The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-10-08
History Of the Hatfield Mccoy
Vendetta.
a LOVE AFFAIR STARTS 1T ALL.
How They fake" All the Wives They Want
a To in Kentucky-Some Of the Kill
- ings-An Interview.
Especial to THE HERALD Examiner Dispatch

the great mountain vendetta IN lSS:
can be directly traced to q love
affair between John Hatfield and
Rosanna Mccoy. Since that time the
boundary line between West Virginia and
Kentucky on the, Tug river has acquired g
fearful noJoriety as the home of desperate
and shameless crime. Murder Land'' is
now the ordinary and appropriate designa
tion of these horror haunted mountains,
where social condition, of an evil state OF
human nature are at once the cause and
the results of the crimes which have rem
dered them accursed. The killing of poor
Julia Ann Mccoy. her young handsome
John Hand and the minister that made
them one Tuesday, if true, is but the logi-
cal seqUal of a series of murders which
have decimated the Mccoy and Hatfield
families. So far the Hatfields have had
the best of it. Ii is not they but the
McCoys who have mostly died in their
boots
Rosanns Mccoy, who was the daughter
OF Randolph, chief of the Mccoy clan, lived
with her father in Pike county, Kentucky.
John Hatfeld's domain was across the
state line in West Virginia. His marriage
to Rosanna, (they call these little affairs
marriages in West Virginia., more resem-
bled the rape of the Sabines. In the YER
HdCuldI VI Jue ,Jblu GOOh Will
Rosanna, who, in 1882, was rosy laced
girl of eighteen with regular features and
straight, 1.-THE figure. He had met her at
an election gathering in Pike county
whether she had ridden pillion fashion be-
hind one of her brothers.
The bold Hatfield became perfectly in
fatuated with Miss Mccoy and in1amed
with liquor proposed that she should elope
with him. She objected. He captured her
by force and terrified her into compliance.
Towards the close Of night he was seen by
the McCoys crossing the river with
Rosanna seated behind him on his strong
black horse When John ran away with
the pride of the McCoys, he was already
married, but the Hatfields don't mind a
little thing like that Justice of the Peace
Valentine Hatfield, when captured in 1855,
confessed to Attorney James Lee Fer
guson, of Pike county, Kentucky. that he
had as many as five living wives and
thirty three living children. The Hatfelds
have peculiar ideas of polygamy. They do
'gnOt marry their wives according to law,
but they take them and apportion their
time between them just like any Mormon
elder or the grand Turk. This is Just what
John did. He "tOok'' Rossana home with
him. presented her to his first wife and
forced her to recognize this new leader as
head of the house.
Rosauna remained in bondage till the end
of the year when, frightened by the threats
of her family, she returned to her own
home. John let her go, but he did not for
90 the romantic luxury of visits to the Nc
Coy homestead. In one of the trips he was
captured and led out, as Rosanna believed,
20 his death. He was taken at l o'clock in
the morning. After this arrest she
crawled out of her bed, unfastened horse
from her fathers stable and started off in
the blacklist of black nights to warn the
Hatfields. Old Anse Immediately turned
out his crowd. They crossed the river and
three of tn m came up in time to beat off a
party IF nine VINO were taking "Jone " to
Jail The Hatfelds covered the McCoys
with Winchesters and John was given up.
Anse was in favor of killing the McCoys
then and there, but was dissuaded by peace
maker Elias Hatfield. This quarrel led di-
rectly TO the killing of Ellison Hatfield.
Ellison. like Elias, was arrested for being a
peacemaker. He was strong and square and
resolute man, always anxious to avoid a
quarrel if he could. He came to his death
bNause of his interference in petty row
between members of his family and one of
the McCoys. The ostensible cause of the
row was a quarrel over ring. Three of
the McCoys closed upon Deacon Ellison and
stabbed him with their knives. He was
cut in at least twenty-four different places
and undoubtedly killed. One OF these Nc
Cows was a mere boy of sixteen. He did
most of the cutting in the back. The Hat
fields. led by bad, ugly, coarse man, i'm
mediately retaliated. They ARRESTED"
the term is not to be understood as used in
any legal sense, the three McCoys, tied
them to bushes and shot them to death.
Talbot, Fargo and Randolph Mccoy, ir.,
thus met their fate. JEFF Mccoy next paid
the penalty.
After killing q man named Woodford he
paid "Cap. Hatfield a visit and shot one of
his hired men in the hip. 1t was no more
than a flesh wound and no mountaineer lays
up with anything short Of mortal wound.
Therefore the hired man did not design
Jeff's death-Wallace and cap" Hatfield
decided to arrest him and take him to
Jail, but when JEFF came to the river he
attempted to escape and was shot at more
than twenty times while crossing the
stream and finally killed by Gap" Hat
field just as he was escaping on the further
bank.
There now began. a series Of raids be-
tween the states of Kentucky and West
Virginia in which the McCoys were very
active The respective governors of the
two states took u hand in the vendetta and
only made matters worse. The Hattields,
exasperated by the state of war which
reigned about their mountain lairs. did not
wait to be captured or killed but took
time by the forelock, planning and execut-
ing one of the most CHASTITY murders in
history. One night they surrounded the
mouse of Randolph Mccoy where his
beautiful daughter had been stolen by John
Hatfield, and who had ripened his violence
by extraordinary love and devotion, and
fired into the defenseless family. a sharp
yolley was returned.
q Hatfield, seeing that they were likely to
get as good as the could give set fire to the
building, and succeeded in driving the in
mates out. One of them was Miss Allaphau
Mccoy. a young girl of sixteen. AS she
stood pleading for mercy on the door step,
Ellison Mounts, low born son of the muir
dered Ellison, shot her dead. An old lady
was beaten about the head with gun so
that her life was despaired of for several
days, and one of the sons of Calvin Mccoy
wqs killed. The house was burned to the
gBound.
The Hatfields concerned in this affair
were "Cap' Half I'd, Tom Mitchell,
French Ellis, Bob Hattied, Elliot Hatfield,
Charles Gillespie, Ellis Mounts and Jim
Vance This burning of the house and the
atrocous murders in connection with it,
brought on another raid on the part of the
McCoys, led by man named Phillips, who
is said to have loved the beautiful Rosanna
Phillips was an humble officer of the law,
but was fired with the spirit of fiend and
his act was on par with the outlawry he
was seeking to put down. In this raid Jim
Vance, the leader of the house burning, in
which Anse Hatfield played so despicable a
part, was shot down by Phillips Vance
was vindictive fighter and when Phillips
even came up to the old fellow, they found
hirn with the right fore finger clasped
apfend the trigger of his pistol trying with
his last strength to shoot one more shot.