March 29, 2016 • 43 mins
It was America's most famous family feud, but the history of the Hatfields vs the McCoys is fraught with bias and inaccuracies. Dig into a disagreement in 19th-century Appalachia that became a very big deal around the world.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chuck, let's go over the Stuff You Should Know concert calendar.
My friend, we are hitting the road for the Spring
Has Sprung Tour. We're gonna be at the Neptune Theater
and Lovely Seattle, Washington on April eighth, my friend, the
next day, we're gonna head south to Portland, Oregon, Revolution
Hall April night, We're going to Houston, Texas, my friend,
Warehouse Live on Memorial Day weekend, and finally finishing up Denver,
(00:26):
Colorado at the Gothic Theater on May twenty night. Two
more dates coming. Yeah, keep your ears out and in
the meantime, if you want to get tickets, you can
go to s y s K live dot com powered
by squares space and we'll see you guys on the road.
See how in Portland you're selling out fast, Get on it.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
(00:46):
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast on Josh Clark,
Charles W Chuck. Brian is staring at me right now.
It's making me a town uncomfortable. Jerry's over there. I
can feel her eyes burning into the side of my head.
So was the Stuff you Should Know? Who would you
like me to look, but uh in my ear. Oh
(01:10):
that's always so weird. Try someone's like, looking, are you
doing it right now? Like right at your hair? Really? Yeah? Interesting?
Try my other ear. Oh yeah, that's that's the stuff
the right. Sorry that your left. That's my left, all right?
I remember that. Look watch this, Chuck, after seven years,
can you see that I can wiggle ears independently? Try
(01:33):
to give me crazy? So you said, around and do it?
Probably try not like a good husband, um, chuck. Yes,
we have a bit of an announcement here. Yeah, what
we just heard? Yes, yeah, we're in the room with
either a hat Field or McCoy. Jerry doesn't know which
family she's related to. She just knows that she's related
(01:54):
to one of them. Yeah, like literally, right before we
press records, she's like, oh, by the way, I'm related
to one of these families. I'm just not sure which.
And a family member told her, but she cousin Tyler
was that? Who was? I don't know. I think that's
what she said, cousin. I get the impression from Jerry's
story though, that she's sort of like glazed over and
(02:15):
that's why she doesn't know. But she does carry a
six shooter on her hip and that explains that this
is McCoy on the barrel. So maybe right, But does
that mean that it's a bullet from the McCoys or
for the McCoy's good monistry remains, you know, good point.
So we are talking about the hat Fields in the McCoy's.
For those of you who don't live in the United States,
(02:35):
you probably have heard of the hat Fields in the McCoy's.
It's a pretty legendary feud. Yeah, right, we've heard of
some of your history UK Australia, Matthew Flinders, there's a
name drop for you. Yeah, so hopefully you've heard of
the hat Fields in the McCoy's. Yeah, I mean there was,
if nothing else, there was a big mini series a
few years ago on television, Yeah, with Kevin Costner and
(02:58):
Bill Paxton, and really it was really dramatized. Yeah, like
it isn't fictionalized. Yea cinematized and yeah, a little not
quite fully accurate, but at least at least they brought
attention to the feud because it needs agreed. So, the
(03:18):
hat Fields in McCoy's um is a family feud, so
much so that in nine the hat Fields and the
McCoy's were on the TV show Family Feud, apparently for
a full week from what I saw, and I read that.
Legend has it that it didn't actually inspired the TV show,
(03:39):
but I didn't get good verification on that. Now and
there there have been other family feuds, right, but none
are as famous as the hat Fields in the McCoys,
although at the time there were more famous family feuds,
but the hat Fields in McCoys just took it to
another level because all of the murder. Yeah, there there
was a lot of murder. It was mountain foe versus
(04:00):
mountain folks, families that had been intermarried and worked for
one another, and um had lived together for decades, if
not longer, alongside in this little area along the Sandy River,
I believe, the Big Sandy River, in something that's called
the Tug River Valley, and on one side mostly the
(04:22):
hat Fields lived on the West Virginia side in Logan County,
and right across the river on the other side in Kentucky,
the McCoy's lived in Pike County. And that's how it
was for days gone by. Yeah, and they they were
not new to the United States, so I guess it
wasn't the United States then, was it? Yeah, we were
(04:45):
talking about the fifties seventies. I was way off then.
But they came to America many many years before that. Um.
Apparently the hat Fields were some of the very first
to come to uh the New World. Uh from northern England,
and the McCoy's are obviously from Germany. Well the hat
Fields were originally the heath Fields in England. That sounds
(05:07):
way more British. Yeah, but you know how you do.
You come over to America and you you dumb it
down a little. I know Heath Ledger changed his name
to hat Ledger when he got here, didn't they all? Right?
P uh? And the McCoy has come from Scotland, of
course you can probably figure that out. Moved to Ireland
before they came to the New World. And the first
(05:29):
known McCoy was John McCoy in America. When was that, uh,
seventeen thirty two from Belfast, Ireland. So did they move
directly to the Tug River area? Is that where they settled? Now?
The McCoy's first settled in Maryland, where he was a
prominent landowner, and I think the Hatfield's first moved to
Tug Valley in eighteen twenty and the McCoy's uh in
(05:53):
eighteen o two with their twelve kids. So they've been like, really,
these families had grown up living in and working with
each other. It was not just these two families in
the area. There are plenty of other families. But like
they were neighbors, co workers, Boston employee, they were, they
were husbands and wives, they intermarried, you know, I mean
(06:15):
like they were they were living together for decades. I
think the two um that originally settled at Tug Fork
were the actual parents of the two main protagonists or antagonists.
I guess they were both. Yeah, they were both pro
and and so they the the story. Our story really
(06:36):
kind of begins round about the Civil War. UM this
area of the Tug River Valley was mostly Confederate, and
both the Hatfield and the McCoy's were Confederate sympathizers, if
not outright Confederate soldiers. UM the antagonist or protagonists the
patriarch of the Hatfield family when the story begins, his
(06:57):
name was devil Ants Hatfield, right, Yeah, that was his nickname.
His real name was William Anderson Hatfield. But devil as
what a cool name. Yeah, and I saw a couple
of different explanations for where his nickname came from. But
my favorite one was that his mother said he was
so mean, the devil himself was scared of him. Yeah.
I saw one that said he was six ft of
(07:18):
devil in a hundred and eighty pounds of hell. They
had stupid sayings back then. Yeah, that was. It didn't
quite that up, especially in the backwoods of Kentucky and
West Virginia. You know, they just said stuff. They just
made up names as as we'll see throughout this whole episode.
But um, devil ants himself was a he was from
(07:38):
what I saw. He was described as somebody who took
life by the horns, right. He was very much a
self made man. Um. He got he became a pretty
wealthy timber merchant over the years. But he was, um,
he was a violent man. Uh. And he was a well,
he had some violent tendencies for sure. Yeah. And um,
(08:00):
you know, if you want to trace back the reason
for the Hatfield McCoy feud, there isn't I think from
everything I read, there isn't like one single thing. It's
often blamed on the pig deal, which we'll hear about
coming up. That seems to be the one that historians
point to the most these days, though. Yeah, but it's
sort of a convenient way of telling the story, because like,
what what better way to kick off a feud than
(08:21):
like with the stolen pig? Right it. Definitely there were
other problems or issues between these families before then, right yeah.
But the point is there are a lot of different
things going on, and one of them was, like you said,
was um devil Ants made a lot more money than
McCoy as as a timber guy. So on the other
side of the river, in the Kentucky side Pike County, Kentucky,
(08:43):
there were the McCoy's, and at the time that devil
Ants was the patriarch of the Hatfield clan, a man
named Randall McCoy Old Randal Uh was the head of
the McCoy clan across the river in Kentucky, Right Yeah.
I just get the sense that he had his sort
of smaller business and was always a little bit envious
(09:04):
of the larger timber business across very much. So he
was um the way that I saw him described was
um if devil Ants as a man who took life
by the horns. Old Randal was somebody who got hooked
by life's horns, and he was very bitter about his
lot in life. His father, Um I saw, was described
(09:27):
as didn't much care for work. Um didn't leave, didn't
leave his kids anything. So his son had to be
a self made man. But he was a self made
man who never really made himself. He married a woman
named Sarah, and Sarah's father died and left them some land,
and he was able to homestead on that. So that's
(09:47):
how he was able to establish himself was through his
wife's inheritance of her father's land. Um, but it was
enough to set him up. They were fine. They weren't prosperous,
but they weren't like just pletely poverty stricken like Randall
had grown up. But just across the river and and
this other family that he had to deal with and
(10:07):
work with, um and and just kind of see and
interact with, was a man who he you know, had
made himself. And and definitely Randall was bitter about that
idea and the comparison between himself and Devil Lance. Yeah,
and I think um some of the McCoy's even worked
for some of the hat Fields, which is always gonna
be a little tense when you feel like maybe that
(10:29):
feeling of superiority comes over one family because you're working
for me, you know. Yeah, So there's definitely like you're saying, tention, right,
and and you can point to maybe these guys coming
into their own as the heads of the family when
the tension really started. For many years, historians pointed to
a specific incident as the source of the family feud um,
(10:53):
but that's since been abandoned. So, like we said, the
Civil War is about the time when this story really
starts and earn and most of the Tug River Valley
was Confederate. Devil Lance and possibly Randall McCoy were part
of what we're called the Logan Wildcats, which was a militia,
but during the Civil War they were an actual like
(11:14):
army unit of the Confederate Army. Yeah, and that's all
where Devil Rance was even the leader in one place.
But I didn't get that verified a bunch either, So
so very least was in the brigade right, And I
got the impression that if he wasn't a leader, he
was a de facto leader because that was just this
type of personality Devil Lance. Don't answer to nobody, right,
(11:34):
you answer to him. That's right. That was a great
devil dance, by the way. So I think the leader
of the Logan Wildcats is another character who will come
up later. And his name is Um Jim Vance, So
Jim Vance. Um. He was not a very great guy
from what I can understand. But I'll let him paint
his own picture, Okay, I was he coming in? He
(11:56):
will in a little bit. Instead, we're gonna focus on
a guy named Asa Harmon McCoy. And this guy I
don't have a beat on. He decided in in just
complete contrast of the place where he grew up. Um,
he was going to join the Yankee Union Army. Yeah,
and he did, Yeah, but he broke his leg and
(12:17):
h left the service after I think a year. While
he was in service, his um commanding officer in the
Union Army ordered him to fight devil ants because there
was rumors that he was a Confederate spy. So Harmon
fights devil ants, loses the fight. And I didn't get
a sense on what kind of fight it was, whether
(12:37):
it was like a gun battle or whether he literally
just like spit on his boot and like took a swing.
I'm not sure. I don't know that if if that
was even in the mini series. Um So they getting
a fight, he loses, and then uh, then the Union
troops went after devil Ants at that point, which is
really what cost a lot of the early issues. Uh.
(13:00):
And then later on Harmon shot a friend of Devil
Rance while stealing his horse, so in turn he killed
Harmon's commanding officer in the Union Army. Okay, there's a
lot of bad blood. The guy was like literally General
Bill France was peeing off his porch like I do,
and Devils shot him in cold blood. I hope, I
(13:21):
hope that does not happen to you. That really hopes
it would be a bad way to go. Gives you pause,
you know. So, um the after the war, after um
Asa Harmon McCoy uh came back home. I did not
realize the tensions were already that high. I had the
impression that was just because he fought for the Union.
I didn't know he had been made to directly target
(13:44):
Devil Lance right well, Devil Rants and the Logan Wildcats
basically sent as a message saying watch yourself, because we're
coming for you. And he very wisely went off and
lived in a cave for a while. He hit out,
And so with this guy, you're like, why did he
go far for the Union? Was he an abolitionist? No,
he had a slave, and the slave kept him alive
(14:05):
by bringing him food and stuff while he was in
the cave. So I have no idea why he went
and fought for the Union. It's the fact that he did, though,
meant that his own relatives, his own McCoy is, including Randall,
his brother. Um, really, we're just kind of like, Yeah,
the Logan Wildcats are out to get you, and you
brought the sign yourself, so we don't really feel for you.
(14:25):
And they didn't apparently make much of a problem or
much they didn't take issue with it. When the Logan
Wildcats attract him down to the cave and killed him. Well,
he was actually coming home when they killed him, wasn't
I think he finally thought like, surely, after all this time,
they've forgotten about this trogolobe bite trocolodyte. Yeah, so he
(14:48):
was walking home to see his family that he hadn't
seen in years and Jim Vance shot him. That's how
long he was in the cave. Well, that might have
been part of the war a few years. Man alive
so well, actually Man debt Asa Harmon, Uh McCoy is
killed by the Logan Wildcats, and apparently at first everybody
thought it was Devil Answer did it, but he turned
(15:09):
out to have been bedridden at the time, so we
had an alibi, and they think instead that it was
Jim Vance who led it and probably killed Asa doing
his Devil's uncle okay um and strong ally Jim Vance
was so uh Asa Harmon is dead. The first shot
has been fired in the family feud, so thought the
historians for years, and then I guess after interviewing actual
(15:31):
hat Fields and McCoy's, they realized that no, actually the
McCoy's were like, he brought it on himself. That's that's
we made peace with this. And no charges were even
brought in the murder of Asa McCoy. Yeah. I saw
one article that described it as a murder agreement, which
apparently used to have that like blood in, blood out,
(15:51):
and everyone's like, all right, even Stephen okay, so done
and the the first death has occurred in the hat
Field McCoy feud, but it had has nothing to do
with the hat Field McCoy feud. Technically, yes, that seems
like a pretty good time to take a break, don't
you agreed, sir, So Chuck, we're back and asa harm instead.
(16:30):
Things are whatever between the hat Fields and mccois. Nothing,
nothing big has gone on, even if there were any
sort of skirmishes or little fights or run ins or
that kind of thing. I get the impression that the
families when they saw each other, there was like a
a slight percentage that the sides were going to get
in at least a fist fight, not take like pot
(16:52):
shots or another with their guns. I just think they
probably just didn't like each other very much from the beginning,
so it's possible those things went on. Nothing big happened though,
until the pig the pig incident, and apparently it wasn't
just one pig, that's what it's been boiled down to,
but it was several. Yeah, and it was a big
deal if you think about a pig. Stealing a pig
(17:13):
is not a big deal at the time. There's a
book called The Feud by Dinking Din King. Dean King
thinking said it's so weird, Dean King, and he said, uh,
where was their next meal going? To come from, and
how could they feed the children in the winter. They
were lucky enough to have one pig or razorback for
(17:36):
cell or trade. The proceeds were used to acquire flour, sugar, coffee,
sometimes shoes or boots for their families. It was a
mainstay for the family. So these days you hear a
pig or even a couple of pigs, and you think,
what's a big deal. But in the region at the time,
these these pigs were very valuable, so it was a
big deal, right. I saw am and in the front
(17:57):
I saw a dude on well, yeah, and that was
another thing. In we're talking about backwoods Appalachian folk in
the nineteenth century, there was a lot to the idea
that you had stolen their property, which as it should be.
But even that aside. I saw this historian on Um
a CBS Sunday Morning clip from a few years ago,
(18:17):
and he explained, like, you can feed a sizeable family
for a month with a single pig. And this guy
stole several pigs. So the guy who was accused of
stealing the pig was um. Who was it, Chuck Randolph
McCoy accused Floyd Hatfield. Okay, right, So um Old Randall
(18:37):
himself said, Floyd Hatfield, cousin of devil Ance, I know
that you stole those pigs, and I'm taking you to court. Well,
they went to court. The problem is the local magistrate
was a hat Field. But in this guy's favor, his
name was a preacher. It was his first name, I believe,
and he was basically the what amounted to the local
(18:58):
judge in the tug River Valley. He he tried to
make it a fair trial. Is he the one that
placed it in McCoy land because the trial took place
in McCoy territory asided by a hat Field though, right,
And he made sure that the jury had six hat
Fields and six McCoy's on it. He did and nobody else,
(19:18):
no joke, yes, Wed, But he was trying to make
it as fair as possible, right, um. And so they
had a trial where Floyd Hatfield was tried for hog theft.
Have you ever had something stolen from you, like, you know,
not hugely valuable, but yeah, it's It's one of the
(19:38):
things that irks me most. It's very irritating. There's something
about like just someone taking something that you worked to
buy that just really boils my blood. Now, imagine if
they took that thing that you worked to buy, and
they were directly taking food out of your child's mouth
at the same time. It makes you mad. I'd pull
(19:59):
a hat Field. The weird thing is is that the
McCoy's and the half is at this point are saying,
we will let the we will leave it to the courts. Right,
So they did go to court. They did try to
have a fair trial. Um, or at least the preacher did.
Preacher Hatfield, preacher judge right. UM's confusing, and the the
(20:19):
jury was split except for one who was a McCoy
who sided with the hat Fields. His name was Selkirk
McCoy another made up name, and selkirk Um. He voted
that because of a guy named Bill Staton, who had
testified that Floyd had not stolen the pigs. Um. He said,
you know what, I'm not going to contradict Bill Staton.
(20:41):
I know him to be truthful or whatever. Plus I
work for Devil Anson his logging operation. So I'm gonna
vote pro hat Field and exonerate Floyd. And Floyd got
off and Old Randall went nuts. Staton was the main
witness and he was a relative of the McCoy's, but
he was married to a hat Field. So um, and
(21:03):
while they did intermarry, I saw that there was way
more marrying within the family to avoid intermarrying. Oh yeah,
there was a lot of first cousins that were when
you watch that Family Feud clip, you can go find
it on I'm sure on YouTube, but there was a
mental flass article that we found that had it embedded
at the bottom. That's where I first heard about it.
(21:23):
The that when they're introducing the families, they keep introducing
one another is like kissing cousins. This is a kissing cousin, Diane,
and like the families are saying that nine. So yeah,
there was a lot of like inter marriage within the
family itself. Well, they were probably just joking, right, No, no,
on Family Feud, you don't think the guy didn't sound
(21:46):
like he was joking. Did he kiss his cousin on TV? No?
But Richard Dawson kissed her. That guy kissed any woman
who would stand still long enough. What a flirt? Well,
Richard Dawson, So yeah, alright, Pete. Yeah, he didn't change
his name even though he was British. Uh, well, you
(22:06):
don't know that that's true. Could have been Richard Dimpsum
or Chumley Dawson. That's a great name. So so uh,
Old Randall has just lost this court case, and even worse,
he was made to pay the hat Fields court costs
for taking him the court. And remember we characterized Old
(22:29):
Randall as a kind of a bitter man. Anytime life
handed him lemons, he just squeezed him into his eyes
to anger, right um. And he went on for this
for basically years about how this is a miscarriage of justice,
how Floyd had stolen his hogs. And so now any
time hat Fields h McCoy's um, depending on their allegiance
(22:52):
to the clan or clans um, anytime they saw each other,
they were shooting at one another, they were getting into fights,
they were thrown in rocks. Like one of um, one
of devil Ant's sons was standing there when Old Randall
rode up once and Old Randall started railing on him
about how Floyd had stolen a hog, and the McCoys
(23:12):
or the Hatfield sun grabbed rock and just threw it
at Old Randall's mouth, just crushed his mouth of the rock,
because that's what you did back then yeah, that was
sort of like you killed my brother Harmon, but you
stole my hog. You know, I'm cool with the brother
killing the Harmon had it coming, right, but that hog
never hurt anybody. Yeah, we were gonna eat it. Uh
(23:32):
So did we cover the fact that Staton two years
later was killed. This is inaccurate? Is that not true?
Bill Staton Jr. Was Kilton, Bill Sr. Was not killed
in this skirmish. This is another big retribution though. Okay
for his pause. Yeah, because remember after the hog incident
in the hog verdict, the the half fields in McCoys
(23:56):
did not fight it out right then at the at
the magistrates office, at Judge Peacher's place. Um, but at
any time the clan saw one another, they would shoot
at each other. They would getting fights, they would take
rocks to the faces. And then it culminated finally in
this really truly violent incident between Bill State and Junr
(24:18):
and uh Paris and Sam McCoy. Right. Okay, so Bill
State and Junior is out hunting, sees these McCoy's sons
and says, well, I'm in a world of trouble. I
better take a shot at one of them, and shoots
Paris McCoy and the hip, and Sam McCoy was like,
you shot my brother, You're going down, And he shoots
(24:41):
Bill and wounds him and then goes over and executes
him point blank in the head. And this is Bill Junior,
Bill Junior. See, I got another article that said it
was Bill, but it also said he's Bill Stanton. So
I'm starting to doubt all kinds of accuracy. There's a
lot of inaccurate stuff. So I got um, I think
the description to that incident from a really great book
(25:02):
by a guy named John ed Pierce. It's Days of
Darkness Colon, So you know it's legitimate, the feuds of
Eastern Kentucky. Yeah, so there's been like serious blood shed here.
Now one of the this and this is direct retribution
for the hog stealing verdict. A man has been executed
point blank in the head, and the two McCoy boys
(25:25):
just tried to get away with it. Yeah, so blood
is spilling. Uh fast forward a bit to two and
h three of Randall's sons are attacked, stabbed twenty six times,
and shot Ellison Hatfield, who was Devil's younger brother, to death, right,
And that was on election day and election days were
(25:46):
like drunken affairs. Do you remember when I think in
the Bars episode we talked about how like what was
it um get people drunk? Yeah, bumbo planting, the buying
the plants with bumby, the voters with bumbo. Yeah, man,
But it was election day, so everybody would get super drunk.
(26:07):
And when you get two claims that don't like each
other super drunk in the same place, they get in
fights and people get stabbed twenty six times and then
shot in the back. Yeah. So those three sons of
Randall were actually arrested and we're presumably going to go
to trial, but vigilanteism took hold and they were kidnapped
(26:28):
on the way to the trial by the hat Fields
and they said, we're gonna take care of this our way. Yeah,
and they like, I don't know if they let them
get away with it, but they got away with it. No,
they did not let them get away with it. This
was a huge turning point, right um. When the hat
Field or the McCoy boys were intercepted by the hat
Fields and taken across the river to West Virginia, which
(26:49):
is basically like taking them to Fortress hat Field Country,
justice was gonna happen. Yeah, but Devlance vowed that if
Ellison made it and didn't die, he would not kill
these Hatfield or these McCoy boys. Um, but Allison succumbed
to his wounds and did die. And so they took
these McCoy boys out and tied them to trees and
(27:10):
shot him I think more than fifty times or something
like that. And so you were saying, like they got
away with it not for lack of trying, right, It
basically set off this huge, huge issue like this was
even for the Tug River Valley. Chuck, this is pretty
flagrant frontier justice. You're not supposed to do this. There's
(27:32):
a magistrate named Preacher who's supposed to settle this kind
of stuff. Right, So a guy named, uh, Perry, what
was Perry's name, Perry Klein? You know what this is.
This is too big. We need to take a break,
all right and get to the story of Perry Kline. Okay,
(28:08):
so we're back, chucking. We have a new guest. His
name is Perry Klein. Come on in, Perry, you're an attorney. Uh.
He was married to Martha McCoy And here's the deal. Uh,
years before there was a situation where Perry Klein was
cheated out of I think five thousand acres of land.
(28:29):
Was he cheated? I didn't know if he if it
was actual like justice, because he had supposedly been cutting
timber from uh, Devilance's timber land. Well, here's the deal.
Everything you read will say it depends on who you
sympathize with, is how you think Perry Klein and really
all of them were viewed. So I read articles that
(28:51):
said that he was cheated, in articles that said he
wasn't cheated. Uh. And I think the family is still
today like while there is a piece which we'll get to. Um,
they still disagree over Perry Klin's role. Okay, So, but
Perry Klin was married to a McCoy. Actually he's a
harmon McCoy's widow, right Martha, and so, um, he had
(29:12):
lost five thousand acres really, that's how much he was
forced by the court to seed to Devilands for allegedly
cutting his timberland. Yeah, so he was he had a
he had a retribution in mind as an attorney. Right.
So when the hat Fields executed the McCoy, the three
McCoy boys, Um, Perry Klein used it as a chance,
(29:35):
depending on how you look at it, either used it
as a chance for retribution or his family allegiance was
stirred up, and he, being an attorney, had contacts with
the governor, Governor Bunker I believe, of Kentucky, and said, Governor,
there's some horrible stuff going on down here that's being
perpetrated by some West Virginians against some law abiding Kentuckians,
(29:56):
and you guys need to do something about it. And
it worked, actually, yeah, they reinstated the charges and Um
basically put out awards on the head, bounties on the head,
arrest bounties, that is of the hat fields, including uh
six ft of devil and pounds of hell. Himself, his sons,
some of the Um family allies, like his uncle Jim Vance.
(30:20):
I think there were. There was twenty twenty men who
had indictments against them. And since they had indictments against
them and they were hanging out in West Virginia, they
had bounties on their head. And one of the bounty hunters,
the main bounty hunter who came around it was it
was a problem that they had bounties on their head,
because any crackpot who wanted to could come and take
(30:41):
shots at those guys, and and it was happening quite
a bit. Yeah, they wanted to collect some dough, right.
But there's one guy in particular who was a real
thorn in their side. His name was Mad Frank Phillips.
And Frank Phillips was a bounty hunter extraordinaire. He was
about as legally gray as you can get and still
(31:01):
not be uh, just on the darker side of the spectrum.
And he made it basically his personal war to get
as many hat Fields across the river into Kentucky as
he could. So he would carry out raids on the
hat Field stronghold in West Virginia, UM and basically just
abduct hat Fields bring him to Kentucky so that they
(31:25):
could be put in the Pike County jail. And while
he did this, he was also executing people left and right,
like Jim Vance. He shot and wounded saw that he
just wounded him, walked around from behind and um, while
Vance was begging for his life, shot him in the
head and like this is Frank Phillips. M Oh, he
would execute you just as soon as he would capture you. Yeah,
(31:45):
And this was uh, this was becoming a big deal
in the press at this point, UH newspaper started carrying
the stories and became UH by all accounts like national
news uh and legend like it was everyone knew about
the hat Fields and MCA was by this point right
and the press apparently very much sided with the McCoy's.
They painted the hat Fields to seem like backwoods, murderous
(32:09):
rednecks who just caused trouble everywhere they went, and painted
the McCoy's is innocent, law abiding victims of of this um,
this whole feud um and the whole legend, like you're saying,
like this is all it all begins about right here,
when when there was what amounts to almost a war
between Kentucky and West Virginia because Frank Phillips kept going
(32:31):
and getting people and bringing them back to Pike County
and West Virginia got involved, and the two governors were
basically standing toe to toe, almost about to go invade,
sending National Guard troops in across the border. Um, but
instead they left in the courts and actually this court
case about whether it was legal or not for Frank
(32:53):
Phillips to have abducted the hat Fields and taken them
to the Kentucky jail. Um reached the Preme Court actually,
which is pretty amazing. It is in the Supreme Court said,
you know what, Uh, it probably is illegal what happened,
but Kentucky's a sovereign state and there's really nothing West
Virginia can do about it, so go ahead and try them.
(33:15):
But before the trial, actually, and while the um these
abductions were going on, these raids carried out by Frank Phillips,
the hat Fields, like I said, like it was a
big deal of them that they were bounty hunters out
to get them, and they came up with a plan
to just end the whole thing. Yea, in a murderous
killing spree is what they came up with. Uh. In January,
(33:36):
group of hat Fields said we're gonna attack Randolph McCoy
and his entire family, uh cap little Cappy devil ants,
his son uh and an ally to Jim Vance kind
of led the way and they ambushed them at their
home on New Year's Day. Randolph actually escaped, which is uh,
they were kind of coming after him and he's the
only one who escaped. Well, they were coming after the
(33:58):
whole family. Like there the whole intention was to just
murder this whole family of the problem. Yeah, and Randolph
was the key guy. He actually got away. His son, Calvin,
daughter Ala Fair were killed, uh and what they called crossfire,
but they were you know, let's get real. And his
wife Sarah was suffered to crutch skull. She was beating
so badly. Yeah, so Alice, they set the house on fire.
(34:21):
Alafair opened the door to put the fire out and
she was shot and killed. And then um, her mom,
Sarah wanted to come and like comfort or dying daughter,
and when she came out, they beat her head in
with the butt of a pistol I think cap Hatfield did.
And then um, Calvin provided cover for his dad and
(34:43):
ran to attract their gunfire so his dad could get away,
and it worked, but Calvin died as a result. And
then two other daughters had McCoy daughters survived, So Randall
and two daughters survived this attack on his family. And
this was when it was like if the press wasn't
paying attention before and now they really were. And um,
(35:04):
basically everybody was outraged at this. And it's like this legend,
Chuck is a hundred something years old right, And it's
easy to kind of see these people as caricatures or um,
you know, just historic. But when you think about what
the hat Fields planned to do and tried to do
to the McCoy's in that case on New Year's nineteen eighty,
(35:26):
the New Year's massacres, what was known as that's like
objectively despicable no matter when you when you when it happened,
going after an entire family to kill them, Yeah, to
wipe out a legal entailment, you know, um it is
and it really kind of um brings home like the
actual humanity of all of this, you know. Yeah. So
it went all the way to the Supreme Court and
(35:47):
they decided, you know what, these hat Fields should be tried. Uh.
In in eighteen eighty nine, they were tried, and eight
of the hat Fields, uh and their supporters were since
the life in prison and one Ellison Mounts, who uh
people think is the son of Ellison Hatfield and his
first cousin. Yeah, it was actually sentenced to death. And uh,
(36:08):
the one issue here was a lot of people now
think he was a kind of a scapegoat because he
was mentally challenged and uh, maybe an early false confession
happened right exactly, and he actually, um, really his was
if he didn't do it, or even if he did,
he really got screwed over by the prosecution. They said that, um,
if he confessed and and and cooperated, that he would
(36:32):
get a lighter sentence, when really he was the only
one who confessed and he was the only one who
was hanged. So um, and his dying words I think
were the hat Fields made me do it, and then
they hung him. Yeah, And there were no public executions
at the time, but that did not stop hundreds of people,
thousands even from coming out and watching anyway. Right, so
(36:52):
it was a public execution and with the what's odd though,
is the uh so ten ten men had been captured
by Frank Phillips and had been a dieted and tried,
and nine of them got life in prison. Ellison Mounts
was was hung and this was apparently enough to um,
I guess, mollify Randall McCoy. At first I think he
(37:14):
tried to like rail against the verdict, but ultimately it
was enough to just calm him down and he went
and lived a quiet life, quiet haunted life as a
ferry operator, I think, and lived to like a yeah,
and about a year later. Uh, it was when the
families both said enough is enough, let's call a truce.
(37:35):
And uh. From I think it was an eleven year period,
almost twenty four people were killed in both families, like
close to two dozen folks over eleven year period. That's legit. Yeah,
that's a that's a family feud right there. That's a
big feud. And devl Ance lived to a ripe old
age two. He lived to uh, I think eighty three
or something like that. That's old. Well, he was born
(37:57):
again at seventy three. I think he lived into his
a real and but he he was paranoid for the
rest of his life because I think there was still
bounties on his head. So he moved to an island
and carried a rifle with him at all times for
the rest of his life. Well, if you look at
pictures of the families, they all had their guns. I mean,
that's what you did back then. But it's it's funny
(38:19):
to see a picture of like twenty people in you know,
twelve of them are brandishing weapons. That's right, you know,
in the in the one photo that will ever be
taken of them, they've got their gun out too. Uh
So since then they've been all over the place in
pop culture. We mentioned family Feud, there was an abbot
in Costello movie. In two Buster Keaton did a movie too.
(38:41):
Oh really, I feel McCoy he was on not Looney Tunes,
excuse me, Mary Melodies, big distinction, but still bugs bunny um. Nowadays,
there are even some medical professionals who think that there
was a condition that the McCoy's had that led them
to be violent. What it's called duh von Hippel Lindau disease.
(39:04):
And these geneticists study dozens of McCoy descendants and said
they have a really high rate of this disease. It's inherited,
it's rare, produces tumors in the eyes, ears, and pancreas.
Uh And a notable side effect is high blood pressure,
racing heartbeat, and increased um aggressive behavior, increase fight or
flight hormones. And it was the McCoy's that may have
(39:26):
had that, because from everything I've read, it seemed like
the hat Fields would have been the one to have that. Wow,
maybe I'm a victim of contemporary press bias, media bias.
Anything else? I got nothing else? There's other stuff. There's
plenty of stuff that I'm sure we didn't hit. And
you should go read some of the cool books written
(39:47):
about this stuff. I got one more thing, actually, here
comes World War two. Life magazine used the families as
a way to unite America's war effort by featuring them
in a big photo spread. The hat Fields of McCoy's
like working together in factories for World War two. Yeah,
and they I think they even met recently in like
(40:08):
they're they're still out there and they're still meeting and
talking about this and uh disagreeing friendly disagreements on people
like Perry Klein and uh, he was the other guy,
Mad Mad Month, Mad Frank Phillips, Mad Frank Phillips who
remember I said he was legally gray. He married uh
a McCoy who ended up who had had a baby
(40:29):
with John C. Hatfield. Um, they ran off together and
got married Frank Phillips and Nancy McCoy and ended up
being prosperous bootleggers in the region. Well, and there was
also a spurned romance too that led to tentions. I
forgot about that. Yeah, Roseanna, Rosanna McCoy and John C. Hatfield. Yeah,
they had a little trist and a child together, but
(40:51):
the child died I think, aged eight months from measles.
But he kicked her to the curb before that and
then went and married her cousin Nancy, although there were
no curb spec and he kicked her to the river
bank to the creekside. Yeah again, we could probably keep
doing this for another forty five minutes, but we're not.
If you want to know more about hat fills and
McCoy's ghost, searching in your favorite search engine. Since I
(41:14):
said search engine, it's time for a listener mail. I'm
gonna call this just a nice little email of things.
I'm a nice person, Okay, Hi, justin Chuck and Jerry.
I'm a young thirty something who lives in Berwin, Illinois.
I just recently started listening to podcasts and came across
how Stuff Works and you, guys, I'm a nerd at heart.
(41:36):
In your podcast feeds my inner beast. I listened to
you on my way to work on a train at
uh something like Dr seuss Um at work again, and
then on my way home from work. I'm so addicted
to learning new things. Scrolling through the feed is exhilarating
because I'm dying to listen to them all. Jennifer, there's
I'm not sure if you know this. If you follow
(41:57):
us on iTunes, you might think they're only three hundred,
but they were more more than right. Yeah, and that's
for all of you out there, and you can find
those at our website. Back to Jennifer, I've told all
my friends about the podcast. I even make my husband
listen while we're cooking. I can't get enough of all
the cool topics you talk about. And since I listen
(42:18):
to you every day, I thought, you know what, I'm
gonna send an email and hopes that it is read
on the air, and if not, at least you know
you have another dedicated listener. Thanks for spreading knowledge, and
that is Jennifer Hardy and Jennifer. Sometimes when I get
there to read things on the air, I do it.
It works every time and not every time. Flattery will
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(42:38):
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(43:02):
and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com.
Chuck, let's go over the Stuff You Should Know concert calendar.
My friend, we are hitting the road for the Spring
Has Sprung Tour. We're gonna be at the Neptune Theater
and Lovely Seattle, Washington on April eighth, my friend, the
next day, we're gonna head south to Portland, Oregon, Revolution
Hall April night, We're going to Houston, Texas, my friend,
Warehouse Live on Memorial Day weekend, and finally finishing up Denver,
(00:26):
Colorado at the Gothic Theater on May twenty night. Two
more dates coming. Yeah, keep your ears out and in
the meantime, if you want to get tickets, you can
go to s y s K live dot com powered
by squares space and we'll see you guys on the road.
See how in Portland you're selling out fast, Get on it.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
(00:46):
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast on Josh Clark,
Charles W Chuck. Brian is staring at me right now.
It's making me a town uncomfortable. Jerry's over there. I
can feel her eyes burning into the side of my head.
So was the Stuff you Should Know? Who would you
like me to look, but uh in my ear. Oh
(01:10):
that's always so weird. Try someone's like, looking, are you
doing it right now? Like right at your hair? Really? Yeah? Interesting?
Try my other ear. Oh yeah, that's that's the stuff
the right. Sorry that your left. That's my left, all right?
I remember that. Look watch this, Chuck, after seven years,
can you see that I can wiggle ears independently? Try
(01:33):
to give me crazy? So you said, around and do it?
Probably try not like a good husband, um, chuck. Yes,
we have a bit of an announcement here. Yeah, what
we just heard? Yes, yeah, we're in the room with
either a hat Field or McCoy. Jerry doesn't know which
family she's related to. She just knows that she's related
(01:54):
to one of them. Yeah, like literally, right before we
press records, she's like, oh, by the way, I'm related
to one of these families. I'm just not sure which.
And a family member told her, but she cousin Tyler
was that? Who was? I don't know. I think that's
what she said, cousin. I get the impression from Jerry's
story though, that she's sort of like glazed over and
(02:15):
that's why she doesn't know. But she does carry a
six shooter on her hip and that explains that this
is McCoy on the barrel. So maybe right, But does
that mean that it's a bullet from the McCoys or
for the McCoy's good monistry remains, you know, good point.
So we are talking about the hat Fields in the McCoy's.
For those of you who don't live in the United States,
(02:35):
you probably have heard of the hat Fields in the McCoy's.
It's a pretty legendary feud. Yeah, right, we've heard of
some of your history UK Australia, Matthew Flinders, there's a
name drop for you. Yeah, so hopefully you've heard of
the hat Fields in the McCoy's. Yeah, I mean there was,
if nothing else, there was a big mini series a
few years ago on television, Yeah, with Kevin Costner and
(02:58):
Bill Paxton, and really it was really dramatized. Yeah, like
it isn't fictionalized. Yea cinematized and yeah, a little not
quite fully accurate, but at least at least they brought
attention to the feud because it needs agreed. So, the
(03:18):
hat Fields in McCoy's um is a family feud, so
much so that in nine the hat Fields and the
McCoy's were on the TV show Family Feud, apparently for
a full week from what I saw, and I read that.
Legend has it that it didn't actually inspired the TV show,
(03:39):
but I didn't get good verification on that. Now and
there there have been other family feuds, right, but none
are as famous as the hat Fields in the McCoys,
although at the time there were more famous family feuds,
but the hat Fields in McCoys just took it to
another level because all of the murder. Yeah, there there
was a lot of murder. It was mountain foe versus
(04:00):
mountain folks, families that had been intermarried and worked for
one another, and um had lived together for decades, if
not longer, alongside in this little area along the Sandy River,
I believe, the Big Sandy River, in something that's called
the Tug River Valley, and on one side mostly the
(04:22):
hat Fields lived on the West Virginia side in Logan County,
and right across the river on the other side in Kentucky,
the McCoy's lived in Pike County. And that's how it
was for days gone by. Yeah, and they they were
not new to the United States, so I guess it
wasn't the United States then, was it? Yeah, we were
(04:45):
talking about the fifties seventies. I was way off then.
But they came to America many many years before that. Um.
Apparently the hat Fields were some of the very first
to come to uh the New World. Uh from northern England,
and the McCoy's are obviously from Germany. Well the hat
Fields were originally the heath Fields in England. That sounds
(05:07):
way more British. Yeah, but you know how you do.
You come over to America and you you dumb it
down a little. I know Heath Ledger changed his name
to hat Ledger when he got here, didn't they all? Right?
P uh? And the McCoy has come from Scotland, of
course you can probably figure that out. Moved to Ireland
before they came to the New World. And the first
(05:29):
known McCoy was John McCoy in America. When was that, uh,
seventeen thirty two from Belfast, Ireland. So did they move
directly to the Tug River area? Is that where they settled? Now?
The McCoy's first settled in Maryland, where he was a
prominent landowner, and I think the Hatfield's first moved to
Tug Valley in eighteen twenty and the McCoy's uh in
(05:53):
eighteen o two with their twelve kids. So they've been like, really,
these families had grown up living in and working with
each other. It was not just these two families in
the area. There are plenty of other families. But like
they were neighbors, co workers, Boston employee, they were, they
were husbands and wives, they intermarried, you know, I mean
(06:15):
like they were they were living together for decades. I
think the two um that originally settled at Tug Fork
were the actual parents of the two main protagonists or antagonists.
I guess they were both. Yeah, they were both pro
and and so they the the story. Our story really
(06:36):
kind of begins round about the Civil War. UM this
area of the Tug River Valley was mostly Confederate, and
both the Hatfield and the McCoy's were Confederate sympathizers, if
not outright Confederate soldiers. UM the antagonist or protagonists the
patriarch of the Hatfield family when the story begins, his
(06:57):
name was devil Ants Hatfield, right, Yeah, that was his nickname.
His real name was William Anderson Hatfield. But devil as
what a cool name. Yeah, and I saw a couple
of different explanations for where his nickname came from. But
my favorite one was that his mother said he was
so mean, the devil himself was scared of him. Yeah.
I saw one that said he was six ft of
(07:18):
devil in a hundred and eighty pounds of hell. They
had stupid sayings back then. Yeah, that was. It didn't
quite that up, especially in the backwoods of Kentucky and
West Virginia. You know, they just said stuff. They just
made up names as as we'll see throughout this whole episode.
But um, devil ants himself was a he was from
(07:38):
what I saw. He was described as somebody who took
life by the horns, right. He was very much a
self made man. Um. He got he became a pretty
wealthy timber merchant over the years. But he was, um,
he was a violent man. Uh. And he was a well,
he had some violent tendencies for sure. Yeah. And um,
(08:00):
you know, if you want to trace back the reason
for the Hatfield McCoy feud, there isn't I think from
everything I read, there isn't like one single thing. It's
often blamed on the pig deal, which we'll hear about
coming up. That seems to be the one that historians
point to the most these days, though. Yeah, but it's
sort of a convenient way of telling the story, because like,
what what better way to kick off a feud than
(08:21):
like with the stolen pig? Right it. Definitely there were
other problems or issues between these families before then, right yeah.
But the point is there are a lot of different
things going on, and one of them was, like you said,
was um devil Ants made a lot more money than
McCoy as as a timber guy. So on the other
side of the river, in the Kentucky side Pike County, Kentucky,
(08:43):
there were the McCoy's, and at the time that devil
Ants was the patriarch of the Hatfield clan, a man
named Randall McCoy Old Randal Uh was the head of
the McCoy clan across the river in Kentucky, Right Yeah.
I just get the sense that he had his sort
of smaller business and was always a little bit envious
(09:04):
of the larger timber business across very much. So he
was um the way that I saw him described was
um if devil Ants as a man who took life
by the horns. Old Randal was somebody who got hooked
by life's horns, and he was very bitter about his
lot in life. His father, Um I saw, was described
(09:27):
as didn't much care for work. Um didn't leave, didn't
leave his kids anything. So his son had to be
a self made man. But he was a self made
man who never really made himself. He married a woman
named Sarah, and Sarah's father died and left them some land,
and he was able to homestead on that. So that's
(09:47):
how he was able to establish himself was through his
wife's inheritance of her father's land. Um, but it was
enough to set him up. They were fine. They weren't prosperous,
but they weren't like just pletely poverty stricken like Randall
had grown up. But just across the river and and
this other family that he had to deal with and
(10:07):
work with, um and and just kind of see and
interact with, was a man who he you know, had
made himself. And and definitely Randall was bitter about that
idea and the comparison between himself and Devil Lance. Yeah,
and I think um some of the McCoy's even worked
for some of the hat Fields, which is always gonna
be a little tense when you feel like maybe that
(10:29):
feeling of superiority comes over one family because you're working
for me, you know. Yeah, So there's definitely like you're saying, tention, right,
and and you can point to maybe these guys coming
into their own as the heads of the family when
the tension really started. For many years, historians pointed to
a specific incident as the source of the family feud um,
(10:53):
but that's since been abandoned. So, like we said, the
Civil War is about the time when this story really
starts and earn and most of the Tug River Valley
was Confederate. Devil Lance and possibly Randall McCoy were part
of what we're called the Logan Wildcats, which was a militia,
but during the Civil War they were an actual like
(11:14):
army unit of the Confederate Army. Yeah, and that's all
where Devil Rance was even the leader in one place.
But I didn't get that verified a bunch either, So
so very least was in the brigade right, And I
got the impression that if he wasn't a leader, he
was a de facto leader because that was just this
type of personality Devil Lance. Don't answer to nobody, right,
(11:34):
you answer to him. That's right. That was a great
devil dance, by the way. So I think the leader
of the Logan Wildcats is another character who will come
up later. And his name is Um Jim Vance, So
Jim Vance. Um. He was not a very great guy
from what I can understand. But I'll let him paint
his own picture, Okay, I was he coming in? He
(11:56):
will in a little bit. Instead, we're gonna focus on
a guy named Asa Harmon McCoy. And this guy I
don't have a beat on. He decided in in just
complete contrast of the place where he grew up. Um,
he was going to join the Yankee Union Army. Yeah,
and he did, Yeah, but he broke his leg and
(12:17):
h left the service after I think a year. While
he was in service, his um commanding officer in the
Union Army ordered him to fight devil ants because there
was rumors that he was a Confederate spy. So Harmon
fights devil ants, loses the fight. And I didn't get
a sense on what kind of fight it was, whether
(12:37):
it was like a gun battle or whether he literally
just like spit on his boot and like took a swing.
I'm not sure. I don't know that if if that
was even in the mini series. Um So they getting
a fight, he loses, and then uh, then the Union
troops went after devil Ants at that point, which is
really what cost a lot of the early issues. Uh.
(13:00):
And then later on Harmon shot a friend of Devil
Rance while stealing his horse, so in turn he killed
Harmon's commanding officer in the Union Army. Okay, there's a
lot of bad blood. The guy was like literally General
Bill France was peeing off his porch like I do,
and Devils shot him in cold blood. I hope, I
(13:21):
hope that does not happen to you. That really hopes
it would be a bad way to go. Gives you pause,
you know. So, um the after the war, after um
Asa Harmon McCoy uh came back home. I did not
realize the tensions were already that high. I had the
impression that was just because he fought for the Union.
I didn't know he had been made to directly target
(13:44):
Devil Lance right well, Devil Rants and the Logan Wildcats
basically sent as a message saying watch yourself, because we're
coming for you. And he very wisely went off and
lived in a cave for a while. He hit out,
And so with this guy, you're like, why did he
go far for the Union? Was he an abolitionist? No,
he had a slave, and the slave kept him alive
(14:05):
by bringing him food and stuff while he was in
the cave. So I have no idea why he went
and fought for the Union. It's the fact that he did, though,
meant that his own relatives, his own McCoy is, including Randall,
his brother. Um, really, we're just kind of like, Yeah,
the Logan Wildcats are out to get you, and you
brought the sign yourself, so we don't really feel for you.
(14:25):
And they didn't apparently make much of a problem or
much they didn't take issue with it. When the Logan
Wildcats attract him down to the cave and killed him. Well,
he was actually coming home when they killed him, wasn't
I think he finally thought like, surely, after all this time,
they've forgotten about this trogolobe bite trocolodyte. Yeah, so he
(14:48):
was walking home to see his family that he hadn't
seen in years and Jim Vance shot him. That's how
long he was in the cave. Well, that might have
been part of the war a few years. Man alive
so well, actually Man debt Asa Harmon, Uh McCoy is
killed by the Logan Wildcats, and apparently at first everybody
thought it was Devil Answer did it, but he turned
(15:09):
out to have been bedridden at the time, so we
had an alibi, and they think instead that it was
Jim Vance who led it and probably killed Asa doing
his Devil's uncle okay um and strong ally Jim Vance
was so uh Asa Harmon is dead. The first shot
has been fired in the family feud, so thought the
historians for years, and then I guess after interviewing actual
(15:31):
hat Fields and McCoy's, they realized that no, actually the
McCoy's were like, he brought it on himself. That's that's
we made peace with this. And no charges were even
brought in the murder of Asa McCoy. Yeah. I saw
one article that described it as a murder agreement, which
apparently used to have that like blood in, blood out,
(15:51):
and everyone's like, all right, even Stephen okay, so done
and the the first death has occurred in the hat
Field McCoy feud, but it had has nothing to do
with the hat Field McCoy feud. Technically, yes, that seems
like a pretty good time to take a break, don't
you agreed, sir, So Chuck, we're back and asa harm instead.
(16:30):
Things are whatever between the hat Fields and mccois. Nothing,
nothing big has gone on, even if there were any
sort of skirmishes or little fights or run ins or
that kind of thing. I get the impression that the
families when they saw each other, there was like a
a slight percentage that the sides were going to get
in at least a fist fight, not take like pot
(16:52):
shots or another with their guns. I just think they
probably just didn't like each other very much from the beginning,
so it's possible those things went on. Nothing big happened though,
until the pig the pig incident, and apparently it wasn't
just one pig, that's what it's been boiled down to,
but it was several. Yeah, and it was a big
deal if you think about a pig. Stealing a pig
(17:13):
is not a big deal at the time. There's a
book called The Feud by Dinking Din King. Dean King
thinking said it's so weird, Dean King, and he said, uh,
where was their next meal going? To come from, and
how could they feed the children in the winter. They
were lucky enough to have one pig or razorback for
(17:36):
cell or trade. The proceeds were used to acquire flour, sugar, coffee,
sometimes shoes or boots for their families. It was a
mainstay for the family. So these days you hear a
pig or even a couple of pigs, and you think,
what's a big deal. But in the region at the time,
these these pigs were very valuable, so it was a
big deal, right. I saw am and in the front
(17:57):
I saw a dude on well, yeah, and that was
another thing. In we're talking about backwoods Appalachian folk in
the nineteenth century, there was a lot to the idea
that you had stolen their property, which as it should be.
But even that aside. I saw this historian on Um
a CBS Sunday Morning clip from a few years ago,
(18:17):
and he explained, like, you can feed a sizeable family
for a month with a single pig. And this guy
stole several pigs. So the guy who was accused of
stealing the pig was um. Who was it, Chuck Randolph
McCoy accused Floyd Hatfield. Okay, right, So um Old Randall
(18:37):
himself said, Floyd Hatfield, cousin of devil Ance, I know
that you stole those pigs, and I'm taking you to court. Well,
they went to court. The problem is the local magistrate
was a hat Field. But in this guy's favor, his
name was a preacher. It was his first name, I believe,
and he was basically the what amounted to the local
(18:58):
judge in the tug River Valley. He he tried to
make it a fair trial. Is he the one that
placed it in McCoy land because the trial took place
in McCoy territory asided by a hat Field though, right,
And he made sure that the jury had six hat
Fields and six McCoy's on it. He did and nobody else,
(19:18):
no joke, yes, Wed, But he was trying to make
it as fair as possible, right, um. And so they
had a trial where Floyd Hatfield was tried for hog theft.
Have you ever had something stolen from you, like, you know,
not hugely valuable, but yeah, it's It's one of the
(19:38):
things that irks me most. It's very irritating. There's something
about like just someone taking something that you worked to
buy that just really boils my blood. Now, imagine if
they took that thing that you worked to buy, and
they were directly taking food out of your child's mouth
at the same time. It makes you mad. I'd pull
(19:59):
a hat Field. The weird thing is is that the
McCoy's and the half is at this point are saying,
we will let the we will leave it to the courts. Right,
So they did go to court. They did try to
have a fair trial. Um, or at least the preacher did.
Preacher Hatfield, preacher judge right. UM's confusing, and the the
(20:19):
jury was split except for one who was a McCoy
who sided with the hat Fields. His name was Selkirk
McCoy another made up name, and selkirk Um. He voted
that because of a guy named Bill Staton, who had
testified that Floyd had not stolen the pigs. Um. He said,
you know what, I'm not going to contradict Bill Staton.
(20:41):
I know him to be truthful or whatever. Plus I
work for Devil Anson his logging operation. So I'm gonna
vote pro hat Field and exonerate Floyd. And Floyd got
off and Old Randall went nuts. Staton was the main
witness and he was a relative of the McCoy's, but
he was married to a hat Field. So um, and
(21:03):
while they did intermarry, I saw that there was way
more marrying within the family to avoid intermarrying. Oh yeah,
there was a lot of first cousins that were when
you watch that Family Feud clip, you can go find
it on I'm sure on YouTube, but there was a
mental flass article that we found that had it embedded
at the bottom. That's where I first heard about it.
(21:23):
The that when they're introducing the families, they keep introducing
one another is like kissing cousins. This is a kissing cousin, Diane,
and like the families are saying that nine. So yeah,
there was a lot of like inter marriage within the
family itself. Well, they were probably just joking, right, No, no,
on Family Feud, you don't think the guy didn't sound
(21:46):
like he was joking. Did he kiss his cousin on TV? No?
But Richard Dawson kissed her. That guy kissed any woman
who would stand still long enough. What a flirt? Well,
Richard Dawson, So yeah, alright, Pete. Yeah, he didn't change
his name even though he was British. Uh, well, you
(22:06):
don't know that that's true. Could have been Richard Dimpsum
or Chumley Dawson. That's a great name. So so uh,
Old Randall has just lost this court case, and even worse,
he was made to pay the hat Fields court costs
for taking him the court. And remember we characterized Old
(22:29):
Randall as a kind of a bitter man. Anytime life
handed him lemons, he just squeezed him into his eyes
to anger, right um. And he went on for this
for basically years about how this is a miscarriage of justice,
how Floyd had stolen his hogs. And so now any
time hat Fields h McCoy's um, depending on their allegiance
(22:52):
to the clan or clans um, anytime they saw each other,
they were shooting at one another, they were getting into fights,
they were thrown in rocks. Like one of um, one
of devil Ant's sons was standing there when Old Randall
rode up once and Old Randall started railing on him
about how Floyd had stolen a hog, and the McCoys
(23:12):
or the Hatfield sun grabbed rock and just threw it
at Old Randall's mouth, just crushed his mouth of the rock,
because that's what you did back then yeah, that was
sort of like you killed my brother Harmon, but you
stole my hog. You know, I'm cool with the brother
killing the Harmon had it coming, right, but that hog
never hurt anybody. Yeah, we were gonna eat it. Uh
(23:32):
So did we cover the fact that Staton two years
later was killed. This is inaccurate? Is that not true?
Bill Staton Jr. Was Kilton, Bill Sr. Was not killed
in this skirmish. This is another big retribution though. Okay
for his pause. Yeah, because remember after the hog incident
in the hog verdict, the the half fields in McCoys
(23:56):
did not fight it out right then at the at
the magistrates office, at Judge Peacher's place. Um, but at
any time the clan saw one another, they would shoot
at each other. They would getting fights, they would take
rocks to the faces. And then it culminated finally in
this really truly violent incident between Bill State and Junr
(24:18):
and uh Paris and Sam McCoy. Right. Okay, so Bill
State and Junior is out hunting, sees these McCoy's sons
and says, well, I'm in a world of trouble. I
better take a shot at one of them, and shoots
Paris McCoy and the hip, and Sam McCoy was like,
you shot my brother, You're going down, And he shoots
(24:41):
Bill and wounds him and then goes over and executes
him point blank in the head. And this is Bill Junior,
Bill Junior. See, I got another article that said it
was Bill, but it also said he's Bill Stanton. So
I'm starting to doubt all kinds of accuracy. There's a
lot of inaccurate stuff. So I got um, I think
the description to that incident from a really great book
(25:02):
by a guy named John ed Pierce. It's Days of
Darkness Colon, So you know it's legitimate, the feuds of
Eastern Kentucky. Yeah, so there's been like serious blood shed here.
Now one of the this and this is direct retribution
for the hog stealing verdict. A man has been executed
point blank in the head, and the two McCoy boys
(25:25):
just tried to get away with it. Yeah, so blood
is spilling. Uh fast forward a bit to two and
h three of Randall's sons are attacked, stabbed twenty six times,
and shot Ellison Hatfield, who was Devil's younger brother, to death, right,
And that was on election day and election days were
(25:46):
like drunken affairs. Do you remember when I think in
the Bars episode we talked about how like what was
it um get people drunk? Yeah, bumbo planting, the buying
the plants with bumby, the voters with bumbo. Yeah, man,
But it was election day, so everybody would get super drunk.
(26:07):
And when you get two claims that don't like each
other super drunk in the same place, they get in
fights and people get stabbed twenty six times and then
shot in the back. Yeah. So those three sons of
Randall were actually arrested and we're presumably going to go
to trial, but vigilanteism took hold and they were kidnapped
(26:28):
on the way to the trial by the hat Fields
and they said, we're gonna take care of this our way. Yeah,
and they like, I don't know if they let them
get away with it, but they got away with it. No,
they did not let them get away with it. This
was a huge turning point, right um. When the hat
Field or the McCoy boys were intercepted by the hat
Fields and taken across the river to West Virginia, which
(26:49):
is basically like taking them to Fortress hat Field Country,
justice was gonna happen. Yeah, but Devlance vowed that if
Ellison made it and didn't die, he would not kill
these Hatfield or these McCoy boys. Um, but Allison succumbed
to his wounds and did die. And so they took
these McCoy boys out and tied them to trees and
(27:10):
shot him I think more than fifty times or something
like that. And so you were saying, like they got
away with it not for lack of trying, right, It
basically set off this huge, huge issue like this was
even for the Tug River Valley. Chuck, this is pretty
flagrant frontier justice. You're not supposed to do this. There's
(27:32):
a magistrate named Preacher who's supposed to settle this kind
of stuff. Right, So a guy named, uh, Perry, what
was Perry's name, Perry Klein? You know what this is.
This is too big. We need to take a break,
all right and get to the story of Perry Kline. Okay,
(28:08):
so we're back, chucking. We have a new guest. His
name is Perry Klein. Come on in, Perry, you're an attorney. Uh.
He was married to Martha McCoy And here's the deal. Uh,
years before there was a situation where Perry Klein was
cheated out of I think five thousand acres of land.
(28:29):
Was he cheated? I didn't know if he if it
was actual like justice, because he had supposedly been cutting
timber from uh, Devilance's timber land. Well, here's the deal.
Everything you read will say it depends on who you
sympathize with, is how you think Perry Klein and really
all of them were viewed. So I read articles that
(28:51):
said that he was cheated, in articles that said he
wasn't cheated. Uh. And I think the family is still
today like while there is a piece which we'll get to. Um,
they still disagree over Perry Klin's role. Okay, So, but
Perry Klin was married to a McCoy. Actually he's a
harmon McCoy's widow, right Martha, and so, um, he had
(29:12):
lost five thousand acres really, that's how much he was
forced by the court to seed to Devilands for allegedly
cutting his timberland. Yeah, so he was he had a
he had a retribution in mind as an attorney. Right.
So when the hat Fields executed the McCoy, the three
McCoy boys, Um, Perry Klein used it as a chance,
(29:35):
depending on how you look at it, either used it
as a chance for retribution or his family allegiance was
stirred up, and he, being an attorney, had contacts with
the governor, Governor Bunker I believe, of Kentucky, and said, Governor,
there's some horrible stuff going on down here that's being
perpetrated by some West Virginians against some law abiding Kentuckians,
(29:56):
and you guys need to do something about it. And
it worked, actually, yeah, they reinstated the charges and Um
basically put out awards on the head, bounties on the head,
arrest bounties, that is of the hat fields, including uh
six ft of devil and pounds of hell. Himself, his sons,
some of the Um family allies, like his uncle Jim Vance.
(30:20):
I think there were. There was twenty twenty men who
had indictments against them. And since they had indictments against
them and they were hanging out in West Virginia, they
had bounties on their head. And one of the bounty hunters,
the main bounty hunter who came around it was it
was a problem that they had bounties on their head,
because any crackpot who wanted to could come and take
(30:41):
shots at those guys, and and it was happening quite
a bit. Yeah, they wanted to collect some dough, right.
But there's one guy in particular who was a real
thorn in their side. His name was Mad Frank Phillips.
And Frank Phillips was a bounty hunter extraordinaire. He was
about as legally gray as you can get and still
(31:01):
not be uh, just on the darker side of the spectrum.
And he made it basically his personal war to get
as many hat Fields across the river into Kentucky as
he could. So he would carry out raids on the
hat Field stronghold in West Virginia, UM and basically just
abduct hat Fields bring him to Kentucky so that they
(31:25):
could be put in the Pike County jail. And while
he did this, he was also executing people left and right,
like Jim Vance. He shot and wounded saw that he
just wounded him, walked around from behind and um, while
Vance was begging for his life, shot him in the
head and like this is Frank Phillips. M Oh, he
would execute you just as soon as he would capture you. Yeah,
(31:45):
And this was uh, this was becoming a big deal
in the press at this point, UH newspaper started carrying
the stories and became UH by all accounts like national
news uh and legend like it was everyone knew about
the hat Fields and MCA was by this point right
and the press apparently very much sided with the McCoy's.
They painted the hat Fields to seem like backwoods, murderous
(32:09):
rednecks who just caused trouble everywhere they went, and painted
the McCoy's is innocent, law abiding victims of of this um,
this whole feud um and the whole legend, like you're saying,
like this is all it all begins about right here,
when when there was what amounts to almost a war
between Kentucky and West Virginia because Frank Phillips kept going
(32:31):
and getting people and bringing them back to Pike County
and West Virginia got involved, and the two governors were
basically standing toe to toe, almost about to go invade,
sending National Guard troops in across the border. Um, but
instead they left in the courts and actually this court
case about whether it was legal or not for Frank
(32:53):
Phillips to have abducted the hat Fields and taken them
to the Kentucky jail. Um reached the Preme Court actually,
which is pretty amazing. It is in the Supreme Court said,
you know what, Uh, it probably is illegal what happened,
but Kentucky's a sovereign state and there's really nothing West
Virginia can do about it, so go ahead and try them.
(33:15):
But before the trial, actually, and while the um these
abductions were going on, these raids carried out by Frank Phillips,
the hat Fields, like I said, like it was a
big deal of them that they were bounty hunters out
to get them, and they came up with a plan
to just end the whole thing. Yea, in a murderous
killing spree is what they came up with. Uh. In January,
(33:36):
group of hat Fields said we're gonna attack Randolph McCoy
and his entire family, uh cap little Cappy devil ants,
his son uh and an ally to Jim Vance kind
of led the way and they ambushed them at their
home on New Year's Day. Randolph actually escaped, which is uh,
they were kind of coming after him and he's the
only one who escaped. Well, they were coming after the
(33:58):
whole family. Like there the whole intention was to just
murder this whole family of the problem. Yeah, and Randolph
was the key guy. He actually got away. His son, Calvin,
daughter Ala Fair were killed, uh and what they called crossfire,
but they were you know, let's get real. And his
wife Sarah was suffered to crutch skull. She was beating
so badly. Yeah, so Alice, they set the house on fire.
(34:21):
Alafair opened the door to put the fire out and
she was shot and killed. And then um, her mom,
Sarah wanted to come and like comfort or dying daughter,
and when she came out, they beat her head in
with the butt of a pistol I think cap Hatfield did.
And then um, Calvin provided cover for his dad and
(34:43):
ran to attract their gunfire so his dad could get away,
and it worked, but Calvin died as a result. And
then two other daughters had McCoy daughters survived, So Randall
and two daughters survived this attack on his family. And
this was when it was like if the press wasn't
paying attention before and now they really were. And um,
(35:04):
basically everybody was outraged at this. And it's like this legend,
Chuck is a hundred something years old right, And it's
easy to kind of see these people as caricatures or um,
you know, just historic. But when you think about what
the hat Fields planned to do and tried to do
to the McCoy's in that case on New Year's nineteen eighty,
(35:26):
the New Year's massacres, what was known as that's like
objectively despicable no matter when you when you when it happened,
going after an entire family to kill them, Yeah, to
wipe out a legal entailment, you know, um it is
and it really kind of um brings home like the
actual humanity of all of this, you know. Yeah. So
it went all the way to the Supreme Court and
(35:47):
they decided, you know what, these hat Fields should be tried. Uh.
In in eighteen eighty nine, they were tried, and eight
of the hat Fields, uh and their supporters were since
the life in prison and one Ellison Mounts, who uh
people think is the son of Ellison Hatfield and his
first cousin. Yeah, it was actually sentenced to death. And uh,
(36:08):
the one issue here was a lot of people now
think he was a kind of a scapegoat because he
was mentally challenged and uh, maybe an early false confession
happened right exactly, and he actually, um, really his was
if he didn't do it, or even if he did,
he really got screwed over by the prosecution. They said that, um,
if he confessed and and and cooperated, that he would
(36:32):
get a lighter sentence, when really he was the only
one who confessed and he was the only one who
was hanged. So um, and his dying words I think
were the hat Fields made me do it, and then
they hung him. Yeah, And there were no public executions
at the time, but that did not stop hundreds of people,
thousands even from coming out and watching anyway. Right, so
(36:52):
it was a public execution and with the what's odd though,
is the uh so ten ten men had been captured
by Frank Phillips and had been a dieted and tried,
and nine of them got life in prison. Ellison Mounts
was was hung and this was apparently enough to um,
I guess, mollify Randall McCoy. At first I think he
(37:14):
tried to like rail against the verdict, but ultimately it
was enough to just calm him down and he went
and lived a quiet life, quiet haunted life as a
ferry operator, I think, and lived to like a yeah,
and about a year later. Uh, it was when the
families both said enough is enough, let's call a truce.
(37:35):
And uh. From I think it was an eleven year period,
almost twenty four people were killed in both families, like
close to two dozen folks over eleven year period. That's legit. Yeah,
that's a that's a family feud right there. That's a
big feud. And devl Ance lived to a ripe old
age two. He lived to uh, I think eighty three
or something like that. That's old. Well, he was born
(37:57):
again at seventy three. I think he lived into his
a real and but he he was paranoid for the
rest of his life because I think there was still
bounties on his head. So he moved to an island
and carried a rifle with him at all times for
the rest of his life. Well, if you look at
pictures of the families, they all had their guns. I mean,
that's what you did back then. But it's it's funny
(38:19):
to see a picture of like twenty people in you know,
twelve of them are brandishing weapons. That's right, you know,
in the in the one photo that will ever be
taken of them, they've got their gun out too. Uh
So since then they've been all over the place in
pop culture. We mentioned family Feud, there was an abbot
in Costello movie. In two Buster Keaton did a movie too.
(38:41):
Oh really, I feel McCoy he was on not Looney Tunes,
excuse me, Mary Melodies, big distinction, but still bugs bunny um. Nowadays,
there are even some medical professionals who think that there
was a condition that the McCoy's had that led them
to be violent. What it's called duh von Hippel Lindau disease.
(39:04):
And these geneticists study dozens of McCoy descendants and said
they have a really high rate of this disease. It's inherited,
it's rare, produces tumors in the eyes, ears, and pancreas.
Uh And a notable side effect is high blood pressure,
racing heartbeat, and increased um aggressive behavior, increase fight or
flight hormones. And it was the McCoy's that may have
(39:26):
had that, because from everything I've read, it seemed like
the hat Fields would have been the one to have that. Wow,
maybe I'm a victim of contemporary press bias, media bias.
Anything else? I got nothing else? There's other stuff. There's
plenty of stuff that I'm sure we didn't hit. And
you should go read some of the cool books written
(39:47):
about this stuff. I got one more thing, actually, here
comes World War two. Life magazine used the families as
a way to unite America's war effort by featuring them
in a big photo spread. The hat Fields of McCoy's
like working together in factories for World War two. Yeah,
and they I think they even met recently in like
(40:08):
they're they're still out there and they're still meeting and
talking about this and uh disagreeing friendly disagreements on people
like Perry Klein and uh, he was the other guy,
Mad Mad Month, Mad Frank Phillips, Mad Frank Phillips who
remember I said he was legally gray. He married uh
a McCoy who ended up who had had a baby
(40:29):
with John C. Hatfield. Um, they ran off together and
got married Frank Phillips and Nancy McCoy and ended up
being prosperous bootleggers in the region. Well, and there was
also a spurned romance too that led to tentions. I
forgot about that. Yeah, Roseanna, Rosanna McCoy and John C. Hatfield. Yeah,
they had a little trist and a child together, but
(40:51):
the child died I think, aged eight months from measles.
But he kicked her to the curb before that and
then went and married her cousin Nancy, although there were
no curb spec and he kicked her to the river
bank to the creekside. Yeah again, we could probably keep
doing this for another forty five minutes, but we're not.
If you want to know more about hat fills and
McCoy's ghost, searching in your favorite search engine. Since I
(41:14):
said search engine, it's time for a listener mail. I'm
gonna call this just a nice little email of things.
I'm a nice person, Okay, Hi, justin Chuck and Jerry.
I'm a young thirty something who lives in Berwin, Illinois.
I just recently started listening to podcasts and came across
how Stuff Works and you, guys, I'm a nerd at heart.
(41:36):
In your podcast feeds my inner beast. I listened to
you on my way to work on a train at
uh something like Dr seuss Um at work again, and
then on my way home from work. I'm so addicted
to learning new things. Scrolling through the feed is exhilarating
because I'm dying to listen to them all. Jennifer, there's
I'm not sure if you know this. If you follow
(41:57):
us on iTunes, you might think they're only three hundred,
but they were more more than right. Yeah, and that's
for all of you out there, and you can find
those at our website. Back to Jennifer, I've told all
my friends about the podcast. I even make my husband
listen while we're cooking. I can't get enough of all
the cool topics you talk about. And since I listen
(42:18):
to you every day, I thought, you know what, I'm
gonna send an email and hopes that it is read
on the air, and if not, at least you know
you have another dedicated listener. Thanks for spreading knowledge, and
that is Jennifer Hardy and Jennifer. Sometimes when I get
there to read things on the air, I do it.
It works every time and not every time. Flattery will
get you everywhere. Uh. If you want to let us
(42:38):
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