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