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Sadness, Madness Swept Tug River Border Aug 10, 1882. Hatfield_McCoy feud
Beckley Post-Herald
Beckley, West Virginia •
Wed, Sep 18, 1957 p4
CLIPPED BY
wetzupdoc • 01 November 2024

• SEPTEMBER 18, 1937 Yesterday And Today
Chapter IV: Wave Of Sadness, Madness Swept Tug River Border Aug. 10, 1882
By SHIRLEY DONNELLY
Talk about the morning after the night before, if you will, but there was of sadness and madness on both sides of the Tug 02 Aug. 10, 1882 such as Logan, now Mingo, County. W. Va., and Pike County, Ky., had scarcely ever known.
On the Hatfield side of the Tug they were mourning for Elison Hatfield, who had succumbed on Aug. 9 to wounds inflicted by Tolbert, Phamer, and Randolph McCoy Jr., on Aug. 7, 1882. On the McCoy side of the Tug in Pike County great was the grief in the home of Randolph McCoy Sr.. then 63 years of age and Sarah "Aunt Sally" McCoy, his wife. Three of their boys were dead all at once!
I have stood there on the site of the two pens-and-a passage log house of the McCoys and tried to reconstruct that scene in my mind but never could. Site of the 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 that runs by the place. To reach it, one goes up 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 murdered brothers. On Feb. 14, 1955, Landon Lawson Hatfield, 79 on Nov. 28, 1954 pointed out to me the place the three had been shot. He saw the bloody scene when a boy of but seven years, he told me.
It took most of that day of Aug. 10, 1882 for an oxen-drawn sled to haul the bodies of the three brothers to the site of their burial hard by their home, a distance of only six miles. It was a sad time in the McCoy home and it must be remembered that Ellison Hatfield's widow and his 11 sons and daughters were likewise stricken. The three were buried in one grave albeit each body was interred in its own home-made coffin.
________
JUSTICE HAD BEEN SWIFT and summary for the three McCoy brothers there in that fierce region where the stern code of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth had long since been regarded as the law of the clans. Meanwhile Randy McCoy moved to indict those regarded guilty of slaying his sons.
After a time a large number of men were indicted in Pike County for the triple killing. Name of Devil Anse Hatfield headed the list. His sons Johnse Hatfield and William Anderson "Cap" Hatfield, as well as Elias Hatfield, among those indicted. So was Elijah Mounts of te Beech Creek section. This was a descriptive address given by the grand jury so as to identify the men. Three brothers Sam, Dock, and Pliant Mahon: Wall Hatfield, John Whitt, Tom Chambers, Charley Carpenter, Lark Varney, Andy Varney, Alex Messer. Selkirk McCoy, and L.D. McCoy were included. Dan Whitt, too, was among them.
It followed that those who reported to have some knowlege of the crime had bench warrants issued for them by the state of Kentucky. But arresting them was still another problem.
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SEVERAL YEARS went by after the Hafields and their clans-men were indicted for the triple slaying of the sons of Rand'l McCoy. All the time the defendants knew they rere wanted men. Since Randolph McCoy was the moving force behind those indictments it was reasoned by the Hatfields and the rest that if they could rub out the old man they would be that much closer to being left alone.
In June 1884, Randolph McCoy and his son Calvin McCoy planned a trip to Pikeville where they were going to see a lawyer by the name of Perry A. Cline, a man who in some way was related to the McCoy family by marriage. The story has it that Cline carried weight with Pike County authorities and was in league with Randolph McCoy to bring the Hatfields and their friends to justice for the night murders in the paw paw thicket across from the present day Matewan.
Some how the Hatfields got wind of the trip of McCoy and son Calvin, and planned to waylay them and kill them both. However the McCoys were pokey that day and were late getting away on the journey. Two mountaineer neighbors by the name of Henderson Scott and John Scott were riding horseback a distance along ahead of McCoy and his son when they were fired upon by rise fired number of lurking Hatfields.
As I recall the story, both horses of the Scouts 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 plans of the Hatfields foulded up.
Those shots fired in anger caused Randolph McCoy and his son to know they were marked men.
______
ALONG TOWARD THE EBB of the year 1887, some three years after escaping the trap for laid for him and his son by the Hatfields, another attempt was made on the life of Randolph McCoy. As stated previously. lived on a rise of ground to the left of the road that runs over Turkey Foot Ridge and down on the Blackberry Fork of Pond Creek.
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 McCoy was leaning against the side of the door that faced over against the opposite hillside where his three sons were buried. While the old father leaned there against his door, a hidden rifleman across the way showered down upon him.
Who fired the shot was never known but Randolph McCoy instinctively felt it was one of the Hatfields who wanted him out of the way to keep him from pressing the murder charges against them. Too close for comfort though wide of its target, that but let struck the door facing and there remained a forceful reminder to 68-year-old Randolph McCoy to never for one moment to be caught off his guard.
That summer-day effort 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.
More tomorrow!.

United States
West Virginia
Beckley
Beckley Post-Herald
1957
Sep
18
Page 4
Sadness, Madness Swept Tug River Border Aug 10, 1882. Hatfield_McCoy feud

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