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Between the August 1882 Election Day murder of Ellison Hatfield and the lynching of the three McCoys two days later, and the December 1887 invasions of Logan County by the Pike gang under Frank Phillips, “The Hatfields occasionally rode to Pikeville, but they traveled in companies adequate for their protection and were heavily armed.” So said Otis Rice in his 1982 book on the Hatfields and McCoys. (p. 30)

Testifying under oath in Johnse Hatfield’s 1899 trial, Jim McCoy said that during those years, “We tried to get them arrested, but we never had ANY trouble.”

Jim McCoy, who had the strongest possible motive for making the “feud” as big and bloody as possible in order to convict Johnse, said that there was NO trouble between the Hatfields and McCoys from 1882-1887. Otis Rice and other feud writers, with a motive of making the feud as big and bloody as possible in order to sell books, have a raging feud ongoing during that time.

In March of 1886, when Professor Rice tells us that neither family would venture into the state where their antagonists lived, Jeff McCoy, son of Asa Harmon McCoy, along with his brother-in-law, Andrew Wolford,  knifed a farmer named Fred Wolford to death on Peter Creek, in Pike County Kentucky. Dean King, whose stated goal was to correct the historical record, renders it differently. King says: “On a hot summer night, at a dance in Pike County, a mail carrier named Fred Wolford called Jeff McCoy a liar…Jeff pulled out a pistol and shot him dead.” Fred Wolford is a mail carrier in King’s yarn, but he was a farmer in the Census.

King has him shot to death on a hot summer night, but he was actually knifed on a cool day in March.

King says the killing was a result of an argument at a dance, when it really was a case of intra-family violence. Jeff McCoy was married to Sarah Wolford, a niece of Fred Wolford. Jeff and his brother-in-law, Andrew Wolford,  killed Fred wolford in a family argument. Both were indicted for the crime on September 9, 1886.

Jeff stole a horse and went on the lam. To the eternal chagrin of feud yarn spinners, Jeff sought refuge in the West Virginia home of his brother-in-law, Johnse Hatfield. Here’s the court record showing Jeff absolved of both the horse theft and the murder, due to his death.

Jeff McCoy was not the only man who defied Otis Rice by entering enemy territory without a large armed gang to protect him. That same year, Johnse Hatfield was charged with buying votes at the election on Peter Creek. Yes! Johnse crossed the river all by his lonesome, and proceeded to buy votes for the Democrats on solidly Republican Peter Creek—IN Kentucky! To top it off, Johnse’s partner in the crime of subverting democracy on Peter Creek was none other than the son and namesake of Asa Harmon McCoy!

At a time when the feud tales say that Johnse could not go into Pike County without an armed cohort, he is having a high time, buying votes in a Kentucky election. At a time when the two families are supposed to be in the middle of a vicious blood feud, Jeff McCoy seeks refuge in the West Virginia home of a Hatfield, and A.H. McCoy, Jr. (Bud) joins with Johnse Hatfield in his vote-buying.

When you spend as much time in the records as I have spent, you know that the real story is actually more interesting than are the fabricated yarns of the feud story writers.

On August 7, 1882, Ellison Hatfield was killed by three sons of Randolph McCoy. Both Randolph McCoy and his eldest son, Jim, testified that the troubles between them and the family of Anderson Hatfield began on that day. The same day marked the end of a much older ‘feud’ between the Hatfields and the Staffords.

From the 1850’s until 1882, every Justice of the Peace on Blackberry Creek was a Hatfield. In 1882, more than 90% of all the land on Blackberry Creek and its tributaries was owned by someone who was either named Hatfield, or who was married to a Hatfield. The Staffords, a wealthy and influential family, lived on both sides of Tug River river, above and below the mouth of Blackberry.

Probably to solidify their base on the ‘backside’ of Pike County in preparation for future county-wide elections, the Hatfields chose to support Tom Stafford for one of the two JP positions in the 1882 election. He won. Ellison lost.

Tom’s election ended a generation of bad blood between the two families. Relations between the two families had broken down in 1858, when Flem Stafford, brother of Tom’s father, Compton Stafford, was sued for slander by my 3g grandfather, George Hatfield. (Case# 1673, from 1858.)

Grandpa George was the wealthiest man on Blackberry at the time.

The charge in George’s suit was that Flem Stafford had been telling folks all over the area that Grandpa George was carrying on an illicit love affair with his MARE! Flem was said to have even told folks that George had sired several foals by his equine lover. The suit was soon followed by another suit, this time with Flem suing George and several other Hatfields. (Case# 1889, from 1860.)

From the records of the two cases, we see a semi comical farce of a ‘feud’ that occurred between 1855 and 1860.

About 1857, Flem Stafford took some timber from a tract on Blackberry Creek that was owned by George Hatfield. The plat of the 100 acre tract is in the case record. The dispute soon spawned the claim by Flem that Grandpa George was a horse lover to the max.

A witness testified that he saw the 55-year-old George and the much younger Flem meet on the road in June, 1860, at which time Flem, with a gun in his hand, cursed George as “A yellow-hided devil,” and told George that if he messed with him, he would “blow a ball through him.”

The witness swore that George turned his horse and started toward his home, with Flem armed and following him. He said that shortly after that, he saw George’s horse coming toward him, with an empty saddle. He led George’s horse toward George’s home, and found George in the road, obviously worse for wear. George told him that Flem knocked him off his horse and beat him.

In August, the Hatfields got even, giving Flem a group-thrashing he would never forget. Flem swore that he was attacked with fists, rocks, knives and guns. I am sure that the Hatfields had guns and knives, and I know that there were plenty of rocks in the road, but I doubt if Flem was subjected to more than a sound thrashing with fists. No one would survive an attack by seven Hatfields, using guns and knives.

In different parts of the record, Flem ascribes misdeeds to various combinations of the seven Hatfields named. He says that Madison and Anderson, two of George’s sons, came into his house and forced him to ride down the road with thm. Anderson is the one known as “Preacher Anse,” my 2g grandfather. Then Flem claims he was set upon by a full squad of Hatfields, including Ransom, James, Madison, Basil and Anderson, sons of George, along with two cousins who came across the river from Logan County, Virginia to assist the Blackberry Hatfields. We know who they were, because the court record lists them as Valentine (Wall) and Anderson, with the notation by each name: “Big Eph’s son.”

Flem topped it off by placing the old man, George, present as a witness to the proceedings.

This record is more proof of my long-stated contention that the moniker, “Devil Anse” originated with the New York reporter, T.C. Crawford, in 1888. The older Hatfields on Blackberry Creek during my boyhood, some of whom were well into middle age when Devil Anse died, always called him “Eph’s Anse.” If someone referred to “Anderson, or Anse Hatfield on Blackberry in 1860, folks knew they were referring to the son of George, who was later known as “Preacher Anse.” In local usage, as well as in court records, the man now known as “Devil Anse” was called “Eph’s Anse.”

Here is a summon from the case file, referring to both Valentine and Anderson as “Big Ephraim’s son.”

The case was still in court when the Civil War broke out, and its final settlement unknown, as there was no court held during the War.

My 2g Uncle, Ransom Hatfield, son of Preacher Anse told me back in the 1950’s that there was bad blood between the families until shortly before 1882, when the Hatfields decided to heal the breach by making Tom Stafford Justice of the Peace.

(An excerpt from my upcoming book, “Nancy and Bad Frank Phillips: A Hatfield-McCoy Feud Tragedy.)

My Grandfather, Perry Dotson went to work for Frank Phillips at age 16 in 1894. Grandma Dotson, who lived about forty feet from us until she died when I was twenty-one, told me several stories about Bad Frank. According to Granny, Bad Frank “Took a liking” to the young Perry Dotson, and put him to work as a helper to his blacksmith. After a couple of years helping with the repair of tools, making and attaching horseshoes, etc., Grandpa Perry became Frank’s blacksmith.

Bad Frank was always eager to be on the cutting edge. When the coal companies formed company baseball teams in the mid-1890’s, Bad Frank organized a team and entered the league. Grandpa Perry was a natural; he “had an arm.” Perry Dotson became the star pitcher and shortstop for that team, and continued to play baseball until the last year of his life, when he died of TB at age 43.
In the post- World War I era, men who played baseball for large coal companies did not have to work during the season. They practiced and played and drew their wages. In his last years, Grandpa Perry was the star of the team for the Pond Creek Colliery

My Aunt, Kentucky Dotson Farley, was the wife of long-time Superintendent of Pike County Schools, Claude H. Farley. When she was nearing ninety years of age, I asked her what she remembered about Grandpa Perry. She thought for a minute and then said: “What I remember most is that he played baseball all the time.”

Granny said that Perry Dotson always said that Frank Phillips was “The best man I ever worked for.” She said that Bad Frank, sober, was one of the nicest men she ever knew; but, Bad Frank when he was drunk, was crazy!

She said that Frank would work from daylight to dark six days a week, and then be drunk from Saturday evening until Monday morning. In his last few years, he sometimes went on week-long benders, leaving his crew to their own devices.

Both Ransom and Jeff Hatfield told me that Bad Frank frequented the five saloons at the mouth of Knox Creek, across the river from Gray, West Virginia. Before he passed out in his rented room above Skinner’s saloon, Bad Frank usually got into a ruckus with some other patron. He was such a disruptive drunk, that the saloon-keepers would probably have barred him, had he not usually brought six or eight of his men with him. An owner could afford to have a couple of Frank’s enemies get up and leave when Frank entered, knowing that Frank had at least twice as many free-spenders with him.

One night in June, 1898, Bad Frank left Skinner’s to relieve his bladder and did not return. Grandpa Perry and two other Phillips employees went to check on their boss, and found him passed out on the ground. They thought it was just the drink, until they noticed a large pool of blood by his left leg.

Frank had been shot in the thigh. Although the femoral artery had not been severed, several smaller vessels were destroyed, and the more than half hour that had passed since Frank was shot had allowed a lot of blood to spill. Grandpa took off his belt and fashioned a tourniquet, and hoisted Frank upon his saddle, riding behind Frank and holding him erect for almost ten miles to the home of William R. “Doc” Dotson. Even though he lacked any formal education in the field, Doc Dotson was beloved as a physician in the upper Tug Valley, including Peter Creek and Knox Creek in Kentucky and Thacker, Grapevine and Beech Creek in West Virginia. Doc Dotson was the personal and family physician of Devil Anse Hatfield and his brothers. He performed procedures from setting broken bones to removing appendixes, with results about equal to those of city doctors in those pre-antibiotic years.

In 1898, after four decades of service to the community, the Kentucky College of Physicians and Surgeons, voted Doc Dotson into membership.

 

Doctor Bill amputated Frank’s  leg in an effort to save him from gangrene. This is the amputation kit used by Doc Dotson to amputate the leg of Bad Frank Phillips. Photo from Dr. Garrett Dotson. Frank’s leg is buried in a separate grave, near his body.

When the operation proved unsuccessful, Bad Frank wrote his will. The will, dated five days before Frank died is in Will Book B, page 271. (Exhibit 21)

Knowing that his death was imminent, Frank wrote a detailed statement of his wishes pertaining to the extensive properties he held. He took care of all his children, by both his second and third wives, except for one, who is mentioned as “the son of Eva McCoy.” Nancy was well taken care of in the will.

Then Nancy made a mistake. Named as Executor, she should have gone to a neighboring county to get a lawyer. Unfortunately, she retained A.J. Auxier, one of the Pikeville ruling circle, and never saw a penny until she died in 1902.  Her lawyers sold the property, without even announcing the sale to the public, and the lawyers bought it themselves!

According to the Court of Appeals, they paid less than a quarter of the actual value of the property. Then they split it with the estimable James York, the son in law of the late Colonel John Dils. Lawyers’ fees and administrative costs ate up the remainder, and Nancy never got a dime.

Nancy was never one to give up. Ill from advanced tuberculosis, she resorted to bootlegging to support her brood of seven children and step-children.

With the demise of Nancy McCoy Hatfield Phillips, the last eyewitness who could place most of the Phillips gang—including Ran’l McCoy and John S. Cline—at the scene of the murder of Deputy Dempsey was gone. The cabal could finally breathe easily.

I wrote four books for one simple reason: I got tired of seeing pure fiction and lies published about my McCoy and Hatfield ancestors. It was so bad that I can state, without equivocation, that anyone who has  read only the feud tales knows very little about most of our history.

You can prove it to yourself by this little exercise: Find someone who had not read my books or my FB posts. List for them the four main characters on each side of the feud story which would be:

Hatfield side: Devil Anse Hatfield, his sons, Johnse and Cap, and Jim Vance. McCoy side; Ran’l and Jim McCoy and Perry Cline and Frank Phillips.
Then ask them two questions: 1) Name the characters on both sides who were  NEVER charged with a crime. 2) Name the ones who killed someone between the end of the Civil War in 1965 and the Election of 1882.

The odds of you getting the correct answer are somewhat less than your odds of taking an iPhone photo of a Unicorn on Main Street. NONE of the hundreds of people that I addressed in groups after my first book ever answered either question correctly. In fact, the correct answers were so shocking that I believe some left the room thinking I told them wrong. But the proof is in the records, and I use the records to prove it.

Jim Vance, whom Dean King wrote was “More fearsome than Devil Anse,” lived almost sixty years and was never charged with a single crime. Jim Vance was elected constable and appointed justice of the peace in Logan County, WV, and made Chief Deputy Sheriff in Pike County, KY, by none other than Sheriff Perry Cline.

Jim Vance, presented as impoverished and living in a one room shack by Dean King, was a leading businessman in Tug Valley. He paid almost as much for a farm in Wayne County in 1886 as Devil Anse got for five thousand acres in 1888. Three months after Jim Vance died, his son and son-in-law sold five thousand acres of land that they had received from the Old Man. Never charged with even a misdemeanor in his long life, he is now known as “Crazy Jim Vance,” burner of homes and killer of children.

The only one of the eight ‘feudists’ who killed a man between 1865 and 1882 was Perry Cline. He is presented in the feud yarns as a sly, slinking lawyer who was afraid of Devil Anse. In fact, the opposite is more likely true. The same year of his trial and acquittal for manslaughter, 1878, saw him plead guilty to assault and battery.

Perry Cline was a man’s man, elected High Sheriff of Pike County at the age of twenty-five, less than four years after he moved into the county. The two-fisted, gun-slinging Sheriff, the King of Peter Creek when he was barely old enough to vote, does not faintly resemble the sneaky shyster in the feud books and in Kevin Costner’s movie.

Some of the feud books have the fact that that Perry Cline guarded the nine men charged for the 1882 lynching of the three McCoys when they were taken to their habeas corpus trial in Louisville. But none of them say why. When I read my first feud book—by V. Jones—in 1952, I asked Uncle Ransom Hatfield, son of Preacher Anse, why a lawyer was picked to guard the ‘outlaws.’ His simple answer was: “Perry was the only man in Pikeville that had the nerve to do it.”
I knew over a dozen old people while growing up on Blackberry who knew both the men discussed here. What they told me about stood up as true after I had done over two thousand hours of research in the courthouses and libraries.

NOTE: Documents proving every claim I make here are reproduced in my books.

PRICY SCOTT

 

Yahoo News had a recent article about the death of the last living person who was born in the 19th century. That makes me feel really OLD!

I grew up on Blackberry Creek among dozens of people who were born in the 19th century A few were born before 1870.

Pricy Farley Scott was born in 1869. she lived until 1965. Her father, Aly Farley, was born in 1843. Two of Aly Farley’s children, Pricy and R.T. lived until I was a grown man. The Farleys lived three farms above Ran’l McCoy on Blackberry Fork.

This is the home of Roland T. Farley, which sat at the foot of Blackberry Mountain on the Pond Creek side. I had several Sunday dinners here back in the 1950’s. R.T. Farley was on the Pike County Board of Education when I attended Belfry High back in the 1950’s.

RT loved to sing, and he especially liked to lead groups in singing. His favorite, which I heard him lead dozens of times was “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder, I’ll Be There.”

When I was growing up in the 1940’s and ’50’s, Blackberry Mountain was called “Aly Mountain,” in honor of RT and Pricy’s father, Aly Farley.

This is the home of Aly Farley, shortly after the turn of the century. It sat just down the creek from the house seen above. Aly Farley, born in 1843, is seen leaning against a porch post. Aly was one of the witnesses against Johnse Hatfield in his 1899 trial for the murder of Alifair McCoy.

A few months after the home of her neighbors, the Ran’l McCoy family, was burned in January, 1888, Pricy Farley married Crittenden (Crit) Scott from Johns Creek. In 1902, they bought the old McCoy homeplace and lived there all their lives. Crit died about 1932, and Pricy about 1965.

Pricy was a young teen, selling baked goods at the 1882 election, when Ellison Hatfield was killed. Her best friends were the daughters of Ran’l McCoy.

Pricy saw her friend, Alifair McCoy, and her brother, Calvin, prepared for burial on the morning of January 2, 1888. Pricy’s father, Aly, and her brother, John B. were the first to go to the scene of the tragedy on January 2, 1888. The feud books say that the McCoys spent remainder of the fateful night outdoors in the cold. Of course anyone who knows anything about those people knows that the neighbors would never have allowed that. Ran’l McCoy swore in Johnse Hatfield’s 1899 trial that they spent the night in the home of the next door neighbor, John Scott.

in the 1950’s, my sister, Wanda, and her husband, Frank Hatfield, rented a small home from Pricy, which sat about a hundred yards behind Pricy’s house. My sisters place was about 15 feet from the McCoy well. There was some of the rotting wooden well superstructure still there in 1955, as well as remnants of both chimneys. The stone that sits atop the well now was added since then.

Pricy was still sharp as tack in her 80’s. After I read my first “Feud book,” in 1952, I had many talks with her about the 1880’s.

Pricy said that Alifair was shot just under the left breast, and the bullet exited at the point of her shoulder blade. She said Calvin was shot behind the left ear, with the bullet exiting at the right temple. She described both exit wounds as “Big as an orange.”

Pricy and Crit were living on Joe’s Creek branch of Johns Creek in 1890, when Ellison Mounts was hanged. They were actually in Pikeville on that day. Pricy said she had no desire to see a man hanged, but that Crit wanted to see it. She said that he was not allowed to, because it was restricted to a small crowd, chosen by the Sheriff. This grainy photo shows the Crit Scott home on Joe’s Creek.

The feud books say that 5,000 people attended that hanging, but that is a patent lie. Public hangings were outlawed in 1880, and the maximum number of witnesses was set—BY LAW—at fifty.

Here is a copy of the Governor’s order to the Pike Sheriff, wherein he specifically ORDERS the sheriff to comply with that law. The order says “In the presence of not exceeding fifty persons.” Anyone who has studied Kentucky history knows that no county sheriff would contermand and order from “The Old Warhorse,” General/Governor Simon Bolivar Buckner.

The feud industry has a marker at the University of Pikeville, saying that Mounts was hanged there, before a vast throng of thousands. A person who was in town that day told me that Mounts was hanged in Powderhouse Hollow, before a small gathering of less than fifty people. Here is Powderhouse Hollow, about a mile northeast of Pikeville.

 

The feud books also say that Mounts was the last man hanged in Pike County, but that, too, is a lie. Henry Hall was hanged by that same sheriff in 1892. I talked to Hall’s granddaughter, who also told me that the hanging took place in Powderhouse Hollow.

Henry Hall was hanged for killing his own brother in an argument over a card game. That seems like voluntary manslaughter at worst, but Henry was obviously out of favor with the folks in charge at the time, paying the ultimate price for a drunken fight over cards. Here’s Handsome Henry Hall.

Crit Scott bought a new Buick Roadster convertible in 1928. He died a few years later, and the old Buick sat in a shed near the creek on the upper end of the property until 1950, when my brother, Walker, bought it for $40. He had it towed across the mountain to our place on Blackberry, and, in about a month, had it running fine. A dozen of more of us boys from Columbia Bottom would tool up and down Blackberry in that old Buick, with the top down.

Here is Pricy’s daughter, Alice, with that wonderful 1928 Buick.

How old am I? Well, Aly Farley was born in 1843, and I was 25 years old when his daughter died. Whewwwww!!!

Much of the distorted view the public has of the Hatfields is a result of this photo. The photo was ‘staged’ by a photographer, for his own purposes.

Not many people know that in the 56 years that Anse Hatfield lived after the end of the Civil War, there is real evidence of him being involved in violence against another person ONE time only. That was when he lynched the three McCoys who had killed his brother, in 1882. Except for his proclivity to cook mash, he steered clear of the law for the remaining 39 years of his life.
At a time when the public thinks that Anse Hatfield was an outlaw on the run in the 1890’s, he was actually living the life of a businessman and farmer. Of course he always had a still in the hills. 

This clipping, from the Logan Banner of April 13, 1893, was sent to me a few years ago by Brandon Kirk, who is the ONLY member of academia who does REAL research on our history. It is a much more realistic representation of Anse Hagfield in the 1890’s than is the staged photograph that made him famous.

I would bet that an 1893 menu from the Oakland House in Logan would fetch a pretty penny on eBay! “The best food that the market affords!”

I believe that Anse went along with the reporters who interviewed him, and the photographers who photographed him for a very good reason: He lived for 39 years with three murder warrants on him in Kentucky, and there were bounty hunters galore who would have liked to collect those rewards. I think Anse went out of his way to let them think that he was the kind of man they didn’t want to fool with–which, of course he was!
I also find it hard to believe that none of those hungry bounty hunters ever gave it a try by going to Island Creek. I am convinced that there are some dry bones in the hills of Island Creek of bounty hunters who went looking for Anse Hatfield and found him! But we’ll never know for sure.

Anse Hatfield is generally known to have been illiterate, but I am not sure of that. I was told by several of the old people on Blackberry when I was young that a lot of the men in Anse’s time could actually read quite well and write a little, but they signed their names with an “X” for the purpose of giving them an “out” in court. They could always claim that they did not really know what they were signing.  Of course I can’t prove that, but I know that Anse was sly enough to run such a scam

There are two ways to know a historical figure: those who knew him personally, especially his relatives, knew him as only they can. OTOH, those who study the record know them in another way. I knew people who knew Anse, some of them nearly 50 years old when Anse died. There is not a lot of difference between the man who is in the records and the man they knew.
The man who is known ONLY from the feud tales is far different man, and he is NOT real!
There are a lot descendants who have knowledge that came to them from their parents and grandparents. The Anse Hatfield of the records is known only to a few, who have spent the long hours necessary to do that research. I know only three of that latter group: Brandon Kirk, Eric Simon and myself. There may be others, but I don’t know them.

I wrote in my first book that Devil Anse’s public reputation as a “Bad man” was largely earned for him by his sons, who killed at least 7 men after the “feud.”
Wall Hatfield, when he was in jail in Pikeville, is quoted by a reporter as saying: “My Brother Anse has some bad boys.” T.C. Crawford wrote that Elias told him the same thing. It is true, and I am working on a book about the post-feud exploits of the sons. Far more exciting than the feud tales!