we NEVER had ANY trouble.”
There was no attempt to assassinate Ran’l McCoy, no “Ambush of the innocents,” and no whipping of Jim’s cousins with a cow’s tail. Jim McCoy swore exactly what Ransom Hatfield, Jeff Hatfield, my Granny, Mary Hatfield Dotson, Jeff Davis, Pricey Scott and a host of others who lived through the 1880’s told me.
The Hatfield and McCoy feud tale is a crock. It is exactly what Ransom Hatfield told me—bullshit!
Feud story writers always cite as references prior writers of feud stories. Although many claim to have done years of research, they rarely write anything that is directly from the actual record. No writer of a feud book—other than me– has EVER cited the transcript of the trial of Johnse Hatfield. As the ONLY verbatim transcript of the testimony of major characters in the real story, it is the most important feud evidence in the world, but feud writers have ignored it. Now you know why. It blows their yarns to smithereens, by the sworn testimony of the best possible witness, Jim McCoy, who swore that the trouble started at the 1882 Election, and that during the ensuing five years, “We never had ANY trouble.”