The Cordova daily times., 1921-01-29
MATEWAN TRIAL
 RECALLS DAYS
 OF BITTER FEUD

WILLIAMSON, WI ", Jan. 29 (by Associated Press) Since the early days when first settlers from Vir- ginia tough ttheir way to the western country against bands of hostile h. dians, Mingo county, West Virginia, and Pike county, Kentucky, just across its border, have been almost continuous battlegrounds.
 Mingo county's latest struggle is be- tween the coal operators and the min CTS, but after a series of outbreaks which attracted wide attention, fed eral troops are maintaining order.
 After the early settlers had dis posed of the Indians, the moonshin- CTS took the field and for years fought and sometimes vanquished the hated revenue agents, protected as they often were against attacks in the high hills and deep valleys that cover this section. Then came the famous Hatfield-McCoy- feud of the sos and sos. which resulted in the practical wiping out of the Mccoy family and which caused two state governors to take hand in it's suppression. For some years after the feud the moon sinners again took the field, and al though prohibition is now a law of the land. the "makin of flicker" has never been given up entirely in these hills.
 Still another chapter of blood was written In Mingo when efforts were made last summer to organize the coal miners. An unhappy climax came about in Matewan, w ", on May 19, 1920, when in a fight in the streets ten men were killed, seven of whom were guards of private de- tective agency, sent into the district to eject union miners from company homes.
 Since the Matewan fight Mingo has been the scene of other disorders and railroad mining properties have been destroyed by explosives. Intermittent warfare between operators guards and miners and their sympathizers followed in such proportions that re- gently Governor Cornwell, of West Virginia called on the federal govern ment for troops. When a provisional battalion was sent to Mingo, martial law was declared here and several other towns and villages.
 In the meantime miners ejected l from company houses organized tent colonies, and hundreds of families are living in canvas homes in Mingo. This situation raised a question of sani- | tation.
 In the clashes in Mingo the names Hatfield and Mccoy have figured prominently In the Matewan fight Chief of Police Hatfield took part and later was indicted for murder His trial, jointly with 23 others, was com menced before the state court here yesterday.
 AhC tOAIO"IiS IlIS NldLS"un battle, a Mccoy was badly wounded by an unknown assailant on a lonely mountain road.
 These fights have caused old set tiers to hark back to the day when the Hatfield clan, following the killing of one of their brethern. under the leadership of Devil Anse" Hatfield swore what was known as the "B1ack Oath" The story is told that twenty members of the clan, kneeling around a camp fire in the hills of Mingo coun- ty, pledged themselves to the abso- lute destruction of the Mccoy family As result men, women, and children of the enemy clan found no mercy, and the feud became known far and wide as one of the bloodiest in the his tory of the mountains.
 Strange to say three of the detec- tive guards who were killed in the Matewan fight last year were descend ants of state guards and officers who were sent into Mingo in the early sos to put down the feud.
 
 The Geographical Society of Paris