Category: Real Hatfield-McCoy History

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Dean King Hokum Hatfield-McCoy Feud Hokum Real Hatfield-McCoy History

Fake News is Older than Feuding

Fake news is as old as the news business. Mark Twain is widely quoted as saying: “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.”

So, how does a world-class historian end up writing a book full of fake news? The answer is simply that he had bad sources. John Spears traveled from New York to Pikeville, Kentucky, obviously determined to get the facts straight from the horse’s mouth. Spears names his sources as Randolph McCoy, his wife, Sarah and his son Jim. He also refers to “A lawyer familiar with the case,” which was certainly Perry Cline. At the time Spears was talking to them in Pikeville, Randolph and Jim McCoy were under indictment in Logan County, West Virginia for the murders of James Vance and William Dempsey. The eldest son of Perry Cline was also charged in those murders. Is it any wonder that persons who were charged with murder in the ‘feud’, or had children facing those charges would give a slanted version of events? Is anyone surprised that Jim Vance, recently murdered by the men who were talking to Spears, is the chief villain of the story?

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 Hokum Real Hatfield-McCoy History

“Crazy Jim” Vance: Part 2

Some feud story writers try to justify the murder of Jim Vance on the basis that his killers knew that he had led the New Year’s raid, and were therefore simply unable to restrain themselves when they came upon the man responsible for burning the McCoy home and killing two innocent people. Dean King lays that allegation to rest when he says of the Phillips gang: “None of them had any idea that Jim Vance was even involved in the house burning (let alone that he led it).”[i]

When a writer who has called the man “Crazy Jim” for one hundred sixty-five pages makes such a startling admission, a reader should pay attention.

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

 

 

 

[i] Governor Simon B. Buckner Papers, Folder 4, February 6, 1888.

[ii] Charles Gillespie was quoted in newspapers as saying that Mounts clubbed Sally, while Mounts’ confession says that Johnse Hatfield clubbed Sally. Sally, in her testimony, did not say who bludgeoned her, but Mr. King says that it was his fictional “Crazy Jim.”

[iii] King Dean, The Feud, 177-78.

[iv] New York Sun, October 21, 1888, p.8.

[v] King, Dean, 73-4.

[vi] Hugh Toney, Floyd Hatfield, J.R. Browning and P.H. Dingess all signed a bond for $2,500 guaranteeing Vance’s good conduct in office. That is equal to $150,000 in gold today. Logan County Court Orders, 1883, p. 394.

 

[i] King, 202.

[ii] Governor Simon B. Buckner Papers, Folder 3, January 13, 1888.

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Hatfield-McCoy Feud Hokum Real Hatfield-McCoy History Uncategorized

More Feud Markers for West Virginia

Until recently, West Virginia had no markers for feud events on the West Virginia side of the Tug River. Bill Richardson has started to rectify that deficiency by placing markers at sites where “feud events” occurred, or where feud characters lived.

Bill Richardson is a student of history, and it shows in the markers he has placed. Richardson’s markers adhere closely to actual historical fact, and, as a result, might not be as effective in drawing tourists as are the ones in Kentucky.  The super-sized feud story evident in the Kentucky markers, based largely on the feud fable as it is presented in the feud books, is much more titillating than are the historical markers being erected in West Virginia.

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

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Dean King Hokum Hatfield-McCoy Feud Hokum Real Hatfield-McCoy History Uncategorized

Crazy Jim Vance: Did They Really Call Him “Crazy?”

Jim Vance is “a raccoon with rabies, a psychopath, a misogynist, and throw in a pinch of Bruce Dern. That’s the recipe.”—Tom Berenger

Otis Rice, a full professor and the West Virginia Historian Laureate, wrote of Jim Vance: “The tall, heavy-set, dark-bearded Vance, himself a later casualty in the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys, had a reputation, even among his rough associates, for ruthlessness and vindictiveness.” The “historian Laureate” gives NO supporting documentation for his wildly inaccurate description of Jim Vance, and he had good reasons not to.  How could Rice present Vance as a ruthless and vindictive criminal when the court records show him holding the offices of constable and justice of the peace in West Virginia and deputy sheriff in Kentucky, with not a single criminal charge–not even a misdemeanor–against him in his entire long life?

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

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Real Hatfield-McCoy History Uncategorized

Book Release

Just a quick update…

The book will be released on November 29, 2013.  There will be links on the Home Page to purchase your copy.  Copies signed by the author will also be available, those links will be on the Home Page as well.

Stay tuned for more information!

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Real Hatfield-McCoy History

The Men Who Made Devil Anse Famous

Most Americans are convinced that Devil Anse Hatfield is world famous simply because he was a prolific killer of men. In fact, Devil Anse became famous because there were other men who killed large numbers of men—far more than Anse Hatfield was ever accused of killing—in Kentucky at the same time Devil Anse was active in Tug Valley.

Devil John Wright (photo at left) was said by the biographers of John C. C. Mayo to have killed twenty-eight men and fathered twenty-seven children.[i]  Wright’s son, in a biography he wrote of his father, said that Wright only killed sixteen men, but that he fathered thirty-five children.[ii]

Devil John Wright was a nephew of Martin Van Buren “Baby” Bates. Baby, from Letcher County, Ky., was 7’2″ tall and weighed over 400 pounds. He was a Captain in the Confederate Army, and was said to have been “fierce in battle.” He was captured once, but escaped. I’ve always wondered how he got out of a POW camp without being seen. Baby was eventually discharged early because he Confederate Army tired of replacing the horses he “broke down” with his great weight. After the war, Baby joined the circus, where he met a demure Swedish lass three inches taller than he was. They married and lived heavily ever after. They are still listed in Guinness as the tallest married couple ever.

BabyBatesThis 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

 

 [i] Turner, Carolyn and Traum, Carolyn, John C. C. Mayo, Cumberland Capitalist, 44.

[ii] Wright, William T., Devil John Wright of the Cumberlands, 275.

[iii] Wright’s nephew, Lieurenant Martin van Buren “Baby” Bates, was in the same circus at the same time, as a seven-foot-two inch giant.  “Baby” married a Canadian lass who joined the circus as a giantess, and the couple is still in Guinness as the tallest married couple in history. Anna was seven feet five inches tall.  http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-10000/tallest-married-couple/

[iv] King, Dean, The Feud, 120.

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Real Hatfield-McCoy History

A Community Divided–By a River

If that 1849 petition, which was signed by many of the Kentucky feud characters, had been honored by Kentucky, there would have been no “Hatfield and McCoy feud.”

If the three McCoys who killed Ellison Hatfield on Election Day, 1882 had faced a trial in the Valley, with Valley citizens on the jury, Devil Anse and all the rest of the Hatfields would have almost surely accepted the outcome.  After all, Devil Anse was party to over two dozen court cases, some of them criminal indictments, and he accepted the rulings of the courts in every instance.

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