by Lisa Alther
Of the two families, Coleman A. Hatfield wrote: “In later years, Hatfields have been known to visit the family graveyard overlooking the old home place of the McCoys and to kneel upon the earth and shed tears for their one-time enemies who lost their lives in that terrible family conflict. . . . The shock of the death of Allifair [sic] was lamented by the Hatfields, as well as the grief-stricken McCoy relatives. There was no intention by either side to wage war against women and children.”72 Such an assessment would have come as news to Sarah McCoy, whose bones Jim Vance’s rifle butt had crushed; to Mary Daniels and her mother-in-law, beaten unconscious with a cow’s tail by Cap Hatfield and Tom Wallace; to the ghost of Alifair McCoy, murdered in cold blood by Cap Hatfield or Cottontop Mounts when she limped outside to draw well water. Perhaps it was the later generations of Devil Anse Hatfield’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren, innocent heirs to the damage inflicted on these women, to whom Coleman A. Hatfield was referring in this passage. His own son said that Coleman A. regarded the feud as “a tragic misfortune for both families.”73
After the imprisonment of his supporters and the deaths of his brother Wall and his nephew Cottontop Mounts, Devil Anse Hatfield settled into a quiet life on his mountainside, his fort standing ready nearby in case bounty hunters tracked him to his lair. After Cottontop’s hanging, someone anonymously mailed Devil Anse a piece of the rope.74 Haunted by the story of the hanging of his great-grandfather Abner Vance by Virginia authorities, Devil Anse was determined not to let himself fall into the hands of Kentucky authorities. Those already convicted for the Pawpaw Murders and the New Year’s Night Massacre were among the feudists least guilty of the crimes charged against them. Devil Anse no doubt knew that he, the perceived mastermind, would hang, just as his great-grandfather had, just as his nephew had.
Devil Anse and Levicy Hatfield in their later years, standing in front of their house in Sarah Ann, West Virginia. Courtesy of West Virginia State Archives
Through timber sales and leases on some of his land to coal companies, Devil Anse Hatfield earned a comfortable living. He eventually replaced his log cabin with a large white frame house with a two-story front porch, a design more commonly found in nearby towns than in the countryside.75 As he had all his life, Devil Anse farmed and hunted, made moonshine, and raised hogs. He hunted bears until he was seventy-five, shooting three in one winter when he was sixty-five.76 He also kept bees, as had Eph-of-All, Valentine, and Big Eph before him.77 A neighbor told a reporter that Devil Anse was “universally regarded in this community in a favorable light.”78
Even after the feud had ended, when Devil Anse Hatfield went into town, he always carried a rifle across the pommel of his saddle or held it in his hand as he walked. He was said to be a superb rider and marksman. As his great-grandson recalls, this horse was named Fred. Courtesy of West Virginia State Archives
When Devil Anse went into Logan, he always carried a rifle across the pommel of his saddle or held it in his hand as he walked. When he talked with others, he stood with his back to a tree or a wall and scanned the surroundings with wary eyes. If he entered a room, he sat or stood with his back to a wall.79 The feud had left its mark on him, just as it had on so many others.
Two of Devil Anse Hatfield’s brothers, Wall and Ellison, had died from feud-related events. His younger twin brothers had always distanced themselves from his undertakings. Five of his sons—Johnse, Cap, Troy, Elias, and Willis—had been on the lam and in and out of prison for murders they had committed. Devil Anse must have suspected, in the dark of the night, that he hadn’t set a very good example for his brothers or his sons. Coleman C. mentions that his great-grandfather was quoted as saying that “he was sorry the troubles began.”80
The wisdom of old age is often a function of lacking the energy for the nefarious deeds of one’s youth. Sometimes, too, it’s hard to remember exactly whom one hated and why. A certain peace also comes from knowing that you have outlived your enemies, and Perry Cline and Frank Phillips had already died. In 1911, Devil Anse was seventy-two years old and still kicking.
Three weeks before his sons Elias and Troy were shot to death in their dispute with the Italian bootlegger, Devil Anse Hatfield was “saved” by his old friend and hunting partner Dyke Garrett.81 Tall, lean, and quick, Garrett was an expert fiddle player. Deaf in one ear, he had been made a chaplain during the Civil War. Forced to participate in the execution of deserters, he began to take his assignment seriously. After the war, while playing his fiddle at a square dance, a lightning bolt knocked the instrument from his hands. This electrifying experience triggered a religious conversion. He was baptized and went on to found a Church of Christ congregation in West Virginia.82
Devil Anse Hatfield’s extended family gathered on the banks of Island Creek to witness their patriarch’s immersion on September 23, 1911.83 Some claim that Devil Anse had a pistol in his pocket.84 If God had refused to accept Devil Anse into the fold, there’s no telling what might have happened to Him. But apparently all went well, and God prevailed over the Devil. Unfortunately, it came too late to benefit those who had had to endure the living hell of the feud years.
Following his baptism, Devil Anse Hatfield sent his son Cap’s attorney stepson, Joe Glenn, to Pikeville to offer the McCoys $10,000 to withdraw their indictments from 1882 and 1888 against the Hatfields. Jim McCoy, now a policeman, still a man of principle, refused the money but assured Joe Glenn that he and his family no longer sought revenge.85
Devil Anse Hatfield’s extended family gathered on the banks of Island Creek to witness their patriarch’s baptism by Reverend Dyke Garrett on September 23, 1911. Observers said that he had a pistol in his pocket. He stands in the front row on the right with his wife, Levicy, beside him. Reverend Garrett with a white beard is sitting on the left. The man sitting on the far right is Henry D. Hatfield, Devil Anse’s nephew, who became governor of West Virginia the following year. Courtesy of West Virginia State Archives
Devil Anse’s great-grandson Coleman C. Hatfield says, “The Hatfield family was devastated by the killing of Ellison and later came to regard the killing of the McCoy brothers with bitter shame.”86 He doesn’t specify which Hatfields experienced this tardy bitter shame, but it would probably be safe to assume that they included Devil Anse and Cap since they were the primary sources of information for his book.
In 1921, after several months of illness, Devil Anse had a stroke, losing the ability to move or speak.87 A week later he died in bed at his house on the mountainside from pneumonia. The New York Times announced it to a world that had become as fascinated with Devil Anse as they would soon be with Al Capone.
Around five hundred people attended the 1921 funeral of Devil Anse Hatfield, held in his large white frame house, with its distinctive two-story front porch, in Sarah Ann, West Virginia. Courtesy of West Virginia State Archives
Five hundred people, including Anse’s eleven surviving children, almost all of his forty grandchildren, and several great-grandchildren, made the trek to his home in Sarah Ann, West Virginia.88 They filed past his open casket of golden oak, “his beard, tinged with grey, spread on his chest like the plumage of a large bird.”89 A mountain choir sang ancient hymns and chants.
Devil Anse Hatfield lying in his golden oak casket, surrounded by mourners, in 1921, with his immediate family in the front row. Courtesy of West Virginia State Archives
It was said that Devil Anse Hatfield’s deathbed wish was for his sons Cap and Elliott to reconcile. It’s unclear why they were estranged, but the story goes that Cap offered his hand to Elliott, and Elliott took it. Both wept.90
Cap Hatfield informed Dyke Garrett that he had made his peace with God and wanted to be baptized. Garrett promised to baptize him later in the same stream in which he had baptized Devil Anse a decade earlier. After reaching this agreement with Garrett in front of his father’s coffin, Cap raised his
hands above his head and declared that he would fight no more, and that if anyone wanted to take his life for his past deeds, he would not resist.91 He didn’t, however, offer to go to Kentucky to face trial.
The day was cold, and rain alternated with snow. Levicy Hatfield, now seventy-five years old, bereaved, and unable to manage the walk to the graveyard, said farewell at home to her husband of over sixty years. The mourners walked to the cemetery along with the casket bearers. The gravesite sat just below a mountain crest overlooking the Guyandotte Valley on one side and the Tug Fork Valley on the other.92 An umbrella was held over Devil Anse in the open coffin as the onlookers crowded around93 and listened to prayers led by a former Logan Wildcat.94 Then the casket was lowered into a steel vault and buried.
A few years after his death, Devil Anse Hatfield’s descendants commissioned a life-size monument, carved of Carrara marble, to top his grave. It lists the names of the feud leader, his wife, and their 13 children. It is on the National Register of Historic Places. His widow, Levicy, is standing in the center. Courtesy of West Virginia State Archives
A few years later, Devil Anse’s descendants commissioned a life-size standing monument of him, carved of Carrara marble at a cost of $3,000 (equivalent to $36,000 today), to top his grave. The statue, based on photographs, portrays Devil Anse in a frock coat and riding leggings. Mules hauled it up the mountainside to the graveyard. Devil Anse was a phenomenon in death, just as he had been in life.
Listing his name along with those of Levicy and their children, the monument rises some thirteen feet above the feud leader’s grave. At its base lie the more humble graves of some who emulated him and served him so loyally during his lifetime—his sons Johnse, Bob, Elliott, Elias, Troy, Joe, Willis, and Tennis, and his nephew-in-law French Ellis.95
Cap Hatfield’s remains, you will note, are not there. Some maintain that Devil Anse left instructions prohibiting his second son and most loyal deputy from being buried in the family plot, rejecting him in death just as Devil Anse’s father, Big Eph, had rejected Devil Anse by leaving him no land in his will. But Cap’s grandson states the more likely case that Cap didn’t want to be buried alongside the man whose demands had dominated his youth and helped damage his later reputation.96 He was determined to separate himself from his father in death, as he had not been able to in life. Yet Cap’s younger brother Willis maintained that “the whole Hatfield family would have been killed if Cap had not been present to protect them and warn them of dangers.”97
Levicy died in 1929, also of pneumonia, and joined her husband in the shadow of his towering marble effigy.98 She had lived her life in his shadow, and her situation was no different in death.
******** It still exists and has been turned into a very good Italian restaurant named Chirico’s.
******** I haven’t been able to locate a copy of this photo.
******** It’s hard for an outsider to understand how Ranel McCoy’s being a yenta could have been an acceptable excuse for the death of five of his children, but perhaps other familial grudges were at work behind that opinion.
******** Some sixty years later, John D. “Jay” Rockefeller IV, John D. Rockefeller’s great-grandson, settled in West Virginia, a state whose natural resources had contributed to making his great-grandfather the richest American ever (“Richest Americans in History,” Forbes, August 24, 1998, www.forbes.com/asap/1998/0824/032.html). After serving West Virginians impoverished by rapacious multinational corporations as a VISTA volunteer, Jay Rockefeller was elected governor for two terms. He has served as US senator in West Virginia since 1984.
12
OTHER FEUDS
The Hatfield-McCoy feud took place alongside many others in the southern Appalachians, and especially in southeastern Kentucky, during the decades following the Civil War. The incidents that sparked them and the episodes that followed are almost incomprehensible. Newspaper accounts are just as inflammatory and as inaccurate as were those for the Hatfield-McCoy feud, and the oral histories are just as contradictory. But it’s worth looking at a handful of them to see if a general pattern emerges to explain this epidemic of feuding during those years.1
The Baker-White Feud
Early in the nineteenth century, while cattle wars were raging between settlements on the north and south forks of the Kentucky River in Clay County, the Garrard and White families drilled wells into abundant salt deposits in the area. Both families shipped salt throughout the Southeast, making fortunes that they used to build grand houses and send their children away to fancy schools. They emerged as fierce competitors, each lowering prices to outsell the other.
But their real troubles with one another began in 1844 when Susan, a White daughter, married Abner Baker Jr., son of the well-respected court clerk in the county seat of Manchester. Abner Jr. tried his hand at several professions without success and then moved back home, where he was said to be a poor loser at cards. The Whites didn’t approve of this volatility, and they were right to worry.
After the wedding, Abner Baker began accusing Susan White of conducting affairs with every man in sight, including the household servants and even her own father. Eventually, Abner shot and killed his sister’s husband, Daniel Bates, because he suspected Bates of having cuckolded him.
General Garrard, a friend of Baker’s family, arranged a competency hearing at which Abner was declared insane. But Daniel Bates’s family, aided by the Whites, refused to accept this ruling and had Baker indicted for the murder of Bates.
At his trial, Baker’s lawyers brought in experts who testified that he suffered from monomania concerning his wife Susan’s supposed faithlessness. The jury, unconvinced, found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to hang. On the day of the hanging, Baker struggled with his captors as they led him up the steps. When the noose was placed around his neck, he cried out, helpfully, “Go ahead! Let a whore’s work be done!”2
The Bakers railed at the Whites over this execution of someone so obviously crazy. The Whites railed at the Bakers for trying to prevent justice against Abner for ruining Susan’s reputation. They also fumed at their old salt-rival, General Garrard, for siding with the Bakers.
The hanging of another Baker soon added tinder to the smoldering coals of resentment between the two factions. William Baker, a cousin of Abner Baker Sr., was charged with killing a shoemaker, possibly because the shoemaker had propositioned his wife. The killer slung the shoemaker’s corpse across an ox and took it to the woods for a clandestine burial. William’s wife was cleared of suspicion, but William, despite the Garrards’ help, was found guilty and hanged. Five years later, William’s widow confessed on her deathbed to the shoemaker’s murder.3
The shoemaker had belonged to the large Howard family of Clay County, so now the Howards joined the Whites against the Bakers and the Garrards.
In August 1897, a Howard supporter who was a deputy sheriff met three Bakers on a road outside of town. Suspecting they were headed into Manchester to disrupt a meeting of the White-Howard-Bates alliance, the deputy sheriff demanded to know where they were going. When the Bakers refused to say, someone started shooting. All joined in until their guns were empty. Miraculously, no one was killed, but Anse Baker was wounded, and his horse was killed.
That night the Howard-allied deputy sheriff’s house burned down. Anse and Bad Tom Baker were charged with arson, and a Garrard bailed them out. On the day of their trial, a gang of Bakers converged on the courthouse to witness the proceedings. The two men were acquitted, which understandably distressed the Whites and Howards in attendance. The sheriff, a White, argued with a Baker and then pistol-whipped him. As blood streamed down the Baker’s face, several Whites emerged from the offices they all occupied as county officials to engage in a brawl with the Bakers. Eventually the Bakers fled the courthouse.
A month later, Bad Tom Baker and his brother were riding o
n a path alongside a creek when they encountered an itinerant peddler. Drunk, they harassed him, shooting at his feet to make him dance. When he objected, they shot him dead and threw his body into the creek. “Let the turtles have him,” Bad Tom Baker said.4
The Howards and Bakers both owned timberland on Crane Creek. A month after the peddler’s murder, Bad Tom and several other Bakers were felling trees with which to construct a raft to float downriver to a sawmill. Bal Howard, patriarch of the Howard family, along with several kinsmen, was doing the same on the opposite side of the creek. Bal Howard and Bad Tom Baker got into a quarrel over a debt. Bad Tom threw a tool at Bal, and Bal swung a peavey at him. Then Bad Tom whacked Bal with his pistol, and Bal’s son shot Bad Tom, the bullet grazing his flesh. The others jumped in to stop the fight—for the time being.
Bad Tom Baker was in his yard the next day when a neighbor stopped by to warn him that Howards were waiting to ambush him if he went to his woodlot. He stayed home, but as he sat on his porch, a bullet zinged past him and lodged in his door frame.
