By SHIRLEY DONNELLY

The Hatfield-McCoy feud of the 1880s and some time thereafter is one of the noted stories of folklore in America. Readers never seem to tire of the famous feud tales.

Let us first consider the events which led to the tragedy of that family-and-friends war between the Hatfields and the McCoys.

There were many causes - an accumulation of things - which finally touched off the feud, or private war, which it actually was, between the two determined families.

The first cause, I think, can be attributed to the very natures of those concerned. Both families were people of nerve because British blood pulsed in their veins. That blood bespoke stubborn resistance and unflinching determination.

THEN CAME the Civil War of 1861-65 and neighbor lined up against neighbor in border states.

In the Union corner was Randolph McCoy, leader of the McCoy clan.

In the Confederate corner was Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield, head of the Hatfield horde and described by Randolph McCoy as "six feet of devil and 180 pounds of hell," When the war ended in 1865, the internecine feelings of these two neighboring families, separated only by the narrow Tug River, did not make for friendly relations. Indeed, it had been rumored that "Devil Anse" Hatfield, in the course of his warfare sometime before the Civil War ended, had slain Harmon McCoy, a brother of Randolph McCoy.

THIS RUMOR was never proved. In fact, some stated that Jim Vance, later to die in the feud as a friend of the Hatfields, was the one who murdered Harmon McCoy.

Whoever killed Harmon McCoy is unknown for sure, even to this day, but one thing is sure: his death created ill feeling between the McCoys and the Hatfields, from the McCoy corner, of course.

A third cause of the feud was a family quarrel which wound up in the court of a justice of the peace eight years after the Civil War had ended.

In those days, in the rugged regions on the Tug, the people let their hogs run loose and fatten on the mast of nut-bearing trees. Hogs were marked with ear cots, which farmers registered with the county court, just as they put real estate deeds on record.

FLOYD HATFIELD, son of George Hatfield and a cousin of "Devil Anse," rounded up an old sow and some pigs one day. Randolph McCoy came by and said the sow was his hog. These two men were married to sisters and therefore were brothers-in-law.

The dispute over hog ownership led to a lawsuit. As a result of the jury trial, the hog was decreed to be the property of Floyd Hatfield.

Jurymen were married into the families of the two contestants and this was thought to have colored their judgment of the evidence and the law, such as it was.

Bill Staton is a case in point. He had married into the Hatfield family and was accused by Randolph McCoy of swearing to a lie on the witness stand. Later, Staton was slain in the woods. Accused of the murder were two brothers, Paris McCoy and Sam McCoy, who were nephews of Randolph McCoy.

ELLISON HATFIELD, brother of "Devil Anse" and husband of Bill Staton's sister, swore out a warrant for the McCoy brothers, Paris and Sam, They were acquitted at their trial, self-defense being established by Sam McCoy. Because Ellison Hatfield had vigorously prosecuted the two McCoys, he was hated by all the McCoys, especially by those of the Randolph McCoy household.

Atmosphere in which it was easy for crime to breed was thus built up by personality clashes, opposing roles in the Civil War, animosities growing out of the two trials, and McCoy hatred of Ellison Hatfield because he prosecuted the two McCoys who had shot his brother-in-law, Bill Staton. Proximity of the two families was a factor, too, McCoys and Hatfields got on each other's nerves.

THERE WAS still another cause that contributed to the kickoff of the feud in this situation ripe for shooting. This was; romance between Johnson "Johnse" Hatfield (Jan. 6, 1862-April 19, 1922), eldest of the 13 children of Devil Anse and Levicy Chafin Hatfield, and Rose Anna McCoy, eighth of the 13 children of Randolph and Sarah McCoy. Johnse, a handsome young man, lived in Logan County, Va. (now Mingo County, W. Va.), just across the Tug River from Pike County, Ky., where the attractive, black-haired Rose Anna lived.

Information at hand indicates that Rose Anna was a year older than Johnse but that made little difference.

ON THE DAY of the primary election in 1880, a number of Hatfields went over the Tug to tarry a time at the election site at the mouth of Hatfield Branch, where it empties into Blackberry Creek, a tributary of the Tug River.

While the people were gathered to visit and exchange neighborhood news, Johnse, 18, and Rose Anna, 19, paired off and strolled away to themselves.

Thus began a clandestine romance, the meandering of which through the next two or three years were to further widen the breach between the two families. Here is no place to parade all that went on between the two lovers. Suffice to say that gossip of the region was to the effect that Johnse eventually jilted Rose Anna to marry her cousin, Nancy McCoy, daughter of Harmon McCoy, who was a brother of Randolph.

Word was that measles caused Rose Anna to miscarry and die. The death of Rose Anna and her unborn baby generated more McCoy anger.

By SHIRLEY DONNELLY

Some of the background of the Hatfields is in order today.

Ephraim Hatfield lived in Russell County, Va., on Thompson Creek in present day New Garden District. About 1790, his wife, nee Mary Smith, died of childbirth complications, leaving her husband with their two sons, Joseph and Valentine.

The widower, Ephraim Hatfield, was one of the pursuers in a posse formed to rescue white captives after a 1792 Indian raid on settlements in Russell County.

The Indians had killed David Musick and carried his wife, Anna, and her five children away into Shawnee captivity. After Mrs. Musick and her five children were rescued from the Indians, they were returned to their home in the Big A Mountain region on the waters of Clinch River in Russell County.

BY THE TIME the excitement of the Indian depredations had died down, Ephraim Hatfield and his two motherless sons had found a lot in common with the widow, Musick and her five fatherless children. The result of misery loving company was that Mrs. Musick and Ephraim Hatfield got married.

In time, they moved to Blackberry Creek in Pike County, Ky., largest county in area east of the Mississippi. They settled not far from present day Matewan, W.Va.

Valentine "Wall" Hatfield likewise came to the Big Sandy River region and built a cabin at Sprigg, a settlement of present day Mingo County. There he raised a large family.

Wall Hatfield's wife was Elizabeth Vance, native of Russell County, Va. They had either 11 or 12 children. One was named for his paternal grandfather. To distinguish grandson Ephraim from grandfather Ephraim, the grandson was called "Big Eph" in allusion to his huge size.

BIG EPH WAS born in 1812 at present day Sprigg, W. Va. He died in 1881 and is buried in the ancestral burial grounds of the Hatfield family at Newtown on Mate Creek in Mingo County.

Big Eph sired a great family of 18 children, only 10 living to be anything like grown, The first was a boy named Valentine Hatfield for his grandfather and given the same nickname of "Wall."

Next of Big Eph's children was William Anderson Hatfield, subsequently known to the world as "Devil Anse" Hatfield.

Next was Elias Hatfield, whose son, Henry D. Hatfield, became governor of West Virginia and a United States senator, as well as owner of a hospital in Huntington, W. Va.

Fourth of the sons was Ellison Hatfield. We need go no further in Big Eph's family as this introduces those to be discussed today.

DEVIL ANSE Hatfield was born Sept. 9, 1838. On April 18, 1861, he married Miss Levicy Chafin, who bore the famous feudist 13 children.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Devil Anse was serving with the state militia but in 1862, he joined the regular Confederate States of America Army. He was in a unit known as "Logan Wildcats." He became a first lieutenant in the 45th Virginia Infantry Regiment.

In 1863, he resigned his commission and organized a company of something like Partisan Rangers in West Virginia border counties along the Kentucky line. He became their captain. Some McCoy men were in Devil Anse's command.

It was as a guerrilla warrior that some alleged that Devil Anse Hatfield killed Harmon McCoy, redoubtable ruler of the McCoy clansmen.

ELLISON HATFIELD, brother of Devil Anse, was born in August, 1841. He was just the right age for military service in the Civil War. For four long years, Ellison served in the Confederate Army. He rose to rank of first lieutenant.

He was in the Battle of Gettysburg all the time of the July 1-4, 1863, struggle. When Lee surrendered at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, one of the young officers who surrendered his command was Lieutenant Hatfield.

In 1955, I visited Kirk Hatfield, son of Ellison Hatfield, and he showed me a Civil War picture of his father and gave me this information.

Ellison Hatfield was a large and very handsome man, as handsome an army officer as ever I saw.

AFTER HIS RETURN from Appomattox, Ellison did not reach home until July, 1865. Then he and Sarah Ann Staton were married.

Children born to Ellison and Sarah Ann Staton Hatfield were Elliott (October, 1866), Valentine (April, 1868), Polly, Imogene, Floyd, Nancy, Lydia, Wetzel, Andrew Kirk, and Easter.

When Ellison Hatfield died on Aug. 9, 1882, from wounds inflicted by Tolbert, Phamer and Randolph McCoy Jr., his wife, born in 1844, was only 38 years old.

Kirk Hatfield, who gave me this information, was only four months and 18 days old when his Confederate veteran father died of McCoy-inflicted wounds.

Though Kirk listed only 10 children in his father's family, he said his father was the father of 11. That odd one was always thought to be Ellison "Cotton Top" Mounts, whom Kentucky hanged Feb. 18, 1889, for killing Allifair McCoy, daughter of Randolph McCoy.

By SHIRLEY DONNELLY

Randolph McCoy, like that other famed feud leader, Devil Anse Hatfield, had 13 children and was a Civil War veteran, although they had fought on opposing sides, McCoy for the Union and Hatfield for the Confederacy.

The two men were not alike. McCoy who was 20 years older than Hatfield, took everything seriously, lacking the sense of humor, or devilment, to which Devil Anse gave full measure.

Never was there a more typical man of the mountains than Rand'l McCoy, as he usually was called, in the manner of mountaineers in abbreviating given names.

LITTLE DID Rand'l and his wife, Sarah, realize, when she went through the "valley of the shadow of death" to bring a dozen and one children into the world, that five of them would be shot to death by the Hatfield clan and their followers, and that their lovely, black-haired daughter, Rose Anna, would succumb to the wiles of Johnson "Johnse" Hatfield, eldest of the 13 children of Devil Anse and Lucy Chafin Hatfield.

But such was to be the case. Three sons - Tolbert, 31, Phamer, 19, and Randolph Jr., 15 - were slain shortly after nightfall on Aug. 9, 1882, in a paw paw thicket on the Kentucky side of Tug River, across from the mouth of Mate Creek.

It was almost six and a half years later, on Jan. 1, 1888, that the brother of those three, Calvin, and their sister, Allifair, were murdered by the Hatfields and their confederates at about half past 10 o'clock that night.

THE MCCOY HOME was burned and Mrs. Randolph McCoy was badly beaten on the night of that double murder of her son and daughter on New Year's night in 1888. Those 1888 deaths were an effort to wipe out state's evidence in the case against the Hatfields, who had been indicted for the killing of the three McCoy brothers on Aug. 9, 1882.

The triple killing of the three McCoy brothers took place two days after "F-Day" on Monday, Aug. 7, 1882, when the long-smoldering hatred between the two families erupted into a private war between the Hatfields and the McCoys.

It was an off-year election day in Kentucky. Those familiar with the history of Kentucky can tell you that on an election day in that state, anything can happen and usually does.

THE PARTICULAR precinct with which this story deals was the one at the mouth of Hatfield Branch, where it pours its flood into Blackberry Creek in Pike County, Ky. This is about four miles tip the Tug River region from Matewan. The spot where the trouble broke out that Aug. 7 is 100 feet or so to the right of Blackberry Creek as one heads upstream from Matewan. It is directly across Hatfield Branch from the home of the Rev. Anderson C. "Preacher Anse" Hatfield, than a Primitive "hardshell" Baptist preacher.

In that house later lived Ransom Hatfield, son of Preacher Anse, who told me the story in 1957 and took me to the identical spots mentioned.

We called on Ransom's brother, Jefferson Hatfield, who was living with his daughter, Mrs. Kathleen Hatfield Scott, at the site where the feud started in earnest.

AT THE 1882 election, there showed up McCoy men and Hatfield men who had it in for each other.

"Bad Elias" Hatfield, brother of Preacher Anse Hatfield, was there, He owed Tolbert McCoy a small amount - less than $2 - on a fiddle. Tolbert bounced him for it, Bad Elias refused to pay him. This wound up in a quarrel.

There was much drinking and several were in a foul mood. Preacher Anse tried to quiet the quarrel but Bad Elias would not heed him. Tolbert McCoy's wife came to get him to leave the scene, but he refused to go.

A bit later in the day, Ellison Hatfield, brother of Devil Anse, put in his appearance. He was wearing a wide-brimmed "sun-down" hat - a straw affair - and the crowd kidded him about it.

BIG AND STRONG, 41 years old, and father of 11 sons and daughters, Ellison Hatfield was accosted by 31-year-old Tolbert McCoy, who was bent on trouble.

Tolbert defiantly announced to Ellison that "I'm hell on earth!" This was a challenge to Ellison, who told Tolbert that he was "a d-n dirty-word hog!"

Immediately a fight ensued. Next thing the crowd knew, Tolbert and two other McCoy brothers, Phamer and Randolph Jr., had cut and stabbed Ellison Hatfield about 26 times, and one of them, Phamer, had shot Ellison in the back.

From then on, the fat was in the fire.

Ellison's brother, Elias Hatfield (not Bad Elias Hatfield), fired at the fleeing McCoys, who saw at once what trouble they had caused and ran away.

AFTER BEING arrested by the authorities, the three McCoy brothers were taken from the law officers by Devil Anse and some of his men to hold as hostages.

If Ellison Hatfield got well, then the three McCoys would be turned over to the law. If he didn't get well, why, then, there'd be a different story to tell.

Ellison was removed to the home of Anderson Ferrell, who lived in Warm Hollow. This is immediately in front of the Norfolk and Western Railway depot in Matewan.

Meanwhile, the three McCoys were rushed up Mate Creek to a log schoolhouse, where the Hatfields kept them tied and under guard.

TWO DAYS AFTER being wounded, Ellison Hatfield died on the afternoon of Aug. 9.

A little after nightfall, the three McCoy brothers were moved across the Tug River just below the mouth of Mate Creek at Matewan.

They were marched by their captors to a sort of sink hole on the Kentucky side of the river, tied to some paw paw bushes, and shot to death. Natives heard the fusillade of shots and knew what had happened.

From that moment, it was always open season for killing when a McCoy met a Hatfield. During the next several years, life was a rough matter along the Tug.

By SHIRLEY DONNELLY

On both sides of the Tug River on Aug. 10, 1882 - on the morning after the night before there were waves of sadness and madness such as never had swept Logan (now Mingo) County, W. Va., and Pike County, Ky.

On the West Virginia side of the Tug, the Hatfields were mourning for Devil Anse's brother, Ellison Hatfield, who had succumbed Aug. 9 to wounds inflicted two days earlier by Tolbert, Phamer and Randolph McCoy Jr.

Ellison Hatfield's widow and 11 sons and daughters were stricken by his fatal stabbing.

On the Kentucky side of the Tug, great was the grief in the home of Randolph McCoy Sr., then age 63, and his wife, Sarah "Aunt Sally" McCoy. Three of their sons had been murdered the night before.

JUSTICE HAD been swift and summary for the brothers there in that fierce region where the stern code of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth had long been regarded as the law of the clans.

The place where the three McCoy brothers were shot was pointed out to me on Feb. 14, 1955, by Landon Lawson Hatfield, 79. He was born on Nov. 28, 1875, and was a boy of seven, he said, when he witnessed the bloody scene.

I have also stood on the site of the two-pens-and-a-passage log house of the McCoys and tried to reconstruct the scene of grief there in August of 1882, but never could.

The site of that ill-fated home is beautiful for situation. It is located on a rise of ground that gives a commanding view of two bends in the road running by the place.

TO REACH IT, one goes up Hatfield Branch and crosses Turkey Foot Ridge, then turns down over Turkey Foot to Blackberry Fork of Pond Creek on the opposite side.

On the side of the hill, in front of the McCoy home, is a slight bench of land, where a wide grave was dug to bury the three slain brothers. All three were buried in one grave, albeit each body was in its own homemade coffin.

It took most of that day of Aug. 10, 1882, for an oxen-drawn sled to haul the bodies of the three brothers a distance of only six miles to the site of their burial close to their home.

It was a sad time in the McCoy home.

Meanwhile, Rand'l McCoy moved to get legal indictment of those regarded as guilty of the slaying of his sons.

AFTER A TIME, a large number of men were indicted in Pike County for the triple killing. The name of Devil Anse Hatfield headed the list, which included Johnson "Johnse" Hatfield, William Anderson "Cap" Hatfield, Elias Hatfield and Wall Hatfield.

Others on the list were Sam Mahon, Dock Mahon, Plyant Mahon, John Whitt, Tom Chambers, Charley Carpenter, Lark Varney, Andy Varney, Alex Messer, Selkirk McCoy, L. D. McCoy, Dan Whitt and Elijah Mounts of the Beech Creek section.

That latter descriptive address given by the grand jury was to identify him.

Bench warrants were issued by the state of Kentucky for those reported to have any knowledge of the crime. Arresting the indicted men was another problem, however.

SEVERAL YEARS went by after the Hatfields and their clansmen were indicted for the triple slaying of the sons of Rand'l McCoy. All the time, the defendants knew they were, wanted men.

As Rand'l McCoy was the moving force behind those indictments, it was figured by the Hatfields and the rest that if they could eliminate the old man, they would be that much closer to being let alone.

In June, 1884, Randolph McCoy and his son, Calvin, planned a trip to Pikeville, Ky., where they were going to see a lawyer by the name of Perry A. Cline, who was in some way related to the McCoy family by marriage.

The story has it that Cline carried weight with the Pike County authorities and was in league with Rand'l McCoy to bring the Hatfields and their friends to justice for the night murders in the paw paw thicket across from present-day Matewan.

THE HATFIELDS somehow got wind of the trip and planned to waylay McCoy and son and kill them both. However, the McCoys were poky that day and late getting away on the journey.

Two mountaineer neighbors by the names of Henderson Scott and John Scott were riding horseback a distance ahead of the McCoys when they were fired upon by the lurking Hatfields.

As I recall the story, both horses of the Scotts were killed and one of the riders badly wounded by the ambushers. Who fired the shots was never known for sure, but they were intended for the two McCoys and it turned out that the Hatfield plans fouled up.

Those shots, fired in anger, caused Rand'l McCoy and his son to know they were marked men.

Toward the ebb of the year 1887, about three years after escaping the trap set for him and his son by the Hatfields, another attempt was made on the life of Rand'l McCoy.

ONE DAY IN the latter part of the summer, five years after the Hatfield clan had been indicted for murdering his three boys, Rand'l was leaning against the side of the door of his home facing the opposite hillside where his three sons were buried.

While the old father leaned there, a hidden rifleman across the way showered down upon him.

Who fired the shots was never known, but Rand'l instinctively felt it was one of the Hatfields, who wanted him out of the way to keep him from pressing murder charges against them.

Too close for comfort, although wide of its target, that bullet struck the door facing and there remained a forceful reminder to 68-year-old Randolph McCoy never for one moment to be caught off his guard.

That summer day attempt at assassination of Rand'l McCoy served to step up the efforts of the constituted law authorities in Kentucky to bring the Hatfields to justice.

By SHIRLEY DONNELLY

It was the objective of the Hatfield clansmen to get Randolph McCoy out of the way. If they could kill him, then the driving force in the effort to bring them to trial f or the slaughter of his three sons on Aug. 9, 1882, would be spent.

There were miscellaneous killings of individual clansmen in lone encounters during the 1880-90 decade, while the Hatfield-McCoy feud was raging, but the high-water mark was reached on the evening of Jan. 1, 1888.

PRIOR TO that time, West Virginia and Kentucky, through their governors, had been spatting back and forth on the subject of each honoring the other's requisition for the men wanted for murders in the feud.

Politics entered into these matters and feeling became bitter between the two states.

In the long run, after an appeal to the Supreme Court, Kentucky won and thus got hands on some of the Hatfields and their friends. Still the Hatfields were interested in wiping out the prosecuting witnesses, chiefly Randolph McCoy and his family.

Accordingly, a band of the Hatfields and their friends Planned to attack the McCoy home, burn it, and kill the folks.

JIM VANCE was to lead a raiding party made up of Tom Chambers, Johnse Hatfield, Cap Hatfield, Robert E. Lee "Bob" Hatfield, Ellison "Cotton Top" Mounts, French Ellis, Charley Gillespie and Elliott Hatfield.

The latter was the son of Ellison Hatfield, knifed to death on election day, 1882, by three McCoy brothers later shot to death by the Hatfield clan.

Men of the 1888 raiding party were sworn to show no mercy on their mission.

It is legendary over all the earth that Jim Vance swore hell would be his heaven if he did not kill the one who let him down in the effort. He swore he would kill the one who weakened - kill him as sure as powder would burn, All knew the evil old wretch meant It, too.

TO RESEARCH for this story, I journeyed one day to the very place the highhanded crime was committed. Near the site where the McCoy cabin stood, I found the rather modern home of the hospitable Mrs. Critt Scott and her maiden daughter, Miss Pricy Scott.

For several hours, I visited these nice people and heard from their lips the story of the burning of the McCoy house and the murders in connection with that New Year's Night attack.

Mrs. Scott began living on the Randolph McCoy place in April, 1902. She was born July 20, 1869, and thus was 18 when the 1888 crimes were carried out.

Her mother, Mrs. Aly Farley, watched the returning raiders in the frosty night under a full moon that Jan. 1. She wondered what the Hatfields had been "up to," as Mrs. Farley put it. There had been a "singing" at the Blackberry Fork School that holiday night.

After one of the Hatfield clan raiders - "Cotton Top" Mounts - was captured and sentenced to hang, Mr. and Mrs. Farley went to Pikeville to see him hanged, their daughter, Mrs. Scott, told me.

IT WAS BETWEEN 10 and 11 p.m. on Jan. 1, 1888, that the determined destroyers, led by Jim Vance, surrounded the Randolph McCoy house, Vance called to the McCoys to give themselves up, but his demand was refused. Firing began. Because Johnse Hatfield failed to carry out Vance's instructions, he was always blamed for the failure of the attack. He shot ahead of time. Fire was answered by fire and Johnse Hatfield was the first casualty. He was painfully injured in the right shoulder.

Rand'l McCoy and his son, Calvin, were making their shots count.

Soon the building was set afire. While Tom Chambers was on the roof setting fire to the clapboards, one of the McCoys let go at him and blasted three fingers off his hand.

One day in Matewan, I was talking with Tom Chafin, justice of the peace and son of Mrs. Lydia Hatfield Chafin, last girl in Ellison Hatfield's family. He told me he used to see old Tom Chambers' hand with missing fingers when he, Squire Chafin, was a boy around Matewan.

IN THE COURSE of trying to put out the fire burning on the house, Rand'l's daughter, Allifair McCoy, rushed outside and was shot to death by "Cotton Top" Mounts. She had just screamed at Cap Hatfield that she had heard his voice and knew it.

Mrs. Randolph McCoy was battered by Johnse Hatfield and thought to have been killed. However, she recovered and related the harrowing experience to the authorities. Calvin McCoy raced out of the house, but was overtaken and slain. While all this was going on, old Rand'l eluded his attackers by escaping in the friendly forest at hand. Two McCoy sisters escaped unhurt, as did Cora, daughter of Tolbert McCoy, one of the three brothers killed by the Hatfields on Aug. 9, 1882.

Dead, though, were Calvin McCoy and his sister, Allifair McCoy. They were buried in the hillside plot where their three brothers were buried more than five years earlier. This made five of the children of Randolph and Sarah McCoy to die at the hands of opposing feudists - a ghastly, heavy toll indeed.

ON THE EVENING of Feb. 6, 1955, I ate supper with Mr. and Mrs. Paul McCoy at Matewan. This deacon in the Matewan Baptist Church was a grandson of Calvin McCoy.

I showed him a picture of the dornick gravestone at the head of his Ill-fated grandfather's grave, Until then, he didn't know where his kinsman was buried. I got the picture of the gravemarker late in 1945 at Heidelberg, Germany, while on duty with the Seventh Army in World War II.

Calvin McCoy's grave is the only marked grave of a McCoy victim of the bitter feud. With chalk, I traced the crude lettering on that natural slab of stone. Across the face, in two lines, It reads: CAL Mc COY

God himself only knows the grief that was in the heart of the one who caused that crude tombstone to be erected there in that isolated cemetery and thus marked to identify the feud victim.

By SHIRLEY DONNELLY

In the rampaging years of the Hatfield-McCoy feud - the 1882-1890 period - the immediate family of Randolph and Sarah McCoy five suffered deaths from gunshot wound, at the bands of the Hatfields and their henchmen.

Five of their 13 children were shot and killed. However, the father, although often a target, attained the great age of 93 before giving up the fight of life.

On the Devil Anse Hatfield side of the feud, his immediate family didn't suffer a single casualty during the prolonged siege and the clansman himself died a natural death when he was well into his 83rd year.

The old truth that "they who take the sword shall perish by the sword" has a corollary in the old proverb that "the mills of the gods grind slowly but they grind exceedingly fine.

IN SPITE OF the fact that 19 or 20 Hatfields and their friends were indicted for the paw paw thicket killing of the three McCoy brothers shortly after nightfall on Aug. 9, 1882, the long arm of the law, constantly reaching out for the guilty culprits, was slow in rounding them up for trial. Aroused by the Hatfield burning of the Randolph McCoy house and the slaying of his son, Calvin, and daughter, Allifair, on New Year's night, 1888, the law authorities went after, the evildoers with a vengeance.

The way the defendants were rounded up caused a lot of legal commotion between West Virginia and Kentucky, but at last Kentucky got some of the wanted men.

The trial of each man will not be detailed but justice of severe nature was meted out to several Hatfields and their followers.

TRIED AND GIVEN the rope at Pikeville, Ky., was Ellison "Cotton Top" Mounts, alleged to be the "woods colt" son of the ill-fated Ellison Hatfield who was fatally wounded by the three McCoy brothers on Aug. 7, 1982.

He was in on the killing of the three McCoy brothers and himself killed Allifair McCoy, their sister, on the night of Jan 1, 1888.

On Tuesday, Feb. 18, 1889, the doomed dullard, who always did the bidding of the Hatfields, was hanged in the presence of thousands of morbidly curious spectators. He was the only feudist who was legally put to death.

Wall Hatfield, eldest brother of Devil Anse, was sent to prison at Frankfort, Ky., for life. He died in prison.

Alex Messer, Dock Mahon and the latter's brother, Plyant Mahon, were tried together and sentenced to life in the penitentiary.

JOHNSE HATFIELD was hailed before the tribunal bar of Kentucky in 1898. He was tried at Prestonsburg, where they threw the book at him or all his past sins. Life imprisonment was the jury's decree.

The one man who was the nemesis of Johnse Hatfield was H. E. "Doc" Ellis. He pressed the charges against Johnse and aroused the ire of all the Hatfield family. Elias Hatfield, 18, Johnse's brother, took the law into his own hands and shot "Doc" Ellis and killed him dead as a door nail. That was in July, 1899, in Mingo County, W. Va.

In the case of Elias Hatfield, the truth of an age-old law was to be proved again namely, "with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again (Matthew 7:21). On Oct. 17, 1911, an Italian named Octavia Gerone killed both Elias and his brother, Detroit "Troy" Hatfield, at Boomer, W. Va. in a fight over liquor interests.

They were the first of Devil Anse Hatfield's children to die. However, they killed the Italian, too.

AFTER SERVING a few years in Kentucky state prison at Frankfort, Johnse Hatfield was pardoned. A Negro prisoner attacked the warden Of the prison and would have killed him had it not been for the fearless intervention of Johnse Hatfield, who cut the Negro's throat and saved the warden's life.

As a reward for his heroism, Johnse Hatfield was made a free man again.

Montaville Hatfield, cousin of Devil Anse, drew a life sentence, but served only several years. Upon his release, he went in for farming. My information is that he was killed by a man in a quarrel over a line fence between their places.

Cap Hatfield, son of Devil Anse, served a jail sentence once for some infraction of the law but escaped the penalty for his major offenses;.

THERE WERE other Hatfield who went to prison besides the ones mentioned, but as much of this is being written from memory, I cannot think of them at the moment.

Willis W. Hatfield, eighth child of Devil Anse Hatfield, was named for Gov. E. Willis Wilson of West Virginia. He shot and killed a Dr. Thornhill in Wyoming County in a quarrel over a Whisky prescription and drew a term at Moundsville for the murder.

Jim Vance, who led the Hatfields in the McCoy house burning and murder scrape, was killed by a posse in a running fight.

FROM THE McCOY side of the lethal ledger on the cost of crime, one learns anew that the way of the transgression is hard. Some thought Devil Anse Hatfield killed Harmon McCoy in border strife during the Civil War.

Bud McCoy, no plaster of paris saint, was shot 18 times by Pleasant "Ples" McCoy.

A relative, Jeff McCoy, was killed by Cap Hatfield shortly after Jeff McCoy had slain a Pike County mailman by the name of Fred Wolford.

Sam McCoy killed Bill Staton, brother-in-law of Ellison Hatfield.

Cap Hatfield killed John Rutherford at Matewan in November, 1896.

Many others of the two clans I were killed, All told, as I figure it, the famous feud took something like three dozen lives. For years I had one of Elias Hatfield's .38 Smith & Wesson revolvers, a gift to me.

By SHIRLEY DONNELLY

Just as frogs take on the temperature of their surroundings, people become like the land where they live.

In lands where the sun shines brightly and the weather is hot, people become highly volatile, as witness the southerners.

In cold climates, people become slow and reserved, and appear to have ice water in their veins, as witness the northerners.

Everything in the Logan-Mingo-Pike counties area, where the Hatfields and McCoys lived, was rough, rugged and fierce, so the people of that territory were rough, rugged and fierce.

MUCH THAT the Hatfields did was bad, but it is equally true that there was a world of good in those rugged individualists.

It was known far and wide that Devil Anse Hatfield fed more people than any other person in Logan County. No one was turned away from the door of the clever old feud chieftain, He reasoned that the visitor could put up with, for a few meals, what the host had to endure all the time.

If you could eat what they did, the Hatfields said, you were welcome to it, Actually, the Hatfield festal board was always heaped high with bounties of field and forest.

Devil Anse's wife, Levicy, and their girls knew little of fancy cooking, but they knew the very lick with which rough grub was prepared. They served victuals and vitamins that stuck to one's ribs and backbone.

ELIAS AND TROY Hatfield were the only ones of Devil Anse's sons who died violently and young, Elias at 33 and Troy at 30. Both had been special agents and detectives on the Virginian Railway before Elias went into saloon business that led to his and his brother's death.

Elias had once told High Sheriff W. H. Ramsey of Fayette County that the Hatfield code required that they carry a gun of no less than .38 calibre. They reasoned that a man might kill you with, a .32 calibre gun, but that before you died, you could kill him. This reasoning was born out in the shooting of Elias and Troy Hatfield at Boomer, W. Va., on Oct. 17, 1911, by Ottavio Vagliozzo with a .32 calibre Colt revolver.

Before Elias and Troy expired, they had polished off the Italian, Troy being the one who fired the three fatal shots.

HOW DID THE other Hatfields turn out? Johnson "Johnse" Hatfield, eldest of Devil Anse's 13 children, became a land agent for the U.S. Steel Coal and Coke Co. holdings Logan County and area. He was the Casanova Of the family. Like Sampson of biblical fame, Johnse. loved many women, having had no fewer than five.

Cap Hatfield, second of Devil Anse's sons and the real hellion of the family, studied law and was admitted to the bar of West Virginia. He ended his days as a deputy sheriff in August, 1930, dying of a brain tumor in Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Md.

Robert E. Lee, third of Devil Anse's sons, became a merchant and acquired much property.

Elliott Hatfield, fourth In the family, studied medicine and was graduated in 1898 from City College of Louisville, Ky.

Joe Hatfield was elected high sheriff of Logan County. So was Tennis Hatfield. Cap Hatfield was a deputy sheriff under his two brothers. Willis Hatfield became a personnel officer for a mining concern. He is still living.

DEVIL ANSE'S brother, Elias Hatfield, had a notable family. One son, Greenway Hatfield, was elected sheriff of Mingo County, twice on the Republican ticket and once on the Democratic ticket.

Elias's second son, Henry D. Hatfield, was a doctor who owned a large hospital in Huntington. He was elected governor of West Virginia. He also served one term in the United States Senate and one term In the West Virginia Senate.

A third son of Elias Hatfield Is Wayne Hatfield, a doctor like his brother, Henry.

This list might be continued at length, but enough has been stated to show that the Hatfields were no mere men.

THE McCOYS didn't rise to such heights in the world of affairs as the Hatfields did.

Last of the "real McCoys" of yore was James McCoy, familiarly called "Uncle Jim" by intimates. When Tennis Hatfield was sheriff of Logan County, that youngest child of Devil Anse Hatfield became reconciled with "Uncle Jim" McCoy and they were photographed together.

It was this "Uncle Jim McCoy who was admired by Devil Anse for his nerve. "Uncle Jim" was in the Grape Vine Creek battle with the Hatfields. He hated the Hatfields but saw in the end that all the trouble wasn't on one side of the feud, so he forgave and forgot as best he could.

Those McCoy women who "went with" Hatfield men and their in-laws, who married people not too friendly to the McCoys, were never considered to be the "real McCoys" - hence the origin of a latter day saying,

IT WAS SAID that Devil Anse never resented that name that was applied to him when he was a young soldier of the Confederacy. He had a keen sense of humor.

When I was a boy in my early teens at Charleston, on the West Side or "Elk City," as some called that section immediately west of the Elk River, I used to see old Daniel W. Cunningham. He was pointed out to me as the detective who "rode herd" on the Hatfields.

Later, I found out how Devil Anse "rode" Dan Cunningham by surprising him one day and making him, at gun point, carry all the Hatfields on his back across a stream to keep the Hatfields from getting their feet wet. That was an example of Devil Anse's devilment.

By SHIRLEY DONNELLY

Much more has been written of the parts played by the men in he Hatfield-McCoy feud than has been said of the female of the species. When all is said and done, it was not theirs to reason why, just theirs to do as their menfolk directed.

In the early days of the mountain settlements, a wife was her husband's "woman" and usually was so introduced or identified in reference. Withal, though, she made the home, reared the children, and put up with whatever hardships came her way.

In the Hatfield-McCoy feud, the women had to put up with many additional hardships.

One cannot read the story of that bloody private war without seeing, between the lines, the tub of tears shed by the women of both sides.

MRS. ELLISON Hatfield, nee Miss Sarah Staton (1844-1935), was the first woman of the feuding clans to suffer. She was a widow at 38, with 10 children, the eldest being 16, when her husband died Aug. 9, 1882, two days after being mortally knifed and shot by three McCoy brothers, Tolbert, Phamer and Randolph Jr.

The greatest sufferer, without a doubt, was Sarah McCoy, wife of old Randolph McCoy. Five and a half years after watching three sons buried, she watched, a fourth son, Calvin, and a daughter, Allifair, lowered into a grave across the creek from her log cabin on the hillside.

Her buxom, black-haired daughter, Rose Anne, was greatly mistreated by Johnson "Johnse" Hatfield, eldest son of Devil Anse and Lucy Chafin Hatfield.

If all that would not cause tears of grief to flow, then it must be concluded that the fountain of her tears had dried up.

Rose Anne McCoy This photograph of Rose Anne McCoy, furnished by Joe Creason of the Louisville Courier-Journal, is one not heretofore published here. It shows Rose Anne as she appeared later in life, not a she was when she was the young sweetheart of Johns Hatfield,

"AUNT SALLY," as Intimates called Mrs. Randolph McCoy, cared for, Cora McCoy, daughter, of Tolbert McCoy, who was 31 when he was killed by the Hatfields in the triple murder in the paw paw, thicket Aug. 9, 1882, after Ellison Hatfield died of knife and gun wounds the three McCoys had inflicted.

One can imagine how the grandmother would choke with grief as she recounted to little Cora the tragic end of the child's ill-fated father. All that is trouble, living trouble, a trouble far worse than dead trouble.

There was sorrow and a lot of it. Women on both sides suffered great mental anxiety, too. Twice - yea, three times - the Hatfields tried to ambush Randolph McCoy. That caused his wife and daughters untold anguish.

On top of this, Mrs. Randolph McCoy was beaten the night her home was burned on Jan. l, 1888. Her blood ran on the ground and froze her hair to the hard earth that frosty New Year's Day night, when her son, Calvin, and her daughter Allifair, were killed.

IN TROUBLEMAKING between Hatfields and McCoys, in-laws were accused of keeping the pot boiling. It was surmised that they carried gossip from one clan to another, thus tipping off what one side planned against the other.

A case in the feud history will illustrate this.

Johnse Hatfield, after being Rose Anne McCoy's lover, married her cousin, Nancy McCoy. This was a thorn in the flesh to both of the feuding families. Nancy was the daughter of Harmon McCoy, brother of Randolph McCoy, who headed the McCoy clan as Devil Anse Hatfield headed the Hatfields.

The Hatfields reasoned that "blood is thicker than water," and had the notion that Johnse's wife was tattling to her people about the Hatfields.

MOREOVER, NANCY had a sister, Mrs. Bill Daniels, who was rated as one of the nosiest women along Tug River, with a daughter who wasn't very far behind her, mother in this respect. They, were said to trollop all over the area running off their mouths about everything they heard or suspected.

The daughter and a rounder named Tom Wallace were said to be married but actually,were not. Tom had palmed off on the girl a spurious wedding license, and the person officiating at the wedding lacked the proper papers.

When she discovered she was the victim of deception, she left him and went home to her parents. This provided a juicy morsel for area gossip.

Tom Wallace was a friend of Cap Hatfield, one of Devil Anse's sons, and the two of them decided to wreak vengeance on the two Daniels women, mother and daughter, for their gossiping.

WHILE BUTCHERING a cow, Cap Hatfield thought of a useful purpose to which he could put that cowls tail. Accordingly, the tail was cut off close to the cow and carefully put to one side.

That night, Cap and Tom, both armed, appeared at Bill Daniels' home. Daniels was forced to the wall at gunpoint while Cap beat Mrs. Daniels unmercifully with the cow's tail. Then Tom Wallace took over what was left of the cowls tail and severely beat the Daniels girl, with whom he had lived illicitly for a time.

This is the outstanding case of corporal punishment suffered by any woman whose people figured in the feud.

Later, Cap Hatfield killed Jeff McCoy, brother of Mrs. Bill Daniels and Mrs. Johnse Hatfield.

By SHIRLEY DONNELLY

William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield and Miss Levicy Chafin were married Thursday, April 18, 1861. By, the close of the year 1890, they had 13 children, the youngest of whom was Tennyson "Tennis" Hatfield (1890-1953).

That family of 15, including the parents seemed to live charmed lives. For more than half a century, there was not a death in the large family of Devil Anse and Levicy Hatfield. Then, 501/2 years after the wedding. of those two mountaineers, there was great mourning in their big two-story house on Island Creek in Logan County. The reason for the sorrow was the untimely death of two sons, Elias and Detroit "Troy" Hatfield.

HERE IS THE story of how the two brothers met their death.

There was a war for the supremacy of the saloon business in Falls District of Fayette County, this time a feud along the Great Kanawha River instead of along the Tug River. It was a bitter rivalry.

Elias, fifth child of Devil Anse, had the only saloon between Cannelton and Gauley Bridge. It was owned jointly by Elias Hatfield and M. J. Simms. They enjoyed a tremendous business and it was reported that this saloon netted the two partners a monthly profit of $1,000 each. It was said to be the best-paying saloon in Fayette County.

Desiring to cut in on the profits were others who ran saloons. One operator opened a saloon across Kanawha River at Eagle, on the south side of the stream. There was another oasis in operation across the Kanawha County line near Cannelton. Both saloons were bidding for.the Hatfield-Simms trade.

TO STIMULATE trade, the Eagle saloon keeper ran a free ferry across the Kanawha River between Boomer and Black Diamond on the south side.

That took some of Hatfield's patronage, but the competition that worried Hatfield more was Carl Hanson's saloon across the Kanawha County line from Fayette County. In Hatfields thinking, Carl Hanson was an unethical competitor because Hanson cut the price on beer from $3 per case of three dozen bottle to $2.25.

Then, to add insult to injury, Hanson hired a popular Italian by the name of Ottavio Vagliozzo to solicit beer orders and deliver them to thirsty customers.

There was a large Italian population in and around Boomer, which had grown there as a result of the coal company at that place importing a horde of Italian strike-breakers there nine or ten years earlier.

Vagliozzo could speak the language of the Italians and was popular with them at Harewood, Smithers, Boomer, and other places along the Kanawha. This gave him a great advantage over the Hatfield-Simms saloon.

VAGLIOZZO HAD the nerve, to invade the Hatfield-Simms saloon territory in Fayette County Several times, the Italian was routed by Hatfield and threatened if he did not desist from coming over into the territory where Hatfield and Simms had enjoyed a monopoly in the liquor business.

On Tuesday, Oct. 17, 1911, the push came to a shove. That morning, the Italian poacher was found encroaching on Hatfield territory again after having been given a whipping earlier in the day by Elias Hatfield and sent down the road.

Word reached Elias that Vagliozzo was at the cabin of Angelo Valenzalo at Harewood. Elias took his brother, Troy, and went to Harewood in search of Vagliozzo. They found him in the kitchen of Valenzalo, a miner.

By then, it was about noon, according to Valenzalo, who was an eye-witness to the triple slaying.

Vagliozzo, armed with a .32 calibre Colt pistol, opened fire on Elias Hatfield and put three bullets in him. Elias retreated out the front door and went around the house by the back door, leaving his brother, Troy, inside.

IN THE MEANTIME, Vagliozzo had emptied his revolver into the body of Troy. Troy returned the fire, sending three bullets into the Italian's body. Any one of them could have proved fatal. After being shot, Vagliozzo left the house through the kitchen door, and fell on his face in the back yard. After he fell, Elias Hatfield came on the scene and, placing his gun against the back of the man's head, sent a bullet through his brain.

After the shooting, Elias and Troy sat down on the back porch and discussed their wounds. Both realized they were mortally wounded and that death was near. In less than 10 minutes, Elias was gone, but Troy lived for half an hour.

Just before Troy died, he told a bystander, "There's no use looking for anybody. The man who killed us is dead."

THUS IT WAS that the immediate family circle of Devil Anse and Levicy Hatfield was broken

This made a heavy impact on the famous feuding family. Word spread from Logan County that Devil Anse, the feuding chief, had embraced religion.

"Uncle Dyke" Garrett, the veteran"hardshell" Baptist preacher of the mountains, who had soldiered with Devil Anse in the Civil War, with his "son in the gospel," J. G. McNeely, conducted the double funeral of Elias and Troy in Logan County.

That day, the sons of Devil Anse made a public confession of faith in the God of their father. Their mother had long since been a member of the church.

Cap, Bob, Elliott, Johnse, Tennis, Joe and Willis Hatfield, the seven remaining sons of Devil Anse, promised "Uncle Dyke" that he could baptize them.

The Hatfields got religion! In the main, they held faithful, although in an instance or so, there was some backsliding.

By SHIRLEY DONNELLY

An expensive marble monument, topped by a life-sized statue of the famed feud leader, marks the graves of William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield and his wife, Levicy Chafin Hatfield, in the Hatfield Cemetery on Island Creek near Omar in Logan County. Both died of pneumonia, he at the age of 82 and she eight years later at the age of 87.

Her full name is on the marker with her birth and death dates, 1842-1929, but he is identified as Capt. Anderson Hatfield, with dates 1839-1921, without his first name or the descriptive nickname by which he was known from Civil War days and still is called in historical accounts of the feud.

The tall monument lists the names of the couple's 13 children: Johnson, William A., Robert L., Nancy, Elliott R., Mary, Elizabeth, Elias, Troy, Joseph O., Rose, Willis E., and Tennis.

TROY'S REAL name was Detroit and Tennis's given name was Tennyson. William A, was commonly called "Cap."

Cap and his brother, Dr. Elliott R. Hatfield (Nov. 12, 1872-April 20, 1932) were estranged for a long time before their father's death on Jan. 6, 1921. They were bitter toward each other for years and this grieved their father, Devil Anse. It was his death-bed request that these two sons forgive each other and be friends.

On the funeral day, Cap led in the reconciliation and the two brothers shook hands. Tears flowed down the cheeks of both men like bubbles on the clear mountain streams of Logan County.

AT THE GRAVE of his father, Cap, the long-fierce feud lieutenant, who had killed perhaps more men than he could recall, told old "Uncle Dike" Garrett, Baptist preacher, that he had made his peace with God and was ready to be baptized any time the venerable old minister set

"I will baptize you, boy," the preacher told Cap, "in the very hole whar I baptized yore pappy."

Cap Hatfield then raised his hand above his head and declared that he was done with malice and fighting and if any man wanted his life or his blood, he would not resist. It was a dramatic moment at the funeral and made a profound impression on the minds of the great crowd present.

CAP DIED IN John Hopkins, Hospital, Md., in August, 1930, less than 11 years after his father died. His brother, Elliott, died two years later. "At Rest" is inscribed on the doctor's stone in the hillside burial ground on Island Creek. The marker of the eldest child of Devil Anse gives his full name, Johnson Hatfield, and dates, Jan. 6, 1862-April 19, 1922. Johnse was not as large as most of his brothers but he was far more handsome than the rest and was the Casanova of the clan.

Johnse died of a heart attack as be rode along Twisted Gum Creek, a stream between Gilbert Creek and Ben Creek in Logan County.

Other inscriptions are for Troy (Jan. 20, 1881-Oct. 17, 1911) and Elias M. (Nov. 2, 1873-Oct. 17, 1911), who were killed in the same gun fight with a liquor competitor salesman. Troy and Elias were the first of Devil Anse's children to die and it was a score of years after the Hatfield-McCoy feud had subsided, Another stone in the same cemetery on Island Creek reads: "Nancy A. Vance Mullens, Aug. 13, 1869-May 1, 1939. Loved by all." There is a stone for "Lilly Curry, wife of Moss F. Hatfield. 1895-1921." On a little boy's grave is an inscription: "Cap S. Hatfield. Born April 2, 1891; died June 5, 1898. God's finger touched him and he slept."

IN MINGO COUNTY, across from Newtown on Mate Creek. is a high knoll where many Hatfields are burried in long rows. There I read names on concrete slabs, all alike.

There is a marker for Ellison Hatfield (1841-1882), whose killing started the feud in earnest. By him repose his wife, Sarah Staton Hatfield (1844-1935), and their son, Floyd Hatfield (1872-1949).

The earliest marker dates of which I made note were for "Eph Hatfield, Born 1812. Died 1881." There was another marker for an "Eph E. Hatfield."

There was one for the Rev. Joe Hatfield (April 6, 1891-Jan. 2, 1952), who was a Missionary Baptist preacher. We were friends for many years.

There were slabs for Allen Chafin (Oct. 29, 1869-Feb. 28, 1945), Pat Hatfield (1855-July 4, 1902), and Joe Hatfield (1861-Feb. 23, 1928).

Also marked were graves of Nancy Hatfield, Elias Hatfield, Smith Hatfield, Joe Glenn, A. A. Chafin, Joe Mounts, M. Browning, B. Hatfield, Tom Chafin, Turner Chafin, Henry Hatfield, and Leland Hatfield.