Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1915-11-24

There is no place like home" The
| sequel tells that a cynical traveller
passing that way reflected on the an
nails of that dwelling and added in
postscript: 'Leastways not this side
! of hell"
The story of the Hatfield-McCoy
feud Is in many ways that of other
wars" which have made Of the roof
tree OF the eastern divide a land be-
leaguered and unique
| In the war between the Haveys and
the McBriars there was more than the
forgotten episode of stray razorback
which was not surrendered to it's law
full owners. They had for decades
hated and killed each other with
fidelity of bitterness that made all
their truces and intermarriages fail of
permanent peace.
| Between the territories where they
! had originally settled stretched a bar
Iier of hills broken by only one gap.
The McBriars had made their first
habitations east of that ridge and gap
where the waters ran toward the sea.
| The Haveys had set up their power
to the west, where the creeks and
| springs fed the rivers that went down
to the Blue-Grass and to Tennessee.
Had the two clans been content to re-
main respectively on the sunrise and
sunset slopes of the backbone, they
might never have clashed, but there
| were bright-eyed women to the west
! and east. Feminine Havey eyes lured
| McBriar suitors, and McBriar girls
seemed TO the Havey men worth any
dare that fate might set. So it has
! been since young Montagues and
/ Capulets ignored deadlines-and long
| before. Smoke went up from cabins
on both sides that housed men and
women of both clans. Hatred scat
tered and set up new points of infec-
tion all along Tribulation and beyond
its headwaters
In Civil war and subsequent politics
a line Of fierce cleavage had yawned
between them-and each faction had
been power.
1t was to the leadership Of such
clan that Bad Anse had succeeded
when hardly twenty-one by the death
of father whose end had not come
upon bed of illness.
It was to the herding of such flock
that he had ridden away from the
cabin of Fetch McNash on the night
when the girls scornful taunt fol-
| lowed him.
1t was an unfortunate thing that
| Cal Douglas should, on February
afternoon, have shot to death his
brother-in-law, Noah Watt, even If, as
Cal earnestly assured the jury, "he
was jest obleeged an beholden ter do
it." All the circumstances of the at
fair were inopportune for his kinsman
and the kinsmen Of the man who died
with bullet through his vitals.
Cal bore name for surly character,
and even in land where grudge-bear-
| ing is religion he was deemed ultra
| fanatical in tanning the flame OF ha.
| tired Noah Watt himself was little
| loved by either the Haveys, into whose
| family he had married, or the McBri-
ars, from whom he sprang. Neigh
| bors told of frequent and violent bick-
erings between the man and his
| shrewish wife, who was the twin SIS
| ter of Cal Douglas.
"Cal Douglas an Noey Watts wom
. an air es much alike es two peas in
pod" went neighborhood pronounce
ment. They air both soured on
mankind an they glories in human
misery"
Had the fight on that winter eve
ming ended in the death Of both par
ticiparts, McBriars and Haveys would
alike have called it a gentle radiance
and dropped the matter where it stood.
But since a Havey had slain Nc
| Briar and the Havey still lived it
could not, in honor, be SO dropped. 1t
| left an uneven score.
Since the mountaineer has little to
do in the winter and spring save Cos
, SIP. the affair grew in importance
with rehearsing, and to each telling
was added new features. 1t was sig
nificantly pointed out east of the ridge
that Noah had incurred the displeas-
ure of Bad Anse Havey by the suspi-
| cion of tale-bear1ng 10 ola Mllt NC
Briar. It was argued that the particu-
lar wife-beating which led to the trag-
| edv might have passed as uneventfully
! az several similar episodes heretofore,
had not the heads of the Haveys made
II a pretext for eliminating a McBriar
!, who dwelt in their midst and carried
news across the ridge to bis own
people.
For several years the feud had
slept. not the complete sleep OF death,
hut the ftful, simmering sleep of eau
tious animosity. But neither clan felt
so Overwhelmingly strong as to court
an issue just yet and, realizing the
desperate quality of any outbreak,
both Milt McBriar "over yon ana
Anse Havey over here had guarded
tbe more belligerent kinsmen with
Jealous eye. They had until now neio
| - ,laol~nd and leaShed, though