The Hatfield and McCoy Feud
As a reporter for a daily paper in the heart of central Appalachia, I used to see a lot of things that brought mountain history to life.
Several of the things I saw in my 14 months with the Bluefield Daily Telegraph made it easier to understand one of the most imfamous pieces of regional history - the Hatfield-McCoy family feud.
In most newsrooms, the police scanner becomes a focus of attention, almost a household idol at times. There was a period of a few months at the Telegraph where we would regularly hear a message from the Mercer County (WV) Sheriff's Department that went something like this:
"All units, I have a report of shots fired on Buckstove Ridge. Need someone to investigate..."
We'd listen to the scanner to see what was going to happen next; if we could, we wanted to stay in the newsroom, seeing as how the ridge in question (I haven't used its real name) was 30 minutes or so from us and none of the reporters liked being shot at. But usually, that first message was also the last thing we heard about it.
One day I called the sheriff's department and was told that there was a dispute on the ridge over a property line and that two families there both believed that a certain water hole was entirely on their land. Each would try and prevent the other from watering animals at the hole.
The Hatfield and McCoy Feud may have started over something equally as petty: Randal McCoy accussed Floyd Hatfield of stealing his pig.
While the incident with the pig seems to have served as a spark to intensify the ill feelings between the families, bad blood across the Tug River appears to have dated back to at least the Civil War era.
It is beyond my scope here to detail the feud. But there are a couple of good descriptions online. One is at Hatfield & McCoy Feud at a site called "The Real McCoys." Most of the site's pages can be reached by links on the Feud page. There is a chat area, some geneology information on the McCoys, a links page, family news and much more. The McCoys are currently in the process of planning the first-ever national McCoy reunion, probably to be held in Pikeville, Ky., in the year 2000.
Love (or at least LUST) also played a major role in the feud.
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