Commemorating A Homicidal Squabble – It’s Fun! June 14, 2008
Posted by glabwrites in Big Mike, Hatfields & McCoys, Kentucky, Michael G. Glab, Sex, West Virginia.trackback
How can I not adore my newly-adopted state…, er, commonwealth, of Kentucky?
Today, the Hatfield-McCoy Reunion-Festival takes place in the Cumberland Mountains area of eastern Kentucky. That’s right, Hatfield & McCoy, as in the biggest family feud in this nation’s history.
There’ll be concerts, reenactments, and a marathon, all parts of the festivities celebrating the murderous dispute between the Hatfields of West Virginia and the McCoys of Kentucky. Yahoo.
And to think it all started because too many folks couldn’t keep their drawers up.
She started it.
Back in the early and mid-1800s, a couple of wild birds, “Ole Ran’l” McCoy and “Devil Anse” Hatfield, each did his part to populate the backwoods around the Tug River, a tributary of the Big Sandy which separates the two states. Between them Ole Ran’l and Devil Anse sired 29 children. These progeny grew up and began to add to the census by marrying each other. Eventually, a baffling network of relationships developed, leading to many marriages between cousins.
The two clans, mostly illiterate and contemptuous of civil authority, survived by hunting, distilling illegal spirits, and logging. For entertainment, the males became expert marksmen.
Armed to the teeth and hard-headed, the Hatfields and McCoys controlled their respective sides of the Tug. The area became so insular that tax collectors and law enforcement officials were loath to trespass.
Conflicting loyalties during the Civil War led to the first wave of bad blood. Things then cooled off a bit until a big county election get-together in the spring of 1880 when two kids – Roseanna McCoy and Johnse Hatfield – sneaked off into the shrubbery and, thanks to randy alchemy and biology, began the process of bringing another straight-shootin’, moonshinin’, tree-fellin’ bundle of joy into being.
Nuh uh, he did.
As one might expect, the god-fearing folks from both sides had conniption fits. Next thing you know, bullets were flying across the Tug River once again. By the time peace was finally restored, more than a dozen people had been killed in the hostilities.
I hope the sex was worth it.
Anyway, the big festival is happening as I type. Descendants of the Hatfields and the McCoys come in from all around the nation for the annual shindig. The highlight of the day just might be the traditional tug of war, natch, with the Hatfields on one side of the Tug River and the McCoys on the other.
If gasoline didn’t cost so damned much these days, I’d have dashed down to Pikeville, Kentucky and Matewan, West Virginia to take in the celebration.
Can your state (or commonwealth) top that?
Thanks for the explanation. I’d wondered about that ever since I first heard about the feud (via The Flintstones, of course).
I take it this “mostly illiterate” crew learned nothing from Romeo and Juliet.
Of course it was worth it! It’s sex!
[...] Royko, Richard J. Daley, University of Illinois at Chicago. trackback Not long ago, I wrote a post about how I couldn’t help but love my newly adopted Kentucky, the site – with West Virginia – [...]
the feud was actually started because of a pig. A pig of Ran’l McCoy’s went missing, and since Ran’l and his wife Sarah were scraping for by for a living, this was a big deal. Ran’l went to Anse’s brother’s farm and saw a familiar pig. He swore up and down it was his, but the brother told him he better get off his property quick. Contrary to what was addressed, Ran’l was a mostly law-abiding man. He took his case to the local Hatfield judge, whose reputation as a fair lawyer proved true. He listened and gathered a jury of mixed Hatfields and McCoys. After two McCoys played Judas in the jury, Anse Hatfield got to keep the pig, and the McCoys were absolutely livid over the betrayal of two of their own kin.