May 28, 2026 • 12 mins
The 30-year feud between these two families is more dramatic than fiction -- and may be the starting point of negative stereotypes about Appalachia. Learn about the story behind the Hatfields and McCoys in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/hatfields-and-mccoys.htm
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Lauren vogelbam here. For somewhere around one hundred and fifty years,
the hat Fields and the McCoys have been synonymous with
bad neighbors. Theirs is the quintessential American feud in all
its glorious pettiness and startling violence. The true story of
(00:27):
the Hatfields and Coys goes well beyond simple fighting, though.
The feud literally reached across borders, reflecting a tumultuous time
in American history that bridged the Civil War and the
Industrial Revolution. It was a period in which the country,
and certainly much of Appalachia the setting of the feud,
was torn between past and future. The rival refeatured its
(00:50):
own Romeo and Juliet, and it's part of why Appalachia
is still often misunderstood and misrepresented. For the article this
episode is based on How Stuff Works, spoke with doctor
Charles Keeney the Third, also known as Chuck, a history
professor at Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College. He said,
I'm a native West Virginian. I grew up around the history.
(01:14):
My specialization is Appalachian history. So the Hatfield McCoy feud
is something that I've grown up with and has played
such a huge role in shaping people's perception of my home.
The Hatfield McCoy feud is as the best feuds are
populated with a cast of colorful characters doing sometimes dastardly deeds.
(01:36):
It begins with two principles. William Anderson Hatfield, also known
as devil Ants, born in eighteen thirty nine near what's
now Logan, West Virginia. He was a father of thirteen
who fought for the Confederacy. He was also a farmer
and an early timber entrepreneur. And then there's Randolph McCoy
(01:57):
also known as Randall born in eighteen twenty five on
the Kentucky side of the Tug River Valley that separates
Kentucky from the southwest part of West Virginia. He was
a father of seventeen who fought alongside devil Ants for
the South in the Civil War, and was also a farmer.
But they were very different men. Houstuffworks also spoke with
(02:18):
Bill Richardson, a West Virginia University Extension professor. He explained
devil Ants Hatfield was a bigger than life character. There
were three thousand people at his funeral. He was one
of the first entrepreneurs in this area. A lot of
people used him for their employment. He was very influential
in politics. He was a man the people gravitated to. Randall,
(02:40):
on the other hand, was this subsistence farmer. His parents
divorced after fifty years of marriage, which was unheard of
at the time, and Randall was sort of a beaten
down man. He was fifteen years older than devil Ants.
He had a very hard life. Ants was the person
who prospered and Randall didn't, so there's some hard feelings
from that. The Hatfields and McCoy's were not neighbors in
(03:05):
a strict geographical sense, traveling by horse, going up and
down mountains and across the Tug River. The patriarchs of
these two families lived some six hours apart, but they
were longtime acquaintances. They fought in the same regiment during
the Civil War, though even there the two faced very
different experiences. Hatfield deserted to form a kind of guerrilla
(03:29):
band fighting for the Confederacy. McCoy was captured and spent
about two years any Union prisoner of war camp. How
the bad blood started between them is still up to
debate at some point to the split during the Civil War.
Other historians have different ideas. Richardson explained, there's three possibilities.
(03:50):
One is the Civil War, and all of the books
written before nineteen forty attribute it to the Civil War.
Another one is the land deal that sort of went
wrong that he included devil Ants, Hatfield and a guy
named Perry Klein. And then the third is the hog trial.
I know of three first person accounts of people who
were in the feud, and all three of those accounts
(04:12):
they start with the hog trial. What you may ask
was the hog trial. Well, in eighteen seventy eight, Randall
McCoy accused Floyd Hatfield, one of devil Ants's cousins, of
stealing one of his hogs. Randall took him to court,
and a jury of six McCoy's and six Hatfields found
(04:35):
Floyd not guilty. One of Randall's own cousins crossed over
and voted to acquit him. And doctor Keeney, who teaches
a class on the subject, doesn't buy into the hog
trial theory precisely because the incident ended in a trial.
He's of the belief that a number of things about
the changing times. All contributed to the feud, including post
(04:59):
war week construction and industrialization in timber and the burgeting
coal industry, a plus outside influence from national and international
investors and various land grabs. Oh. Whatever the catalyst or catalysts,
the feud lasted for nearly thirty years, kicked off by
an instance of violence five years after the infamous Hog trial.
(05:24):
It was election day in eighteen eighty two and a
quarrel broke out involving one Ellison Hatfield, who was devil
Ants's brother, and three of Randall McCoy's sons. The McCoys
jumped Ellison and stabbed him to death in public. The
McCoy boys were arrested, but devil Ants, incensed at the
murder of his beloved younger brother, gathered some of his
(05:46):
sons and snatched the killers away from the authorities, tied
them up in a copse of pop pop bushes, and
shot them many times. The second big event in the
feud happened another five years later, on New Year's Eve
of eighteen eighty seven, when devil Ance's uncle, one Jim Vance,
led a group of Hatfields into Kentucky to capture Randall
(06:06):
McCoy at his farm. The group burned down McCoy's house,
shot and killed two of his children, and badly injured
his wife, but Randall escaped. During the on again, off
again feud, numerous legal proceedings were filed, including one that
went all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court.
Bounty hunters were hired, including one deputy sheriff by the
(06:29):
name of Bad Frank Phillips. To the McCoys paid to
kill Jim Vance, and during much of the feud a
story of star crossed lovers played out. It began with
Johnson Hatfield also known as Johns, wooing Rosanna McCoy, but
was further complicated when the scallawag Johnce left Rosanna pregnant
(06:49):
and went on to marry her cousin Nancy McCoy, causing
a lot of embarrassment to both families. Nancy, by the way,
eventually left Johns to marry the aforementioned bad Friend Phillips.
Soap operas have nothing on these events. The third and
final major incident in the feud happened in January of
eighteen eighty eight and is now known as the Battle
(07:11):
of the Grape Vine Creek. After Bad Frank killed Jim Vance,
the Hatfields planned an attack of retaliation, but Bad Frank
got wind of it and gathered counter offensive near Grapevine
Creek in West Virginia. The two sides faced off and
traded gunfire. No one died, but the McCoys captured several
(07:32):
members of the Hatfield clan and turned them over to
the authorities in connection to the New Year's Eve murders.
They were tried and a few were convicted, with one
Ellison Mounts, the son of devil Antce's murdered brother Ellison,
being hanged for his crimes. By the feud's end, twelve
people had died, of thirteen if you count Rosanna. Her
(07:55):
baby died in infancy, which was unfortunately common before vaccinated
and other modern medicine, and Rosanna passed a few months later.
Who won the feud is argued to this day. Richardson said,
by all definitions, the hat Fields came out on top.
But here's the thing. If it happened today, the hat
(08:18):
Fields would be the ones that everybody thought, these people
need to go to jail. And that's what happened. At
the end of the story. Both patriarchs wound up living
to the ripe age of eighty eight. Randall McCoy died
in nineteen fourteen after injuries from a cooking fire, and
is buried in a small plot in Pikesville, Kentucky. Devil
(08:39):
Ance Hatfield died of pneumonia in nineteen twenty one and
is buried under a life sized marble statue in Logan County,
West Virginia. All of the events are surely scandalous and tragic,
But how did these two families carve out a place
in the American consciousness? The hat Field McCoy rivalry was
(09:01):
first portrayed by New York World reporter T. C. Crawford
in the late eighteen hundreds as a case of barbarism
deep in the hills of Appalachia. His reporting, later gathered
in the book An American Vendetta, sensationalized the story by
portraying the people of the area as essentially uncivilized. Keeney said,
(09:24):
when I was a kid, we used to vacation in
Florida a lot, and I can remember going down to
Cypress Gardens and they had this water skiing show, and
the water skiing show was the Hatfields and McCoy's. They
had the McCoy group and the Hatfield group, and then
they had another skier that was dressed as a pig.
I think that was the late eighties, early nineties. I
(09:44):
was a kid, But all that I vaguely understood is
that we were being mocked. Starting with Crawford's reporting, much
of the outside world came to know West Virginia, Kentucky,
and Appalachia at large as an area hopefully lost in time.
His reporting on the Hatfields McCoy's is credited with popularizing
(10:06):
the image of the toothless, simpleton hillbilly that persists to
this day. Before that time, the people of the area
were better known as frontiersmen. Think Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone.
Keeney said in the West, the cowboys were taming the wilderness.
In the East, these were people who had yet to modernize.
(10:27):
They were remnants of a bygone era. Perhaps ironically, a
twenty twelve television mini series starring Kevin Costner as devil
Ants and Bill Paxton as Randall McCoy enjoyed good reviews
and managed to rework the image of Appalachians, at least
somewhat even sparking a boost in tourism to the area. Today,
(10:48):
in Pike County, Kentucky, visitors can snag tour maps that
include grave sites, the site of the Paw Paw Tree executions,
the site of the Hog Trial, and the site where
Ellison Mounts was hey, effectively ending the feud. And every fall.
The Hatfield McCoy Heritage Day's homecoming in Pikefield, Kentucky is
(11:08):
attended by descendants of both families and curious visitors as
a celebration of the piece made between the Hatfields and McCoy's.
Some locals have come to embrace the story. Keeney said,
everybody in southern West Virginia, somehow or another, claims to
be related to devil ants. Hatfield people have adopted it
(11:30):
as something they kind of take pride in. But even
the stereotype, if you say I'm this way all right,
I'll wear it as a badge of honor. Today's episode
is based on the article What fueled the famous feud
between the hat Fields and McCoy's on HowStuffWorks dot Com,
written by John Donovan. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio
(11:53):
in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and is produced by
Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my Heart Radio. Visit
the iHeartRadio, up Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Lauren vogelbam here. For somewhere around one hundred and fifty years,
the hat Fields and the McCoys have been synonymous with
bad neighbors. Theirs is the quintessential American feud in all
its glorious pettiness and startling violence. The true story of
(00:27):
the Hatfields and Coys goes well beyond simple fighting, though.
The feud literally reached across borders, reflecting a tumultuous time
in American history that bridged the Civil War and the
Industrial Revolution. It was a period in which the country,
and certainly much of Appalachia the setting of the feud,
was torn between past and future. The rival refeatured its
(00:50):
own Romeo and Juliet, and it's part of why Appalachia
is still often misunderstood and misrepresented. For the article this
episode is based on How Stuff Works, spoke with doctor
Charles Keeney the Third, also known as Chuck, a history
professor at Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College. He said,
I'm a native West Virginian. I grew up around the history.
(01:14):
My specialization is Appalachian history. So the Hatfield McCoy feud
is something that I've grown up with and has played
such a huge role in shaping people's perception of my home.
The Hatfield McCoy feud is as the best feuds are
populated with a cast of colorful characters doing sometimes dastardly deeds.
(01:36):
It begins with two principles. William Anderson Hatfield, also known
as devil Ants, born in eighteen thirty nine near what's
now Logan, West Virginia. He was a father of thirteen
who fought for the Confederacy. He was also a farmer
and an early timber entrepreneur. And then there's Randolph McCoy
(01:57):
also known as Randall born in eighteen twenty five on
the Kentucky side of the Tug River Valley that separates
Kentucky from the southwest part of West Virginia. He was
a father of seventeen who fought alongside devil Ants for
the South in the Civil War, and was also a farmer.
But they were very different men. Houstuffworks also spoke with
(02:18):
Bill Richardson, a West Virginia University Extension professor. He explained
devil Ants Hatfield was a bigger than life character. There
were three thousand people at his funeral. He was one
of the first entrepreneurs in this area. A lot of
people used him for their employment. He was very influential
in politics. He was a man the people gravitated to. Randall,
(02:40):
on the other hand, was this subsistence farmer. His parents
divorced after fifty years of marriage, which was unheard of
at the time, and Randall was sort of a beaten
down man. He was fifteen years older than devil Ants.
He had a very hard life. Ants was the person
who prospered and Randall didn't, so there's some hard feelings
from that. The Hatfields and McCoy's were not neighbors in
(03:05):
a strict geographical sense, traveling by horse, going up and
down mountains and across the Tug River. The patriarchs of
these two families lived some six hours apart, but they
were longtime acquaintances. They fought in the same regiment during
the Civil War, though even there the two faced very
different experiences. Hatfield deserted to form a kind of guerrilla
(03:29):
band fighting for the Confederacy. McCoy was captured and spent
about two years any Union prisoner of war camp. How
the bad blood started between them is still up to
debate at some point to the split during the Civil War.
Other historians have different ideas. Richardson explained, there's three possibilities.
(03:50):
One is the Civil War, and all of the books
written before nineteen forty attribute it to the Civil War.
Another one is the land deal that sort of went
wrong that he included devil Ants, Hatfield and a guy
named Perry Klein. And then the third is the hog trial.
I know of three first person accounts of people who
were in the feud, and all three of those accounts
(04:12):
they start with the hog trial. What you may ask
was the hog trial. Well, in eighteen seventy eight, Randall
McCoy accused Floyd Hatfield, one of devil Ants's cousins, of
stealing one of his hogs. Randall took him to court,
and a jury of six McCoy's and six Hatfields found
(04:35):
Floyd not guilty. One of Randall's own cousins crossed over
and voted to acquit him. And doctor Keeney, who teaches
a class on the subject, doesn't buy into the hog
trial theory precisely because the incident ended in a trial.
He's of the belief that a number of things about
the changing times. All contributed to the feud, including post
(04:59):
war week construction and industrialization in timber and the burgeting
coal industry, a plus outside influence from national and international
investors and various land grabs. Oh. Whatever the catalyst or catalysts,
the feud lasted for nearly thirty years, kicked off by
an instance of violence five years after the infamous Hog trial.
(05:24):
It was election day in eighteen eighty two and a
quarrel broke out involving one Ellison Hatfield, who was devil
Ants's brother, and three of Randall McCoy's sons. The McCoys
jumped Ellison and stabbed him to death in public. The
McCoy boys were arrested, but devil Ants, incensed at the
murder of his beloved younger brother, gathered some of his
(05:46):
sons and snatched the killers away from the authorities, tied
them up in a copse of pop pop bushes, and
shot them many times. The second big event in the
feud happened another five years later, on New Year's Eve
of eighteen eighty seven, when devil Ance's uncle, one Jim Vance,
led a group of Hatfields into Kentucky to capture Randall
(06:06):
McCoy at his farm. The group burned down McCoy's house,
shot and killed two of his children, and badly injured
his wife, but Randall escaped. During the on again, off
again feud, numerous legal proceedings were filed, including one that
went all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court.
Bounty hunters were hired, including one deputy sheriff by the
(06:29):
name of Bad Frank Phillips. To the McCoys paid to
kill Jim Vance, and during much of the feud a
story of star crossed lovers played out. It began with
Johnson Hatfield also known as Johns, wooing Rosanna McCoy, but
was further complicated when the scallawag Johnce left Rosanna pregnant
(06:49):
and went on to marry her cousin Nancy McCoy, causing
a lot of embarrassment to both families. Nancy, by the way,
eventually left Johns to marry the aforementioned bad Friend Phillips.
Soap operas have nothing on these events. The third and
final major incident in the feud happened in January of
eighteen eighty eight and is now known as the Battle
(07:11):
of the Grape Vine Creek. After Bad Frank killed Jim Vance,
the Hatfields planned an attack of retaliation, but Bad Frank
got wind of it and gathered counter offensive near Grapevine
Creek in West Virginia. The two sides faced off and
traded gunfire. No one died, but the McCoys captured several
(07:32):
members of the Hatfield clan and turned them over to
the authorities in connection to the New Year's Eve murders.
They were tried and a few were convicted, with one
Ellison Mounts, the son of devil Antce's murdered brother Ellison,
being hanged for his crimes. By the feud's end, twelve
people had died, of thirteen if you count Rosanna. Her
(07:55):
baby died in infancy, which was unfortunately common before vaccinated
and other modern medicine, and Rosanna passed a few months later.
Who won the feud is argued to this day. Richardson said,
by all definitions, the hat Fields came out on top.
But here's the thing. If it happened today, the hat
(08:18):
Fields would be the ones that everybody thought, these people
need to go to jail. And that's what happened. At
the end of the story. Both patriarchs wound up living
to the ripe age of eighty eight. Randall McCoy died
in nineteen fourteen after injuries from a cooking fire, and
is buried in a small plot in Pikesville, Kentucky. Devil
(08:39):
Ance Hatfield died of pneumonia in nineteen twenty one and
is buried under a life sized marble statue in Logan County,
West Virginia. All of the events are surely scandalous and tragic,
But how did these two families carve out a place
in the American consciousness? The hat Field McCoy rivalry was
(09:01):
first portrayed by New York World reporter T. C. Crawford
in the late eighteen hundreds as a case of barbarism
deep in the hills of Appalachia. His reporting, later gathered
in the book An American Vendetta, sensationalized the story by
portraying the people of the area as essentially uncivilized. Keeney said,
(09:24):
when I was a kid, we used to vacation in
Florida a lot, and I can remember going down to
Cypress Gardens and they had this water skiing show, and
the water skiing show was the Hatfields and McCoy's. They
had the McCoy group and the Hatfield group, and then
they had another skier that was dressed as a pig.
I think that was the late eighties, early nineties. I
(09:44):
was a kid, But all that I vaguely understood is
that we were being mocked. Starting with Crawford's reporting, much
of the outside world came to know West Virginia, Kentucky,
and Appalachia at large as an area hopefully lost in time.
His reporting on the Hatfields McCoy's is credited with popularizing
(10:06):
the image of the toothless, simpleton hillbilly that persists to
this day. Before that time, the people of the area
were better known as frontiersmen. Think Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone.
Keeney said in the West, the cowboys were taming the wilderness.
In the East, these were people who had yet to modernize.
(10:27):
They were remnants of a bygone era. Perhaps ironically, a
twenty twelve television mini series starring Kevin Costner as devil
Ants and Bill Paxton as Randall McCoy enjoyed good reviews
and managed to rework the image of Appalachians, at least
somewhat even sparking a boost in tourism to the area. Today,
(10:48):
in Pike County, Kentucky, visitors can snag tour maps that
include grave sites, the site of the Paw Paw Tree executions,
the site of the Hog Trial, and the site where
Ellison Mounts was hey, effectively ending the feud. And every fall.
The Hatfield McCoy Heritage Day's homecoming in Pikefield, Kentucky is
(11:08):
attended by descendants of both families and curious visitors as
a celebration of the piece made between the Hatfields and McCoy's.
Some locals have come to embrace the story. Keeney said,
everybody in southern West Virginia, somehow or another, claims to
be related to devil ants. Hatfield people have adopted it
(11:30):
as something they kind of take pride in. But even
the stereotype, if you say I'm this way all right,
I'll wear it as a badge of honor. Today's episode
is based on the article What fueled the famous feud
between the hat Fields and McCoy's on HowStuffWorks dot Com,
written by John Donovan. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio
(11:53):
in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and is produced by
Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my Heart Radio. Visit
the iHeartRadio, up Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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Host
Lauren Vogelbaum
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