Blood Feud: The Hatfields & The McCoys (20 page)

Following his baptism, Devil Anse Hatfield sent his son Cap’s attorney stepson, Joe Glenn, to Pikeville to offer the McCoys $10,000 to withdraw their indictments from 1882 and 1888 against the Hatfields. Jim McCoy, now a policeman, still a man of principle, refused the money but assured Joe Glenn that he and his family no longer sought revenge.
85

Devil Anse’s great-grandson Coleman C. Hatfield says, “The Hatfield family was devastated by the killing of Ellison and later came to regard the killing of the McCoy brothers with bitter shame.”
86
He doesn’t specify which Hatfields experienced this tardy bitter shame, but it would probably be safe to assume that they included Devil Anse and Cap since they were the primary sources of information for his book.

In 1921, after several months of illness, Devil Anse had a stroke, losing the ability to move or speak.
87
A week later he died in bed at his house on the mountainside from pneumonia. The
New York Times
announced it to a world that had become as fascinated with Devil Anse as they would soon be with Al Capone.

Five hundred people, including Anse’s eleven surviving children, almost all of his forty grandchildren, and several great-grandchildren, made the trek to his home in Sarah Ann, West Virginia.
88
They filed past his open casket of golden oak, “his beard, tinged with grey, spread on his chest like the plumage of a large bird.”
89
A mountain choir sang ancient hymns and chants.

It was said that Devil Anse Hatfield’s deathbed wish was for his sons Cap and Elliott to reconcile. It’s unclear why they were estranged, but the story goes that Cap offered his hand to Elliott, and Elliott took it. Both wept.
90

Cap Hatfield informed Dyke Garrett that he had made his peace with God and wanted to be baptized. Garrett promised to baptize him later in the same stream in which he had baptized Devil Anse a decade earlier. After reaching this agreement with Garrett in front of his father’s coffin, Cap raised his hands above his head and declared that he would fight no more, and that if anyone wanted to take his life for his past deeds, he would not resist.
91
He didn’t, however, offer to go to Kentucky to face trial.

The day was cold, and rain alternated with snow. Levicy Hatfield, now seventy-five years old, bereaved, and unable to manage the walk to the graveyard, said farewell at home to her husband of over sixty years. The mourners walked to the cemetery along with the casket bearers. The gravesite sat just below a mountain crest overlooking the Guyandotte Valley on one side and the Tug Fork Valley on the other.
92
An umbrella was held over Devil Anse in the open coffin as the onlookers crowded around
93
and listened to prayers led by a former Logan Wildcat.
94
Then the casket was lowered into a steel vault and buried.

A few years later, Devil Anse’s descendants commissioned a life-size standing monument of him, carved of Carrara marble at a cost of $3,000 (equivalent to $36,000 today), to top his grave. The statue, based on photographs, portrays Devil Anse in a frock coat and riding leggings. Mules hauled it up the mountainside to the graveyard. Devil Anse was a phenomenon in death, just as he had been in life.

Listing his name along with those of Levicy and their children, the monument rises some thirteen feet above the feud leader’s grave. At its base lie the more humble graves of some who emulated him and served him so loyally during his lifetime—his sons Johnse, Bob, Elliott, Elias, Troy, Joe, Willis, and Tennis, and his nephew-in-law French Ellis.
95

Cap Hatfield’s remains, you will note, are not there. Some maintain that Devil Anse left instructions prohibiting his second son and most loyal deputy from being buried in the family plot, rejecting him in death just as Devil Anse’s father, Big Eph, had rejected Devil Anse by leaving him no land in his will. But Cap’s grandson states the more likely case that Cap didn’t want to be buried alongside the man whose demands had dominated his youth and helped damage his later reputation.
96
He was determined to separate himself from his father in death, as he had not been able to in life. Yet Cap’s younger brother Willis maintained that “the whole Hatfield family would have been killed if Cap had not been present to protect them and warn them of dangers.”
97

Levicy died in 1929, also of pneumonia, and joined her husband in the shadow of his towering marble effigy.
98
She had lived her life in his shadow, and her situation was no different in death.

The Hatfield-McCoy feud took place alongside many others
in
the
southern Appalachians, and especially in southeastern Kentucky, during the decades following the Civil War. The incidents that sparked them and the episodes that followed are almost incomprehensible. Newspaper accounts are just as inflammatory and as inaccurate as were those for the Hatfield-McCoy feud, and the oral histories are just as contradictory. But it’s worth looking at a handful of them to see if a general pattern emerges to explain this epidemic of feuding during those years.
1

The Baker-White Feud

Early in the nineteenth century, while cattle wars were raging between settlements on the north and south forks of the Kentucky River in Clay County, the Garrard and White families drilled wells into abundant salt deposits in the area. Both families shipped salt throughout the Southeast, making fortunes that they used to build grand houses and send their children away to fancy schools. They emerged as fierce competitors, each lowering prices to outsell the other.

But their real troubles with one another began in 1844 when Susan, a White daughter, married Abner Baker Jr., son of the well-respected court clerk in the county seat of Manchester. Abner Jr. tried his hand at several professions without success and then moved back home, where he was said to be a poor loser at cards. The Whites didn’t approve of this volatility, and they were right to worry.

After the wedding, Abner Baker began accusing Susan White of conducting affairs with every man in sight, including the household servants and even her own father. Eventually, Abner shot and killed his sister’s husband, Daniel Bates, because he suspected Bates of having cuckolded him.

General Garrard, a friend of Baker’s family, arranged a competency hearing at which Abner was declared insane. But Daniel Bates’s family, aided by the Whites, refused to accept this ruling and had Baker indicted for the murder of Bates.

At his trial, Baker’s lawyers brought in experts who testified that he suffered from monomania concerning his wife Susan’s supposed faithlessness. The jury, unconvinced, found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to hang. On the day of the hanging, Baker struggled with his captors as they led him up the steps. When the noose was placed around his neck, he cried out, helpfully, “Go ahead! Let a whore’s work be done!”
2

The Bakers railed at the Whites over this execution of someone so obviously crazy. The Whites railed at the Bakers for trying to prevent justice against Abner for ruining Susan’s reputation. They also fumed at their old salt-rival, General Garrard, for siding with the Bakers.

The hanging of another Baker soon added tinder to the smoldering coals of resentment between the two factions. William Baker, a cousin of Abner Baker Sr., was charged with killing a shoemaker, possibly because the shoemaker had propositioned his wife. The killer slung the shoemaker’s corpse across an ox and took it to the woods for a clandestine burial. William’s wife was cleared of suspicion, but William, despite the Garrards’ help, was found guilty and hanged. Five years later, William’s widow confessed on her deathbed to the shoemaker’s murder.
3

The shoemaker had belonged to the large Howard family of Clay County, so now the Howards joined the Whites against the Bakers and the Garrards.

In August 1897, a Howard supporter who was a deputy sheriff met three Bakers on a road outside of town. Suspecting they were headed into Manchester to disrupt a meeting of the White-Howard-Bates alliance, the deputy sheriff demanded to know where they were going. When the Bakers refused to say, someone started shooting. All joined in until their guns were empty. Miraculously, no one was killed, but Anse Baker was wounded, and his horse was killed.

That night the Howard-allied deputy sheriff’s house burned down. Anse and Bad Tom Baker were charged with arson, and a Garrard bailed them out. On the day of their trial, a gang of Bakers converged on the courthouse to witness the proceedings. The two men were acquitted, which understandably distressed the Whites and Howards in attendance. The sheriff, a White, argued with a Baker and then pistol-whipped him. As blood streamed down the Baker’s face, several Whites emerged from the offices they all occupied as county officials to engage in a brawl with the Bakers. Eventually the Bakers fled the courthouse.

A month later, Bad Tom Baker and his brother were riding on a path alongside a creek when they encountered an itinerant peddler. Drunk, they harassed him, shooting at his feet to make him dance. When he objected, they shot him dead and threw his body into the creek. “Let the turtles have him,” Bad Tom Baker said.
4

The Howards and Bakers both owned timberland on Crane Creek. A month after the peddler’s murder, Bad Tom and several other Bakers were felling trees with which to construct a raft to float downriver to a sawmill. Bal Howard, patriarch of the Howard family, along with several kinsmen, was doing the same on the opposite side of the creek. Bal Howard and Bad Tom Baker got into a quarrel over a debt. Bad Tom threw a tool at Bal, and Bal swung a peavey at him. Then Bad Tom whacked Bal with his pistol, and Bal’s son shot Bad Tom, the bullet grazing his flesh. The others jumped in to stop the fight—for the time being.

Bad Tom Baker was in his yard the next day when a neighbor stopped by to warn him that Howards were waiting to ambush him if he went to his woodlot. He stayed home, but as he sat on his porch, a bullet zinged past him and lodged in his door frame.

The next day, both families were working on their rafts. The Bakers went home for lunch, while the Howards cast off their raft for its journey downriver. Then the Howards headed home on their horses for lunch, too. As they rounded a bend, a volley of rifle fire killed two of them. Bal Howard was also shot, and his horse bolted and carried him down the road. He fell from his saddle, still alive, and was later retrieved by his relatives.

Big Jim Howard, oldest son of Bal Howard and a one-time schoolteacher, rode toward his father’s house to visit his wounded father, only to be shot at from the woods. Trying another route, he was shot at again. He returned to a nearby post office in a rage, trying to figure out how to visit his father without getting killed himself.

Suddenly Baldy George Baker, patriarch of the Baker family, rode into town. Spotting him, Big Jim Howard grabbed his rifle. Baldy George jumped down to take cover behind his horse. Big Jim’s bullet went through the horse’s neck and lodged in Baldy George’s bowels. Carried into a nearby store, he was laid on the counter. Two doctors stitched up his torn intestines, but he died anyway.

Big Jim Howard turned himself in to Deputy Sheriff Will White and was released on his own recognizance. Forty armed guards took position around Bal Howard’s house, while anonymous gunmen shot into the yard from the surrounding forest. Since Baldy George Baker had had fifteen sons and Bad Tom Baker had thirteen, the less prolific Howards direly needed these outside reinforcements.
5

When the Howards arrived at their family cemetery a couple of days later to bury their two murdered kinsmen, bullets whizzed all around them from the woods. Not believing violence possible on such a solemn occasion, the Howard men had foolishly left their guns at home. Carrying their coffins, they retreated to another cemetery several miles away.

Back in Manchester, the Garrards and Bakers demanded that Big Jim Howard stand trial for the murder of Baldy George Baker, and the Whites and Howards demanded that Bad Tom Baker stand trial for the murder of the two Howards and the wounding of Bal Howard. Virtually everyone carried arms all the time, and few dared to venture into the streets at night. Though it seems hardly possible, the men in town were drinking more than ever to quell their stress.

As Deputy Sheriff Will White passed the former courthouse office of Baldy George Baker one morning, he said, “Well, I guess old Baldy George is roasting in hell by now.”
6
Regrettably, a Baker son—in the office, cleaning out Baldy George’s belongings—overheard this remark and reported it to his brother Bad Tom.

A few days later, when Deputy Sheriff Will White was collecting delinquent taxes, he ran into Bad Tom Baker. Apart from Will’s indiscreet remark about Baldy George’s spiritual destination, Bad Tom hated Will for having arrested him for burning down Deputy Sheriff Howard’s house and for sheltering Big Jim Howard after he killed Baldy George Baker. So Bad Tom killed Deputy White—insisting that White had drawn on him first.

Bad Tom Baker was acquitted of murdering the two Howard kinsmen after witnesses swore he was miles away at the time. Then Big Jim Howard stood trial for the murder of Baldy George Baker. But the case was abandoned because Big Jim had been arrested in the meantime for the assassination of George Goebel, the Democratic governor elect of Kentucky, in a scenario that would require an entire book to explain.
7
Found guilty of murdering the governor elect, Big Jim Howard spent two years in prison before receiving a pardon.

Meanwhile, Bad Tom Baker went to Manchester to stand trial for the murder of Deputy Sheriff Will White. Bad Tom had refused to come unless state militia ensured his safety. He also refused to stay in the local jail. So the militia pitched a tent for him on the courthouse lawn. As Bad Tom stood outside his tent posing for newspaper photographs, someone shot him. The killer was never identified.

At Bad Tom Baker’s wake late the next night, as his family sat around his open coffin, there was a scratching at the door. When someone opened it, a large turtle lumbered in and headed for the coffin. It startled those who recalled the murder of the peddler, whom Bad Tom had thrown into the creek saying, “Let the turtles have him.” A mourner grabbed the turtle, carried it outside, cut its throat, and threw it back into the creek.
8

Representatives of the Whites and Garrards negotiated and signed a truce on March 8, 1901.
9
If you count the start of the feud from the cattle wars of 1806, it had lasted ninety-five years. Somewhere between 100 and 150 people died. The murders in Clay County didn’t cease in 1901, but the older members of the feuding families appear to have become exhausted by their lifetimes of mindless violence. They turned the feud over to younger, even dumber, hands, in which it sputtered along for another three decades.

The feud inexplicably ceased in 1936 after the shooting of a son of Bad Tom Baker by an unknown assailant as Baker drove a Garrard into Manchester. Big Jim Howard had, meanwhile, become a traveling shoe salesman who carried a pistol in a shoulder holster. As he bent over one day, the pistol fell to the ground and shot a bullet into his back. He recovered, however, and went on to live a long and otherwise peaceful life, never responding to the question of whether or not he had actually assassinated the governor elect.

The Strong-Little Feud

During the Civil War, Capt. William Strong was a leader in the Union Home Guard of Breathitt County, Kentucky, clashing with several other Home Guards over the division of spoils from bushwhacking raids on civilians. After the war, Captain Strong continued his role as guerrilla chief, holding courts-martial in the middle of the night and condemning opponents to execution by his lieutenants.
10
Fellow Home Guards who had opposed his decisions concerning the bushwhacking spoils were murdered in this fashion.

In 1878, an attorney named Burnett was elected county judge with the support of Captain Strong—and in spite of opposition from the Little family, who favored another candidate. Burnett soon made the gruesome discovery that Jason Little’s dead wife lay buried beneath the Little house, and he ordered her dug up. The Littles responded that she would be dug up over their dead bodies. Once disinterred, she was found to be pregnant, her body riddled with bullet wounds patched with beeswax.
11
Burnett sent Jason Little to the Lexington jail to await trial.

A deputy sheriff who was a cousin of Jason Little got a court order for his return to Jackson, the Breathitt County seat. Learning of his deputy’s intentions, Sheriff Hagins hurried to Lexington and retrieved Jason himself.

Back in Jackson, Captain Strong’s group, who wanted Little hanged for murdering his pregnant wife, occupied a log building near the courthouse. Among his seventeen supporters was his top killer, Hen Kilburn, who had named his rifle The Death of Many. Also in Captain Strong’s party were a former slave named Nigger Dick Strong and two mulatto brothers named William and Daniel Freeman.

The Littles arrived in Jackson, too, with their strongman, Big John Aikman, who detested Captain Strong. Both groups lounged just down the street from one another. Daniel Freeman made the unfortunate mistake of walking up to Big John Aikman, however, and asking him what he wanted.

“I’ll take a dead nigger,” Big John replied, shooting Daniel in the back as he turned to run. William rushed to help Daniel and was also shot.
12

The Strongs retreated to their log building. The Littles took over the courthouse. Everyone else left town.