The daily sentinel., 1908-03-25
(New York Times.l

The death of Tom Hatfield, the
famous mountain feudist, at Louisa,
KY, makes about the sixtieth victim
of the Hatfield-McCoy feud, that be
gan forty-eight years ago, as the re
suit of one of the Mccoy razor-back
pigs swimming Tug river from the
Mccoy place on the Kentucky side
to the ancestral home of the Hat
fields in West Virginia. Tom Hat
field, a descendant of the terrible
Devil Anse" Hatfield, was the one
member of that murderous family
who had been supposed to have a
charmed life. He always escaped
without a scratch in the scores of
murderous battles between the Hat
field and Mccoy clans.
AS they tell it on the Tug river
the war between the Hatfields and
McCoys began just before the out
break of the civil war. and it all
started over the ownership of a Ken
lucky razor-back hog.
The McCoys at the time were load
ing boat with razor-backs that
were consigned to a Cincinnati pork
packer. when one of the pigs jumped
over the boat railing into Tug river,
and swan straight for Hatfield terri
tory. The Mccoy negroes were sent
soon returned and told old Randolph
Mccoy, the head of the Mccoy clan,
that the Hatfield negroes had chased
the animal into a ravine and held
it. Old Rand" sent word to "Anse"
Hatfield that he wanted his hog
back.
"If you think you have boys
enough" "Old Anse" sent word
back, why don't you come and get
the old pig?"
Civil War Delays the Feud.
1t is said that the McCoys We're
laying out a plan of battle for the
recapture of the pig when the news
that the civil war was on reached
the West Virginia-Kentucky noun
tains. All the McCoys shouldered
their guns and enlisted for the south,
as did most of the Hatfields. Some
of the Hatfields. however, it is said,
fought for the union.
When the war ended the Hatfields
that had not been killed in battle
and the surviving McCoys came back
to their homes, the Hatfields to the
West Virginia side and the McCoys
to the Kentucky side of the Tug
river, and the incident of the pig, as
was rapidly proved, had not been
forgotten.
Soon after the warning families
returned there was an election in
West Virginia, and the McCoys went
across the river to help one of the
candidates. In the course of the day
three of the Mccoy boys, the young
est only 10 and the eldest about 20
years. met some of the Hatfields,
one of whom was bad Anse." There
was fight, and when it was over
Anse was dead from thirty-one stab
wounds. Later the Hatfields cap
tured the three McCoys, took them
to secluded spot, tied them to trees
and shot them dead.
The McCoys being Kentuckians,
the governor of that state demanded
that their murderers be returned to
Kentucky for trial. Thereupon the
Hatfields got up petition and made
all the neighbors sign it. When some
refused to do so, the Hatflelds made
them do so at the muzzle of Win
chester rifles. The governor of West
Virginia read this petition and de-
cided that the Mccoy had treated
the Hatfields very shahbily, and they
stayed in West Virginia A few
weeks later John Logan and Sam
Bird, followers of the feudists, were
found dead on the banks of the Tug
river, each with bullet hole in his
head.
So the war went on, and every
now and then news that Hatfield
or a Mccoy had been killed reached
the outside world. In 1887 came the