Welcome to Talk with History.

I am your host Scott, and my wife and historian Jen and I are taking a couple weeks off as we gear up for some fantastic new content.

Coming.

I thought I would revisit some of our most popular podcast episodes during our break.

And of course, our journey through the hollers of Kentucky came to mind.

Yes, the infamous Hatfields and McCoys episode.

Jen has actually guested on other podcasts to speak specifically about our experience in this now legendary family feud.

She covers how this feud rose out of the ashes of the Civil War and the stranger than fiction historical events and even how we had our own encounter with a Hatfield descendant right there in Pikeville, Kentucky.

Even the crickets here in the holler hold their breath sometimes.

You can feel it in the air, a tension thicker than summer humidity.

Hatfields and McCoys, they say, been at it since before the war.

Those two families.

My pappy used to tell stories about Devilance Hatfield, meanest son of a gun this side of The Mississippi.

Had 13 kids, all cut from the same honorary cloth.

Over on the Kentucky side there was Randolph McCoy ol Ranall, they used to call him.

Same story.

A brood of boys itching for a fight.

It all started with the pig.

Some folks say stolen or not stolen, depending on who you ask.

But that was just the spark.

The real fire came later.

With guns blazing across the Tug Fork.

Men dying over land and pride.

My cousin Asa, poor fella caught in the crossfire.

Left a hole in our family that'll never mend.

This here's the story of the Hatfield McCoy feud, a saga of hatred and revenge that tore these hills apart.

We'll meet the families, hear the gunshots echo through the hollers and see if there's any truth to the whispers of a star crossed love affair that bloomed in the shadow of all that hate.

So pull up a chair by the fire cause this ain't gonna be a pretty tale, but it's one worth hearing.

Welcome to Talk with History.

I'm your host Scott, here with my wife and historian Jen.

Hello.

On this podcast we give you insights to our history Inspired World Travels YouTube channel Journey and examine history through deeper conversations with the curious, the explorers and the history lovers out there.

And John, I'm just going to jump right into it.

We are talking about a very popular, very famous family feud about the Hatfield McCoys.

Yes, we're going to go right into American folklore that happens to be based in actual history.

Yeah, and this was kind of a fun one because you and I got some time away from the kids, My mom was watching the kids.

And so we just kind of headed due west and started driving out towards the Kentucky, Virginia border area.

Did some other history topics we've talked about before, but we discovered we were in Hatfield McCoy country.

And it was amazing because we always wanted to do this story.

So being there, we just took full advantage of it and we started at the visitor center, which is the best place to go in Pikeville, Kentucky.

Yeah, that was.

It was.

I'm so happy that we stopped there first because we really got the best kind of lay of the land advice that you could get, you could ask for.

And honestly, we both say it.

After that trip, we, we said the nicest people we have met on our history travels through America were in Kentucky.

They were amazing.

They were.

They were so friendly, like, because sometimes you feel a little bit like an interloper going around, especially with the camera.

You're saying, hey, I'm looking for this, I'm looking for that.

Not there.

No.

They were so welcoming and open.

They treated us like family.

It was truly amazing.

So I would say if you're going to do any Hatfield and McCoy travel exploring, start in the visitor center in Pikeville, Kentucky.

And there's a couple reasons you want to start there.

First of all, it's a cool little town.

A lot of the history of the Hatfields McCoys happens in Pikeville, Kentucky.

But you're going to get the best Internet coverage there.

And we're going to talk about that because once you start exploring outside of Pikeville, you're in the hollers, you're in the backwoods roads of West Virginia and Kentucky.

You're right along the border there, and you're going to lose your Internet coverage.

So if you're trying to find specific locations, you won't be able to GPS them or look them up on your Google Maps or whatever.

You use Apple Maps, you won't be able to use it.

So at the visitor center, you can get a free brochure.

It's the Hatfields and McCoys historic feud driving Tour.

And again, this was in Pikeville.

Pikeville, okay.

Kentucky, at the visitor center there.

And it's located at 831 Hambly Boulevard in Pikeville, Kentucky.

So it was a great guy there who helped us.

He was so.

He was so open and friendly.

He kept telling us how Chris comes in all the time and you know, Chris Love loves it here.

And I'm looking at him like, who, Chris?

Who?

Who are you talking about?

I don't.

I don't know.

I know many Chris.

Yeah.

And I'm like, o.

And he's talking about Chris Stapleton.

Who.

The country music singer who.

We have his record behind us in our podcast, Traveler, because we love his music.

We love the bluegrass, we love the sound of it.

And I guess Chris Stapleton is from Pikeville, Kentucky.

There was a couple other pretty well known actors.

Patty Loveless is from there, Dwight Yoakum.

I think they call it like that was it country music highway through there.

But also there was an actor.

Most folks wouldn't quite know his name yet, but he's been in some really big stuff on Netflix.

He was in, like at the new.

New version of Justified.

He was also in Hatfields McCoys.

That's right.

He played one of the McCoys.

No, he plays one of the Hatfields.

One of the Hatfields.

Yeah, he plays the sun.

He's from that area.

He's from that area.

It's really cool.

And so, yeah, you're gonna get.

It's close to Loretta Lynn's house, too.

So a lot of people will go to the visitor center to get information about visiting Loretta Lynn's cabin.

We have a whole episode on that, where you go, where you get your tickets, who you talk to, if you want to visit there.

A lot of people will get that information also from center.

So that visitor center is great for that.

And also if you're going to do the Hatfields McCoys, get the driving tour, you're going to want that brochure because it gives you step by step instructions after you get out of the city.

And you're not going to have your gps.

And it's nice too, because you can sit there and kind of plan it out ahead of time because the driving tour could probably, if you do the whole thing, it'll probably take you all day, but you can in advance kind of pick and choose the spots you want to go, how much driving you actually want to do.

Plus, you can actually start there in Pikeville at the, at the, the city courthouse.

There's.

There's a little museum there that's all about the Hatfield McCoys as well as some other stuff in the area.

Yeah.

So it's the historic courthouse where they were put on trial.

The second floor courtroom has now become a museum.

And we went over there first and we actually met an actual Hatfield.

Yeah.

So we were.

I, I told the story to a couple folks.

We were driving around looking for parking near the courthouse, and I pull up next to a hospital and we pull up next to this hospital.

We couldn't tell if it was hospital only parking or if we could park there.

And a security guard walks up, he's an older gentleman, probably in his early 60s, and he says, hey.

He'd say, hey, can I help you guys?

And we said, hey, we're looking for parking.

You know, we're trying to go to the courthouse.

And so he had kind of pointed us off in another direction just a little, you know, just a little ways away.

And then you saw his name tag.

And his name Tad said Hatfield, said Hatfield.

And so I asked him, yeah, are you Hatfield?

Are you related to Devil an Hatfield?

And he said, yeah, it's my great uncle.

And he actually owns the land where they had the feud and the kid, the boys with the border, where the boys were shot, where the McCoy boys was shot.

And we're going to get into everything that happened.

And he even said to us too, he's like, I guess the Hatfields won in the end.

And I was like, oh my gosh.

I know, we just laugh.

We're like, okay, yeah, I mean, he was, he was very kind.

He was very joking about it, very jovial.

But yeah, we told him.

We're like, oh my gosh, we're here to go see some of the sites and visit some of the locations.

He's like, and he told us that, that little bit.

But only in Pikeville, Kentucky.

Yes.

Would you be driving around and just randomly run into one of the Hatfields, one of the descendants of the Hatfields I know.

Who actually lives on the land.

Who actually lives on the land.

So that was pretty cool.

So let's, what we're going to do is like, let's talk about what happened, the historic what happened, and then we'll talk about what you can see.

Because in the city of Pikeville you can see a couple things that are like the middle of the story and the end of the story.

And you might be confused if you don't know the story.

Why would I.

What is this place?

Why would.

I don't want to mention it right away.

So I rather mention it in order of it, how it happened.

But if you're going to drive and visit, you're not going to.

You'd be ping ponging all over the place to do that.

You would want to go to everywhere in Pikeville and then start to branch out.

So I will.

Let's do the whole story and then I'll tell you where you can go visit.

I also want to talk about.

There's a lot of popularity around the Hatfields and McQuarrie's because of the miniseries that came out with Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton.

Bill Paxton, that's right.

I will say that miniseries is very accurate if you want to watch it.

We actually watched it.

I actually watched it while we were there.

Again, because I hadn't seen it in years.

Yeah, I think I watched it after the fact.

Yes.

Yeah, it's very well acted.

They actually filmed on location.

Oh, did they?

So all of those same places, they look just like that.

And they're very accurate with how they tell the story and the timeline of the story.

They do a very good job.

So if you're interested in understanding more about the nuances of the story and how things are really interconnected and these families who just couldn't seem to get enough of each other, watch that miniseries.

It's a three part miniseries.

It's fantastic.

It's.

It's really good.

And that just.

That just goes to show how incredible and almost like how crazy the true life story is that they didn't have to change much to make it, you know, to Hollywood.

Ready?

Yeah.

It's.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

And remember, this is really played into American folklore.

When you think about Star Trek and Doc McCoy is related to the McCoys.

Like, this is supposed to be very interactive into our American culture now, which it is this Hatfield and McCoy feud.

But it all goes back to really the biggest feud of America.

It all really starts with the Civil War.

Yeah.

So talk to me a little bit about how The Hatfields and McCoys were involved in the Civil War and why that kind of was the genesis.

So we're really dealing here on the border of Kentucky and Virginia before it becomes West Virginia, because West Virginia is a product of the Civil War.

West Virginia is not a state before the Civil War.

But because there are so many people who are anti Confederacy in Virginia, they really break away to start their own state and say, we want to be a Union state.

We want to be part of the Union.

We don't want to be part of this Confederacy.

That was West Virginia that.

That said that.

Yes.

Okay.

And made their own state, West Virginia.

So here we have this border where the Hatfields are on one side, the McCoys are on the other.

The Hatfields are West Virginian and the McCoys are Kentucky.

And they.

That's where you're going to get a lot of families and brothers who are going to fight for either side.

Because when you think about it, this is a.

This is where the West Virginians are going to break away because they want pro union.

So you're going to get families and brothers who are like, I, I side with Kentucky.

I side with Virginia, hence West Virginia.

So that.

That kind of is what happens here now, not with the patriarchs.

That when we really talk about the Hatfields and McCoys, there's two head men of these families.

You're going to get William Anderson Hatfield Devil ants on the Hatfield side, and then you're going to get Randall, Old Randall McCoy on the McCoy side.

They both fight for the Confederacy.

They both fight together for the Confederacy.

Yeah.

And in the miniseries, that's.

That is Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton.

Yes.

They both feel like it's their duty now.

McCoy really feels like it's his duty.

He wants to stay.

Hatfield Devil Ants starts to see the Confederacy losing and feels like it's a losing fight, and he doesn't want to die for a lost cause.

So he.

He basically leaves early and goes back to his land.

Probably leaves like.

Like a year or two before the end of the war.

Before the end of the war.

And goes back to his land.

And then he's able to start his business up and really get more solid business.

Yeah, they do, like logging a lot of land stuff.

Yes.

But before McCoy can even get back home.

And that's.

That's Bill Paxton.

That's Bill Paxton.

And so you see McCoy kind of.

Resentful of that fact, because doesn't he get captured?

He does get captured at one point.

And so he has to survive.

He's a prisoner of war, prison of.

Work, which, if you know anything about Civil War prisoners of war, both sides were horrible.

You can't even say the south was worse than the North.

They both treated their prisoners terrible.

But that's not really where the feud starts.

They're friends.

They're kind of.

McCoy's kind of pissed at Hatfield because he left early.

Left early.

Mad at him.

But that's not the feud.

It starts this whole feud.

And if people like to say it was the pig trial, the pig trial is really where it kind of gets really dug in.

But the feud really starts with A brother of McCoy, Asa Harmon McCoy, who served in the Union.

So here you got brothers who are serving for two separate sides.

And Asa comes back home, he's been captured.

He served time in a Confederate prisoner of war camp.

He comes back home.

He's not even home for 13 days before he is killed.

And he's killed January 7, 1865.

So this is really before the end of the war.

He serves time and he Gets out early and he comes back and it's Jim Vance.

James Vance is the uncle of old ants.

So he's a Hatfield.

That's Tom Behringer in the.

In the mini series who plays it so well.

He's phenomenal.

So Tom Behringer plays Kevin Costner's uncle.

Uncle, Right.

Crazy.

Yeah, the crazy.

This is like, you think about the crazy uncle.

This is back then, like, you know, West Virginia.

Yeah.

Crazy.

Crazy uncle.

Crazy uncle who's a rebel.

Yeah.

Right.

He believes in the rebel cause.

So here comes a McCoy home that fought for the Union.

And he's mad.

Not.

Not only that, he, like, get captured as a prisoner of war, and he gets out and now he's back home.

This is for the end of the war.

He's mad.

So 13 days later, he's killed.

And so this is what starts the feud.

A McCoy is killed by the Hatfield.

Yeah.

And that's kind of what I was referring to as, like, I'll call it time traveling.

Scotty, that did the intro there, right?

When you say, like, my cousin Asa.

Yeah.

You know, because I had.

There were so many brothers and sisters.

There's so much family on each side.

That really was the first event that really kicked off this feud.

Yes.

And when you think about it, there's these huge families, these huge networks of families.

Right.

And that's who does all your farming.

That's who you.

That's who does all your business with.

It's like you have six or seven brothers and sisters, and then they have six or seven brothers and sisters,.

And they have.

So you have these huge families on either side.

It doesn't mean they didn't intermarry.

They.

Tedfield's McCoy certainly intermarried, but they had these strong family ties through the patriarch line.

And it's the McCoy brother who's killed by the Hatfield uncle that starts this whole thing.

And we go to that location that is outside of the city.

It's by this little school, I think it's called BlackBerry.

Yeah.

Then there's a marker there.

There's a marker there.

That's a great place to be.

Like, this is where it all started.

And you're going to get like, this feud is going to last a while because his widow starts to kind of.

She starts to needle her way into.

With lawyers and things like that.

So this is going to start the whole feud.

I mean, the feud kind of goes on for a few decades.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

So, I mean, it's going to be 13 years later when this hog Trial happens.

So that's the first thing that happens.

It's not publicized that it was Jim Vance that did it.

Family tradition points to him.

He's part of that West Virginia militia group that is the rebels that did that.

The application for his wife's pension from the Union said he was killed by rebels.

So that's kind of like how people have paced that together.

There's no existing records pertaining to his death.

There's no death record.

But when she's goes for the pension.

Killed by rebels is what it says.

And so, and I think even some of the markers don't specifically call out the Hatfield, but they, they call out the group, but it's, it's, it's implied.

Was a leader of the group.

So, so McCoy comes back from the end of the war.

So this happens in January 1865.

McCoy comes back the end of the war, and he starts to hear rumblings and he's not.

Not only is he mad that Hatfield old anst has left early and been able to kind of keep his family going where McCoy family has basically just really barely gotten by now he's here rumblings that his brother was killed by Hadfield.

So he just kind of is, is upset about it, bitter about it, bitter about it, but goes about his business and starts to build their life back.

So if you go to the McCoy well, which is again on the outskirts of Pikeville, but it's a great place to visit.

They have a guy who lives there who loves giving tours.

Yeah, if you drive up and if the guys, you know, there's a gentleman that lives right near the well, which is where their old home was.

But if his, if his garage is open and he's out, he'll come right up to you and come talking to you.

He came and she said, hey, come look at this stuff.

I have my garage.

And we were like, excuse me.

But like, Kevin Costner went and visited there.

He, he said he used to like give tours and stuff.

So it's Vandal McCoy's.

Well, it's in Hardy, Kentucky.

So this is where McCoy's home was and this is where the pig was.

And so the pig gets marked with the McCoy mark, which is basically two notches out of its ear, wanders away onto the hill.

So if you stand on at the McCoy well, which was behind their house where they got their water, now they make alcohol.

From there you can buy the McCoy, well, alcohol, moonshine or whatever.

If you look up, you can see like a hill.

That's where the pig wandered onto the hill.

And that was Hatfield land.

Not old ants Hatfield land, but one of his cousins land.

And so what happens is that that pig has gotten over there and the cousin Floyd Hatfield claimed it was his hog and he's taking it to slaughter.

Walks by Randall McCoy and McCoy looks at his ears and says, those are McCoy marks, not Hatfield marks.

And Floyd says, that pig has been on my land for a couple years now, and it's mine.

And.

And McCoy's like, that pig wandered away from my house like three or four years ago.

We just thought.

We just thought it.

Something happened to it, like.

But you kept it.

That's my pig.

Yeah.

So they start arguing over who owns this pig.

They start arguing who owns this pig.

And you.

You drove home too, and I think you made it into the video about how valuable those hogs were, especially at that time.

At that time, it's your livelihood.

Yeah.

It's feeding your family.

Basically you could see it as Randall McCoy felt the Hatfields was stealing food from his family's mouths.

Yeah.

It was that bad.

You're stealing another man.

And that.

And that's why things started to get so heated.

Yes.

This happens in 1878.

So this is 13 years after Asa is killed.

So McCoy has let this fester for 13 years.

Right.

He hasn't brought anything up.

I don't think he's been perfect, particularly friendly to the Hatfields, but I mean, they're still neighbors and.

But he.

Now he's mad.

He takes it to the justice of the peace and he wants.

He wants justice.

And the justice of the peace is Anderson Hatfield.

So it's.

It's.

It's old and it's cousin.

Yeah, it's one of his cousins.

Yes.

And so.

And he's a well educated man, knows the law, but he's also from Kentucky and he also in West Virginia, he's also Hatfield and he understands family almost matters more than the law.

And so you can go to the cabin where this trial takes place.

And I would recommend that is a.

That is a place you want to go.

Yeah, that was really cool because you're driving through, you know, just to kind of step back and.

And set the scene of where we are.

Like, one of the things that I kind of wondered before we got out there is like, what's a holler?

Well, it's a bunch of little mini valleys.

Right.

You're driving through, and it is beautiful land out there.

It's absolutely gorgeous driving through these hollers.

Like when we went up to butcher hauler to Loretta Lynn and driving through these hollers was really cool.

So you really feel, feel like you're there and then you come down and I think it's near like a post office.

Yeah, it's right beside it.

Maar, Kentucky.

Yeah.

And so you drive up and they had recreated the, the cabin there.

And so I think they call it the Pig Trail Hog Trial Cabin.

And you know, it's, it's in good shape.

You know, I, I'm sure at certain times of the year you might be able to go inside.

We weren't able to.

Yes.

Look in the windows.

And there's other things that aren't actually too far from that, from that cabin.

Some other markers that we'll talk about a little bit.

But it was just, it was beautiful time of year.

We were there in October and it was so neat to do.

And if you're thinking about, considering about going on these driving tour, I highly recommend.

This is one of your stops.

Yeah, it's in, it's called the Preacher Ants Hatfield Hog Trial Cabin and its location, it just gives you like a County Road.

319, Makar, Kentucky.

And that's kind of how you're going to have to get around there.

It really is like these old country roads.

So this is what the trial is going to take place.

Now, I will say the Uncle Anderson, Preacher Anderson tried to make it, tried to make it just.

He tried to put half of the Hatfields on the jury and half of the McCoys on the jury.

The problem was that One of the McCoys was married to Hatfield.

And like I said, these, they're intermarried.

And so he was kind of a relative of both families.

And he said that he didn't, he didn't think that that mark was a McCoy mark.

And so that kind of pushed it.

And so Anderson Hatfield ruled in favor of the Hatfields.

Right.

So he sided with his wife's side, which was the Hatfield side.

Yep.

And so that, that makes McCoy even more mad.

Like finally he's like, I didn't get justice for my brother.

Nobody cares.

I didn't get justice for my pig.

Nobody cares.

And so this is when the sons, the McCoy sons start getting involved, start getting involved, they really start to get upset.

So Hatfield has a couple sons, McCoy has a couple sons.

Everyone's have like 10 kids and daughters, right?

Daughters.

So Randall McCoy.

Right.

Who's the patriarch of the McCoy side, his sons start getting involved and things start getting rowdy.

So it's in, it's two years later in June of 1880 that the.

The testimony of the relative of the McCoys who was married to the Hatfield is killed by two of the McCoy sons.

They're like, hey, you betrayed.

They kind of in, in the miniseries, they kind of say, hey, you betrayed our side of the family.

And they kill him.

They kill him.

Now they are immediately arrested, but the Hatfields catch him.

They see them him do that and they take him into trial.

But they claim self defense.

And because nobody saw it, they say he came after us with a knife, which he probably did because they threatened him that they were going to kill him.

So he pulls a knife and says, I'm going to defend myself.

And then they just kill him.

And so they claim self defense.

And you see in the, in the, in the miniseries that Anderson Hatfield, the just the piece is getting very mad now at this, at this point because they're using the law, which is true.

But he can't.

He kind of bent the law in the first place for his cousin to win the hog trial.

Now the McCoys are bending the law in their favor to win the self defense.

And he just sees this escalating right now.

We've killed a person was killed.

Asa has been killed.

A hog has been taken.

Now someone else has been killed.

So we kind of have a person on the McCoy side has been killed and a person on the Hatfield side has been killed.

So that's where we're at right now.

This is 1880, so it's kind of right now an eye for an eye.

But this is going to escalate now with a daughter.

Of course, things start getting complicated when the, when the girls start coming in.

So Randall McCoy has a beautiful daughter named Rosanna.

And she enters into relationship with Devil and son Johnson.

They call him Jonesy.

And she leaves her family to live with them because McCoy, basically, Randall McCoy, basically disowns her when he finds out that she likes him.

Right.

He's so mad still.

This is festered for so long.

How could my daughter.

Yeah.

And in the miniseries, like Jones, he's like, like the handsome Hatfield.

He's kind of a little bit of a playboy, right?

Yeah.

And they start this fling and they, you know, quote, unquote, fall in love.

Yes.

You know, and you have to think about it too.

I, they.

They don't get into a bunch of this.

In the miniseries, Jonesy already has a kid by another woman.

There's not a lot of people around at this time.

The people you know are your neighbors because it's not like you're going into the city it's not like you're meeting a bunch of people.

Right.

The hog trial was probably the event of the.

Of the year.

Yeah, well.

And it's hard to travel around those hollers out there.

I mean, it's.

Travel is slow.

It's slow.

You walk or you ride your horse.

So who is she gonna see besides your neighbor?

And so this is very much like a Romeo and Juliet kind of situation, because my enemy is the only person who has a son who's my age.

You know, so that's kind of what happens here.

When she tells Randall McCoy that she likes her father.

Yeah, yeah.

She tells her father that she likes the Hatfield son.

He kicks her out.

So she goes over to them, they take her in as good people.

They.

But then she ends up getting pregnant.

And so then they kick her out because it's starting a problem that they're not married.

And.

And so then the McCoys don't want her coming back with basically a bastard child, so she's kind of sent to live with an aunt on the outskirts of this whole area.

And what's very weird is the brothers.

Then again, the McCoy brothers try to honor their sister and kidnap John Z.

And they were going to kill him.

They were going to kill him.

And so she finds out about this and goes and tells the Hatfields, the only people that she knows that can save him would be his own people, Even though she's kind of like betraying her own brothers.

Betraying her own brothers.

So she goes until the Hatfields, the Hatfields go stop the killing.

And they don't.

They don't hurt the McCoy boys, but they.

They basically give a good.

Like, this is your last chance kind of thing.

Like, no one was hit, killed here, but this.

We're.

We're escalating this.

This is getting really big and we need to stop.

And so John Z.

Basically abandons her pregnant because it is getting kind of big.

Yeah.

When neither side wants.

It's either supports or condones this relationship, ostracizing each of them.

So it's kind of.

It's not even a lesser of any evil.

They're just.

Jonesy just kind of sides with his family, and he.

He.

He leaves Rosanna and leaves her for.

To kind of fend for herself.

With her aunt.

Yeah, with her aunt.

And then he.

Typical guy who's just running around, marries Nancy McCoy.

So he does marry a McCoy.

It's a cousin of Rosanna who happens to be the daughter of Asa McCoy.

From the very beginning.

The very beginning.

Crazy, right?

So it's like, what?

Like, so when you start to find these locations, they are very close together, and you're like, okay, I can see how this is getting complicated now.

We're still at one death for one death, but we're starting to get more complicated now.

A baby's brought into the picture.

Johnny did marry McCoy.

Right.

So.

So what's the next thing that kind of takes it to the next level?

So we're back at the cabin, the Hog trial cabin.

It's election day in Kentucky.

That's right.

Everyone's coming out.

1882.

This is almost.

Almost 20 years after the end of the Civil war.

Yep.

Yeah.

20 years after the Civil War.

Again, a gathering.

Everyone comes back to the hog trial cabin because it's the justice of the peace cabin.

And it's kind of in that area.

It's.

It's central ish.

It's central ish.

And it's where the election's being held, where the boxes, right.

You write on your ballot and you put in the box, only men can vote.

This is still only the men, right?

So the women are there like, yay, I'll make a pie, and my man will vote.

You know, it's a big event.

It's a big event.

So Jonesy has a.

Has a still, which a lot of the people did this.

It's Kentucky.

This is moonshine.

And.

And start.

Get.

Start drinking.

And the younger brothers of Rosanna are still pissed about everything that happened with John Z.

And their sister.

She's since had the baby.

And they start messing around and pushing around ants brother.

His big brother.

Or actually, no, his little brother, but a brother who he really loved.

Ellison.

Ellison Hatfield has a son named Cotton.

Ellison is a good guy.

He's trying to stop the escalation of these brothers.

They're getting mad at John Z. Ellison's kind of like, leave him alone.

Yeah.

So Ellison comes in and basically break up the fight.

Break up the fight.

And Tolbert, Farmer, And Bud, the three younger brothers of Rosanna, the McCoys kill Ellison.

Not right away.

They stab him 26 times and shoot him.

I mean, they.

They.

He doesn't die right away.

And because.

So initially, Anne's Hatfield arrests them.

And he says, if my brother dies, I'm gonna kill you.

And so.

So he actually has them and he arrests him.

Like, it's not like he doesn't take him to the county jail.

Like, he's holding them on his land.

On his land.

He basically is like a group of vigilantes.

And he.

He won't let them be taken to Pikeville.

And the McCoy family tries.

Randall McCoy tries to get them taken.

Failed to stand trial.

He's trying to get them legally to Pikeville, which as you see is probably about 20 minutes away.

Yeah, for us driving.

Yes, but imagine in a wagon or something.

But the brothers are taken by force by ants and they, they're held up.

And then when Ellison dies, all three of the brothers are killed by the Hatfields.

They're tied to these pawpaw trees and shot numerous times.

A total 50 shots were fired.

Their bodies were bullet riddled.

And soon you can go to those paw paw trees.

They are close.

We didn't go there.

It's one place we didn't go.

You can walk over to them.

That's where that Hadfield guy was saying he owns the land.

He owns that land, which.

But you can go visit there if you want to.

It's pretty close to the hog trial cabin and you can just basically walk out into the clearing and you can see where they were tied to the trees and shot.

Yeah.

So now, now things are just kind of out of control now.

Now things are out of control because these three, they killed Ellison.

Then the Hatfields come back, take these three, they.

They kill these three.

I mean, just line them up and shoot them.

And now things, now things are out of control.

This is when Randall McCoy, I mean, of course he's going to be so upset.

His sons are killed.

Three of his sons, like the oldest, are all killed.

So he tries to get a lawyer, Perry Klein.

So you're going to hear Perry Klein's name a couple times as well, to arrest the Hatfields for basically acting as vigilantes and killing his sons.

And even though people in the area believe this revenge is warranted.

Right.

There's about 20 people who are indicted, including ants on this.

But all of the Hatfield delude arrest, that also angers McCoy because no one can prove anything.

No one's going to testify against each other.

Right.

And so McCoy gets even more upset about all of that.

So is this when he calls in the gun for hire?

Yes.

And so I'll also talk a little bit about the graves of those three sons before we get any further.

Across from the well of the Hatfield house, across from the well from the McCoy house, the three Hatfield Boyds were buried.

And there's a marker when you park into the parking lot to walk over to the McCoy well where the cabin was.

It'll say McCoy Cemetery.

It's not in the right location because you can't go visit the graves.

It's not public.

It's not public.

Why?

Because a Hatfield owns the land now where the McCoy boys are buried and because a Hatfield owns the land, they don't want people to go and visit it.

I mean, we laughed at the feud today is no longer going on, but in some regard it is now.

Is that the one that a judge ruled that at least once a year family can go.

Family can go and visit the graves.

Yes.

So when you talk to the well guy.

Yes.

The McCoy family once a year is allowed to go onto the land and visit the graves of the three boys.

But the public, you and I couldn't go there and visit their grave.

So that's one place you can't go.

Yeah, it's private land.

Yeah.

And again, that is a big part of the story.

So.

But you can't go there.

McCoy feels like he can't get justice and Perry Klein, the lawyer who at some point tried to sue Hatfield for his land, but was caught in some.

Kind of doing it sketchy or something.

Yeah, it wasn't right.

He was.

He was doing something that wasn't.

It was definitely fraud and Hatfield caught him.

So Perry Klein was kind of upset that he was caught in his wrongdoings.

They.

They hire a man to come in and basically catch Hadfield and this bad Frank Phillips.

Bad Frank Phillips is brought in.

You're going to get McCoys and Hatfield who are basically trying to tie up loose ends and cover their stories and cover their tracks.

Hatfield kind of goes into hiding on his land, won't let anybody on his land.

He doesn't know very afraid of what repercussions could happen to him.

Well, and.

And part of it, if I remember from the miniseries and you were saying that it was pretty accurate, but bag Frank Phillips is hired by the McCoys to kind of go.

And they.

I think in the miniseries they say, hey, go and arrest them and bring them over to this side so they can stand trial.

But they've Hatfields have it so locked up on their property that they can't go over.

And bad Frank Phillips again in the miniseries, had this reputation of being a little bit of a.

Of a wild, you know, wild kind of gun for hire.

And rather than trying to arrest, he just, you know, ended up starting to kill some people.

Yeah, he started to kill cousins of the Hatfields.

That made Anne's Hadfield more mad, I would say.

Anderson Hadfield, old Anne's Hadfield, understood the predicament he was in and maybe didn't agree that what he was doing was orthodox, but once his family members start to get killed, he feels like he has to be the one to rectify the situation.

And it deserves his, it deserves someone else to be killed for.

A family member has been killed even if he wasn't in the right.

Yeah.

You could tell that Kevin Costner's character, who's Dev Lance.

Right.

Devil Ants Hatfield was, was torn.

He did a good job of portraying the hey, this needs to de.

Escalate but ultimately is just pushed across the line to defend his family rather than take the high road.

Be able to take the high road and, and bring things, you know, back down to normalcy.

And so they really play that up and eventually even him.

Devilance Hatfield, you know, Kevin Costner's character is just like okay, that's it, we're done.

Like this is, this is us versus you and I am on the Hatfield side kind of no matter what.

Yes.

So it's at this point that the Hatfields are so sick and tired of being afraid that they fight back.

And it reaches, I would say the feud reaches its peak here.

And this is why the McCoy cabin no longer exists.

This is 1888, it's New Year's Eve and Vance, crazy, crazy uncle.

Crazy uncle with Cotton Woos Ellison's son.

And he in the show, he has the name Cotton because he's most likely simple minded.

Yeah.

Simple minded, right.

Yeah.

And so.

And I think that's even true to life.

Yeah.

They treat him like Cotton.

Yeah.

But, but again loved within.

Within the Hatfield side.

And they, but slow.

Slow.

Right.

His mental capacity is, is diminished.

And so they.

The Hatfields surround them a quake cabin.

So it's Sarah and Randall with all their children.

So boys and girls and Cotton is told to go around back and if anyone tries to leave from the back, shoot him.

Right.

So they're, they're coming for him and his, his wife, you know, and they're standing outside the cabin yelling for him to come out and she says don't.

She sends him out the back and he escapes before Cotton gets there and he had run off.

And then she starts sending the, the daughters, the girls out and that's when Cotton kind of shoots one of the dogs.

So her idea is if they don't think you're home, they'll leave us alone.

Right.

So if you run.

Because if you go out there, they're just going to kill you.

So if you run and pretend like you're not here, they'll leave us alone.

Well, they don't leave them Alone, they end up killing two of the boys and they beat Sarah, almost killing her by Vance and Johnsy.

And then they burn the cabin down.

Then they burn the cabin down.

And like I said, one of the daughters is killed.

So the remaining McCoys will move to Pikeville.

Like in the city.

In the city.

And the, the.

That McCoy house is there.

Yeah, it's like a restaurant.

It's a restaurant now, so we visit there.

So like I said, there are things you're going to want to see in Pikeville.

That McCoy house is after the fire of 1888, is where they move and live.

They spend the rest of their lives there in Pikeville.

That's the thing you're going to want to see in the city.

So after that, Cotton is going to be arrested and stand trial for the murder and he's found guilty and he's hanged in the square of Pikeville.

So that's another place you can visit in the city of Pikeville.

And it's not like he was taken at night and hanged.

He was like, this is a public execution.

A public execution.

Ellison Cottontop Mounts was executed by hanging and buried in an unmarked grave.

And if I remember correctly, this is kind of the thing that finally ends it, you know, at least as far as the events go, is everybody's out there from both sides of the family as well as the rest of the public.

And, and he's hanged.

And then that, that kind of takes the wind out of the sails of both sides because everybody, at least again in the miniseries kind of sees like, okay, this can't continue on.

The two McCoys that are killed are a son and the daughter.

And so it's on August 24, 1888, that eight of the Hatfields and their friends are indicted for the murder of the daughter at a fair.

She was killed during the massacre.

And those included Cap, John Z. Robert and Elliot Hatfield, Ellison Mounts, Frank Ellis, Charles Gipsy and Thomas Chambers.

But only Cotton is executed.

The rest of them will spend life in prison.

Those sent to prison, Valentine Hatfield, elder brother of Anst.

Doc Madden, son in law of the Hatfield and another son in law, 14 years in prison.

So this is basically the end.

This is where again, after Cotton is hanged, the feud dies out also, they believe because the McCoys moved to Pikeville and they're far enough away from the Hatfields that this feud dies out.

There's nothing after this.

There's no real back and forth.

The fighting between the family ceased after the hanging.

But the trials continue until 1901.

Trial of John Z sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in the year New Year Massacre.

So John Z.

Will have life in prison.

And so then you get like the modern era.

In 1979, Family Feud had the Hatfields and the McCoys on the family Feud.

Oh, did they really?

Yeah, they did.

Like there was a cash prize and a pig kept on stage during the game.

Right.

And the Hatfield family won more money than the McCoys.

Now, I think you said it in the video, it was the early 2000s.

Eventually both families kind of came together and signed something that said, hey, this, this feud is done.

Yeah.

So they did a joint family reunion in 2000.

It garnered national attention.

5,000 people attended.

And that's when they basically signed a truce.

Yeah, I mean, kind of it was ceremonial, but it actually, it, it meant something.

It meant something.

I mean, we.

Do you still have the issue with the graveyard, right.

That happened in 2002.

A lawsuit about that graveyard, which is when just they can be visited once a year.

But there is pretty much a truce between the families now.

And now they do like a big half a McCoy festival.

It's a three day weekend in June.

People come and visit.

Other things you can go and see that we went and see is you definitely want to see the graves.

So in the city of Pikeville, you want to go see the McCoy graves.

You can see Randall, Sarah and Rosanna.

And that was near like a fire station, if I remember correct.

You have to park across the street.

Across the street.

And it's a walk, so it's definitely not somebody who is in a wheelchair or can't do stairs.

It's not access, it's not handicap accessible.

It's basically straight up with a bunch of stairs and.

But it's neat to see their graves there.

You can also visit the Hatfield graveyard, that's farther out.

Old roads.

We didn't go all the way out to that.

We went to a park that kind of told the stories of the Hatfields, McCoys.

It was, it was very neat.

And I encourage folks listening to this if you, if you like this story.

The video actually did pretty well for us.

It's a good video.

We took some time to make it.

And we show all these locations, we show some maps so you get a feel for where in Virginia and West Virginia, Kentucky area that, that we're at, as well as this kind of memorial to both sides of the family.

Yeah.

And in case you were wondering, Rosanna's baby doesn't make it past one year old.

She dies.

She has a little girl so you can also visit Aunt Betty's house and Rosanna's baby's grave site, that's in Goody, Kentucky.

All of these locations are on the driving.

So when you.

When you see the driving tour, you can see how out in the middle of Kentucky, West Virginia you are.

And again, you're not going to have great cell phone coverage.

So again, I remind you to please download the locations beforehand or take the map with you.

Perry Klein's gravesite is available to you if you want to see that as well.

And the Cotton Top hanging site, again, you can go to the Pawpaw Trees.

And then last but not least, you can go to Devil Hatfield's monument at his grave site.

There's a statue of him there as you can go and visit that as well.

There's some other places off the beaten path.

You know, Bad Frank Phillips, his grave is out there.

He ends up marrying Nancy.

That's right.

Who was married to John Z. Yeah.

Even he did that dude in the show, too.

Yeah.

And he was again, the daughter of the very first person who was killed.

So I talk about this like this was very much as you.

As you start to visit these sites and go to these locations, they're not far away from each other enough that you can see how these families are so intertwined.

And this feud is long term.

But what has happened with these two names is they're synonymous now with any kind of feud, family.

Any sort of family feud, any family.

Feud, any feud between two people that maybe were close at one time and now are not.

Maybe a few that's left lasted a couple years.

Maybe a feud that is deeply ingrained in you when you're like, I hate him, like the hatfields hit the McCoy, like something that is deeply seated in you.

It's used in that vernacular now.

It's become a part of our American psyche, this Hatfield and McCoy feud.

So it was really neat to go out there and to visit and to see it, to understand it better, to kind of give these people more agency and to understand their lives a little bit more.

But I was really honored to go there to talk to the people.

And like I said, the feud is not a hateful thing anymore.

Everybody talks about it pretty much with a smile on their face.

They're very open.

They talk about everything and openly and happily.

So it really is now just a.

If you're coming to ask about it, you're considered kin.

You're considered part of America because it's something that it belongs to all of us now.

It's all of our story.

Yeah, even though there are those with the name still today, it's.

It's more local legend than it really is anything else.

Well, that's all the time we have for this episode on the Hatfield McCoy feud.

A bloody mess, wasn't it?

Lives lost, families fractured all over.

What started as a squabble over a pig.

Hard to believe, ain't it?

The feud finally sputtered out and around the turn of the century, but its echoes still linger in these hills.

Sure, The Hatfields and McCoys ain't shooting each other anymore, but there's a wariness, a distance, that time hasn't quite healed.

Some folks say it's a cautionary tale, a reminder of how easily a spark can turn into a bonfire.

Others say it's a testament to the the stubborn pride that runs deep in these Appalachian veins.

Maybe it's both.

Whatever the case, the Hatfield McCoy feud is a story that's woven into the fabric of this place.

A story of violence, yes, but also of resilience, of families clinging to their own versions of the truth.

It's a reminder of the dark side of human nature, but also the enduring strength of the human spirit.

What a story, right?

Did you catch the part about how Doc McCoy from Star Trek is supposed to be related to these American legends?

Those are some of my favorite things I learned from this episode.

What about you?

This has been Walking with History production.

Talk With History is created and hosted by me, Scott Benny.

Episode researched by Jennifer Benny.

Check out the show notes for links and references mentioned in this episode.

Talk with History is supported by our fans@thehistoryroadtrip.com our maternal thanks go out to those providing funding to help keep us going.

Thank you to Doug McLiberty, Larry Myers, Patrick Benny, Gale Cooper, Krista Coates, and Calvin Gifford.

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