Tag: Floyd Hatfield

Categories
Dean King Hokum Hatfield & McCoy Hokum in Books Uncategorized

Where’s All the Dead Hatfields?

Uncle Ransom Hatfield lived near the lower end of my paper route back in 1952-55.  He lived almost his entire life in the home place of his father, Preacher Anse Hatfield, which was where the infamous “hog trial” took place in 1878, and where Ellison Hatfield was killed on Election Day, 1882.

Uncle Ransom was interviewed by almost all the writers who wrote before he died in 1956. He detested all the books, which he said were “mostly bull-shit.” 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

Categories
Dean King Hokum Hatfield & McCoy Hokum in Books

Let’s Talk About the “Hog Trial”

Let’s talk about the infamous “hog trial,” which is said to have been conducted in the front parlor of the  house seen here.  I have been in that room many times, and talked at great length with the man seen in the photo, Uncle Ransom Hatfield, who lived there all his life. He was the son of Preacher Anderson Hatfield, who was my great-great-grandfather, on both sides. I delivered the Williamson Daily news to Uncle Ransom from 1952-55, and talked with him at least once a week about “the feud.”

The first question is: Was there a hog trial, or is it just another “feud fable?”

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

Categories
Dean King Hokum

Have We Edited Dean King’s Book?

 

We don’t have as big a megaphone as does the “feud industry,” but we a ARE making progress!  Dean King has this photo of my great uncle, Constable Floyd Hatfield on page 53 of his book, The Feud.  King captions the photo “Hog Floyd Hatfield.”

The  West Virginia Culture website had the photo, properly captioned, on it website.  After King’s book came out, someone at the Culture and History Department obviously read it and changed the caption to “Hog Floyd” Hatfield, just as it is in King’s book.

Jack Hatfield, grandson of my great-great-Uncle, Constable Floyd Hatfield, got in touch and gave them the facts. That photo is now again correctly captioned  http://www.wvculture.org/history/hatfield/hfindex.html

Will King persist in calling Constable Floyd Hatfield “Hog Floyd” when his paperback is issued?  Will the paperback continue to use the bogus photos of “Randall McCoy” (p. 22), Asa Harmon McCoy (p. 37), and the three unknown corpses as the sons of Ran’l McCoy (p. 120)?

Many serious feud scholars are wondering how much of the spurious “data” will be excised for the paperback. I don’t expect many changes, because to “clean it up” would require a complete re-write, which would not even resemble the first edition.

If you support the effort to refute the yarn-spinners and bring real historical study to the subject of the Tug Valley in the late nineteenth century, then please “Like” us on Facebook.