Hatfield-McCoy feud

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The Hatfield clan in 1897.
The Hatfield clan in 1897.
A section of the floodwall along the Tug Fork in Matewan, West Virginia, constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, depicts the Hatfield-McCoy feud.
A section of the floodwall along the Tug Fork in Matewan, West Virginia, constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, depicts the Hatfield-McCoy feud.

The Hatfield-McCoy feud (1878–1891) is an account of American lore that has become a metaphor for bitterly feuding rival parties in general. It has been described as an Appalachian Capulet-Montague rivalry[1] involving two warring families of the West Virginia-Kentucky backcountry along the Tug Fork River, off the Big Sandy River.

Contents

[edit] Family origins

The Hatfields lived on the West Virginia side of the Tug Fork, and the McCoys lived on the Kentucky side. Both families were part of the first wave of pioneers to settle the Tug Valley. Both were involved in the manufacture and sale of moonshine. Both apparently were involved in pro-Confederate guerrilla activity during the American Civil War. The Hatfields were led by William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield (1839–1921). The McCoys were led by Randolph "Ole Ran’l" McCoy (1825–1914).

They had both acquired much land and respectability. The Hatfields were more affluent than the McCoys and were well-connected politically, but both families owned a good amount of property.

[edit] The Feud

[edit] Beginning

According to historian Altina L. Waller, "Most accounts of the Hatfield-McCoy feud began with the death of Asa Harmon McCoy (Randall McCoy's brother) on January 7, 1865." The uncle of Devil Anse, Jim Vance, and his "Wildcats" felt hatred toward Harmon McCoy because he had joined the Union army. Harmon had been discharged from the army early because of a broken leg. Several nights after he returned home, he was murdered in a cave nearby.

As legends go, the first recorded instance of violence in the feud occurred after an 1873 dispute about the ownership of a hog: Floyd Hatfield had it and Randolph McCoy said it was his.[2] But in truth, the dispute was over land or property lines and the ownership of that land. The pig was only in the fight because one family believed that since the pig was on their land, that meant it was theirs; the other side objected. The matter was taken to the local Justice of the Peace, and the McCoys lost because of the testimony of Bill Staton, a relative of both families. The individual presiding over the case was Anderson "Preacher Anse" Hatfield. In June 1880, Staton was killed by two McCoy brothers, Sam and Paris, who were later acquitted on the grounds of self-defense.

[edit] Escalation

The feud escalated after Roseanna McCoy began an affair with Johnse Hatfield (Devil Anse's son), leaving her family to live with the Hatfields in West Virginia. Roseanna eventually returned to the McCoys, but when the couple tried to resume their relationship, Johnse Hatfield was kidnapped by the McCoys, and was saved only when Roseanna made a desperate ride to alert Devil Anse Hatfield, who organized a rescue party.

Despite what was seen as a betrayal of her family on his behalf, Johnse thereafter abandoned the pregnant Roseanna, marrying instead her cousin Nancy McCoy in 1881.

The feud burst into full fury in 1882, when Ellison Hatfield, brother of "Devil Anse" Hatfield, was brutally murdered by three of Roseanna McCoy's brothers, Tolbert, Pharmer, and Bud, stabbed 26 times and finished off with a shot. The brothers were themselves murdered in turn as the vendetta escalated.They had been kidnapped after they had murdered Ellison. They were tied to Paw Paw bushes and shot many times each. Their bodies were described as "bullet-riddled".

Between 1880 and 1891, the feud claimed more than a dozen members of the two families, becoming headline news around the country and compelling the Governors of both Kentucky and West Virginia to call up the United States National Guard to restore order after the disappearance of dozens of bounty hunters sent to calm the bloodlust.

Eight Hatfields were kidnapped and brought to Kentucky to stand trial for the murder of a female member of the McCoy clan, Alifair. She had been shot after exiting a burning building that had been set aflame by a group of Hatfields. Because of issues of due process and illegal extradition, the Supreme Court of the United States became involved. Eventually, the eight men were tried in Kentucky, and all eight were found guilty. Seven received life imprisonment, and the eighth was executed in a public hanging (even though it was prohibited by law), probably as a warning to end the violence. Thousands of spectators attended the hanging in Pikeville, Kentucky. The families finally agreed to stop the fighting in 1891.

[edit] Literary impact

In the popular imagination, the Hatfield-McCoy feud became a curiosity, a proverb, and even a joke.

  • In 1980, the popular television game show Family Feud reunited descendants of the two families for a week of competition with the overall winning family (the one winning 3 out of 5 games) taking home a pig representative of the original creature at the center of the initial dispute. (Of course, the winning family each day played "Fast Money" under normal rules.)
  • The feud is referenced in a series of children's books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, starting with The Boys Start the War, about boys and girls pulling pranks on each other. The surname of the boys' family is Hatford, while the girls are named Maloy.
  • On June 14, 2003, descendants of the Hatfield and McCoy families signed a truce in Pikeville, though the conflict had ended a century earlier.
  • Ann Rinaldi's historical novel The Coffin Quilt for young adult readers, narrated by Fanny McCoy, the youngest of the fourteen McCoy children, is a fictionalized version of this conflict.
  • There was a real-time strategy game for the PC titled "Hatfields and McCoys" developed by Lupine Games and published by Valu-Soft based on the conflict, in which the player controls one of the two clans in a battle against the other.
  • One of the Pumpkinhead movies, Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud uses the Hatfield-McCoy feud as main basis for the movie. In the movie, a McCoy and a Hatfield fall in love, and when they are found out, the McCoy summons Pumpkinhead to kill the rest of the girl's family, killing much of his family in the process. Much of the movie was slightly modernized, with cars and modern weapons.
  • In the Disney Channel show House of Mouse, a sketch in one of the episodes involved a family feud between two families called the Coyfields and the McHats.
  • "This successful life we're living has got us feudin' like the Hatfields and McCoys..." These are part of the lyrics to "Luckenbach, Texas," recorded in 1976 by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.
  • Two Looney Tunes cartoons reference the Hatfield-McCoy feud. One, called "A Feud There Was," features a rivalry between hick families named Weaver and McCoy. The other, "Hillbilly Hare," features Bugs Bunny being pursued by two hick brothers who mistake him for a member of their rivals, the Coy family.
  • Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has a section which strongly parallels the Hatfield-McCoy feud. In chapter 18, the feud between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons is highlighted with a similar circumstance where a daughter of the Grangerford family runs away to join a boy in the Shepherdson family.
  • On the Flintstones cartoon, there was an episode of the "Flintstones vs. the Hatrocks" ... a parody of the Hatfields and McCoys

[edit] Tourism

Many tourists each year travel to parts of West Virginia and Kentucky to see the areas and historic relics which remain from the days of the feud. For example, Bo McCoy, a college student, organized a joint reunion of the Hatfield and McCoy clans in 1993, and, according to the About.com website:

As the McCuzz's plans evolved, Pike County Tourism, Pikeville College, and the City of Pikeville joined the McCoys in the development of the reunion. Word about the McCoy reunion in Pikeville, Ky quickly spread to the national level. Bo McCoy extended an invitation to the Hatfields on the McCoy reunion Web site, and when the Hatfields learned about it, they wanted to join. The West Virginia Division of Tourism joined forces with the Corridor G Tourism Project to provide some funding for a Hatfield event in WV to coincide with the McCoy event in Kentucky, and the reunion of the millennium was born![3]

Additionally, an entire recreation area, the 400-mile Hatfield-McCoy Trails system, has been created around the theme of the Hatfield-McCoy Feud.[4]

[edit] Possible genetic explanation

According to some recent speculation the feud may be due partly to a rare inherited disease that leads to "hair-trigger rage and violent outbursts"; known as Von Hippel-Lindau disease, it is prevalent among McCoy descendants. [5] The condition often produces tumors of the adrenal gland (pheochromocytomas), leading to excess adrenaline production.

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://imdb.com/title/tt0041824/
  2. ^ Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Beckley Post-Herald August 7, 1957
  3. ^ The Hatfield-McCoy reunion on About:genealogy
  4. ^ Hatfield-McCoy Regional Recreation Area on AmericanTrails.org
  5. ^ "Hatfield-McCoy feud blamed on ‘rage’ disease", MSNBC.com, 2007-04-05. Retrieved on April 5, 2007.

Descendants of the McCoy family have the disease which causes high blood pressure, racing heartbeat, severe headaches, and stress hormones to be released.

  • [1] Yahoo Article From Medical Viewpoint

[edit] Further reading

  • Feud: Hatfields, McCoys, and Social Change in Appalachia, 1860-1900, Altina L. Waller, University of N. Carolina Press, 1998 ISBN 0807842168

[edit] External links

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