The record-union., 1897-06-14
THE GOVERNORS JEALOUSY. T
He Wanted to Know Who Signed a
Death Warrant,


Death Warrant.
Half a dozen of US were sitting in
the Bee office at Omaha talking
about this thing and that, and after a
while the conversation turned upon the
execution of the murderers of Pearl
Bryan in Kentucky and then it was
that Porter came into the running.
Porter had been sitting silently at his
desk working away on a special dis
patch to an Eastern newspaper, a dis
patch concerning the high water or the
militia's descent upon the Supreme
Court, or something of that kind, and
had apparently lent little heed to our
talk. But when the State of Kentucky
was mentioned in connection with a
hanging he looked up in a guilty fash
ion and gave attention. PercivaI, per-
ceiving this, and knowing the story
which was behind it, said:
'Porter's afraid of Simon Bolivar
Buckner every time he hears about
capital punishment" Which was a
most puzzling thing to say about a
special correspondent and which de-
manded an explanation. After some
persuasion Porter agreed to give the
explanation.
He had been employed on a Cincin-
natl paper at the zenith of the Hatfield
Mccoy feud in Kentucky and West
Virginia, he said, and believing he could
serve his journal to advantage by going
up into the heart of the enemy's coun-
try, he had packed up and drifted into
the land of the Mccoy y's-which is to
say Pike County, KY. Across the Big
Sandy River, in Logan County, West
Virginia, the Hatfelds held sway, in
terspersing and mingling the manu-
facture of moonshine whisky with the
assa ssination of a Mccoy here and
there. 1t was an even break, however,
Porter said, for whenever a Hatfield
was caught by Mccoy force there was
an immediate reduction in the visible
supply of Hatfelds.
Il don't suppose said the CORE
spondent, that people who have read
the newspaper accounts of that famous
feud have the slightest conception of
its extent. Why, the whole of Pike
County was one vast Mccoy camp. At
the sound of alarm every man and boy
capable of carrying a Winchester was
Immediately under arms to go out
against the Hatfelds, and over the
river in Logan County, West Virginia.
the Hatfield clan was equally numerous
and equally vgilant. The county Off
cials were madesup entirely of McCoys
in Pike County and of Hatfields in Lo-
gan, and the old rule of he who is not
with me is against me- prevailed to the
extent that the man who was not an
open. avowed and loyal Mccoy adherent
in Pike or a Hatfield adherent to the
thirty-third degree in Logan, was a
dead man and unmourned. l don't
know how it started, this feud, but it
was far-reaching and took in every
body. When struck Pikeville I was a
firm and devout adherent of Mccoy,
you may be assured. If l hadn't been /
should have been a firm and devout
corpse.
''As Percival has spoken only of the
time when circumstances led me in
opposition to the wrath of Simon Boil
var Buckner, l shall tell only of that
instance. 1t was the eliminating af-
fair of a brief season full of the hottest
events one could wish. I may say in
parenthesis that | had a few Mccoy
relatives up there who vouched for me,
and my errand grew from that of
newspaper CORES spondent to the pub
Usher of a local newspaper-'The
Mountain Monitor It ought to have
been called The Alpine Apologist,' for
there were five columns of apology to
one column Of stale news clipped from
the Cincinnati papers. Actually, l
found that these people We're so touchy
that the merest three-line personal item
was taken as a studied insult and one
recurring an explanation in the next
issue. or death. I always politely ex-
planned 1t was an easy job. | didn
have to bother hunting news. When
my one printer demanded copy 1 had
only to sit down and write another
apology. They cleaned me out few
times for luck, but that is neither here
nor there.
Il had been there long enough to have
the confidence without the bullets of
the McCoys when one January night
gang of Hatfelds, led by Devil Anse
and Elston Hatfield, the latter son of
one of the West Virginia leaders, came
over wearying of six months of peace,
and burned the house of old Randall
Mccoy. killing his daughter and little
adopted son. The next day the McCoys
were out hunting.
"Old Randall had marked one of the
assassins. Elston, by putting a bullet
through his wrist as his hand had been
showed through the half-open door.
With that to guide us-for I went along
with one of the parties, comforting my
self with the idea that I was there
merely as a newspaper man-we cross
ed the river and beat up the mountain
side. A man named Frank Phillips
was at the head of our band of nine or
ten men. On the second morning out
we saw a woman climbing the hill with
a basket and We knew she was taking
provisions to some hidden Hatfield.
She saw us. too, and gave the alarm,
and the concealed men, one of whom
was old Cap Hatfield, an ex-Confed-
crate officer, broke. We got one of
them, but Cap found refuge in dense
and almost unapproachable under
brush, from which, sheltered by great
tree, he sent eursory but effective bull
lets at our party. The only approach
to the barricaded man was across a
clearing, and as he was a dead shot,
this route seemed uninviting, especially
TO me, / being a perfect representation
of a man scared to death. But Phillips.
with nerve hardly conceivable. declared
that he would run across and rout the
game. He did, too. successfully daring
the old mans rainstorm OF bullets, and
in the face of the fact that he was a
crack with a Winchester. Cap came
from behind his tree and started to run.
A minute later he was a dead man.
This was just an incident The next