March 23, 2025 • 51 mins
In this exclusive video, Eric sits down with Jack Hatfield, the direct descendant of "Devil Anse" Hatfield, one of the most iconic participants in the infamous and violent Hatfield McCoy feud. Jack talks about a new publication titled "An American Vendetta: Legend of the Hatfield McCoy Feud" and its original format in 1889. Additionally, Jack explains his family's bloody roots, the rivalry between West Virginia and Kentucky, the key instigator Frank Phillips, and the Hatfield McCoy Foundation and Museum. You can also stream the video of this interview on YouTube HERE.
Be sure to subscribe and follow Paperback Warrior for new content and updates. Visit Paperback Warrior's blog for over 1,500 written reviews about vintage fiction and access over 115 episodes of the famed podcast.
Be sure to subscribe and follow Paperback Warrior for new content and updates. Visit Paperback Warrior's blog for over 1,500 written reviews about vintage fiction and access over 115 episodes of the famed podcast.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
My name is Eric, and I host the Paperback Warrior
blog podcast and YouTube channel. At the time of this recording,
the podcast boast over one hundred and fifteen episodes and
it can be streamed anywhere where great podcasts can be found.
A few weeks back, I incorporated a new series of
special episodes of the podcast focusing on more like one
on one conversations with authors, publishers, bloggers, publishing personnel. So
(00:26):
today's episode continues that conversation trend. I'm happy to introduce
Jackie Lee Hatfield Junior. Jackie, who gives me for prior
permission to call him Jack is a direct He's a
direct descendant of William Anderson devil Ants Hatfield, who was
the I would consider him the central figure of the
(00:46):
famed Hatfield McCoy feud. And who on earth hasn't heard
of the legendary American feud between these rural Appalachian families
of the nineteenth century. But I do promise that this
ties into a book, this one right over here over
my shoulder. It ties into book because that's what we
do here at Paperback were we talk books, books, books.
So now jack serves as the president of the Hatfield
(01:08):
McCoy Family Foundation, he's the curator of the Hatfield McCoy Museum.
But today trumping all of those accomplishments is that he's
the guest of honor for this Paperback Wear Podcast episode
and it's going to be amazing. Jack, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Thanks Brede, appreciate you having me.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Thank you so much for coming on. The first thing
I want to do, though, is say congratulations. You were
just awarded the West Virginia History Hero Award from the
States Department of Arts, Culture, and History for your activities
promoting peace, a unity, reconciliation of just not only the
Hatfield McCoy few, but also just your efforts to promote
(01:46):
peace and tranquility and coexistence among all people.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
So what was that, Like, what was your what was
the award ceremony?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Like, that's pretty cool. I got, you know, a nice
little sertificate from the governor. It's hard to see them there,
but yeah, so it was cool. We actually just got
a new governor in office, so it was cool to
meet the new governor and establish a rapport. But yeah,
they were It was awarded by the state for all
(02:14):
the work that I've done trying to preserve all the
history of West Virginia and of course the feud and
the family artifacts and all that good stuff. And yeah,
the foundation itself was created by my aunt Judy Hatfield,
and Rio Hatfield and Ron McCoy were on the board
(02:38):
and beginning Rio still is he's the vice president of
the board of a nonprofit and they were the two
who were instrumental and signing the peace treaty between the
two families. So they did that in after nine to eleven.
They just felt like America was divided and thought, you know,
signing a truce between the two families officially and broadcasting that,
(03:00):
you know, kind of promote unity between our country. You know,
we've been divided so much politically and in every different way.
So they were hoping that, you know, that's that showcasing
the two families coming together, the rest of the world
could two, you know. So that's how the foundation began
(03:20):
and started, and you know, we still carry that message
forward today, you know, and it's needed ever more than
it ever has been. You know, our country is still devided,
so you know, we try to do everything we can.
I even work a lot here locally with all the
different tourism boards. You know, you have different county tourisms
(03:40):
and not to mention, we're on a tri state border,
so you've got counties and states that don't really want
to work together with their tourism and you know they
all want their dollar versus you know, looking at the
bigger picture. But you know, the feud itself and everything,
you know, it happened over to you know, state borders.
That's why it became so nasty during the Civil War.
(04:02):
So it can be very complicated. So we even try
to bring unity even just here locally to keep the
history going. So it's been quite eventful, say the least.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, I'd say so. And you know in my introduction
there you you play a prominent role in the family.
You are the great great great or i should say,
your your devil an Halfield was your great great great grandfather.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
But Jack, despite you.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Know, being born a Hatfield, from what I understand, it
took years for you to actually realize that you had
any connection at all with this, you know, this famous
Hatfield family that was involved in this infamous feud. Right, like,
tell me a little bit about that. How did you
how did you even find out about it?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
So my grandfather was born over here in Logan County
where it all began, and my great great grandfather, I'm sorry,
my grantgrandfather. His dad died very young and actually a
bad moonshine, so so that's the story anyway, but he
(05:13):
died very young. So my grandfather was raised mostly by
his mother's side of the family, and he followed the
coal mines during the boom, which led him over to
Wyoming County, which is the next county over and I
was raised there. Now, what's interesting is the families, both
(05:36):
Hatfields and McCoy's neither were proud of the feud, so
they didn't really talk about it very much after the
feud was over, so a lot of stuff was lost
during you know, there's generations, you know, dying off and
the family you know, spreading out. So you know, my
grandfather didn't really know much of anything. And my dad,
(06:01):
after my grandfather passed, he passed pretty young, in his
early sixties, my dad got curious of our history and
our genealogy and started tracing it back. And with you know,
our name being so infamous, the lineage was easy to
trace back then. This was pre internet days, right, so
(06:21):
it was pretty easy for him to trace, and it
was it was there in black and white, so and
now it's there in DNA, so you know, it's it
was quite interesting. So ever since you know, I was
probably my late teens when I knew, and you know,
you don't really get interested in history or the story
(06:45):
usually to your probably in your thirties or so, which
is kind of what I did. And you know, throughout
that time frame I started becoming interested in it, asking
questions and learning more about the feud, and of course
starting my member Billia collection in my you know, artifact collection.
So that's led me to today.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Actually nice. Okay, So just to kind of get an
idea like geographically were you where were you born? Were
you born in Logan County or where?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
I was born in Raleigh County, which is the closest
hospital to Walming County. And my grandfather was born here
in Logan County and well actually he was born in Warrencliffe.
They now call it Mingo County, but at one point
it was Logan County, and my dad was born in
(07:38):
Walming County. And then I was born in Raleigh. So, uh,
my grandparents live in Beckley, which is where Raleigh County
is it's about an hour from where my parents grew up,
in an hour and a half from here.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Okay, well, gosh, you've had your hands in, you know,
a variety of ventures you've earned. You earned a master's
degree from National Business College in Sale in Virginia, just
south of there from where you were born. You've held
prominent roles with companies like you know, Florida Blue, Verizon
Signa Like, how did you end up stepping away from
(08:13):
like the corporate business world of the twenty first century
to enter this What I can say, it's like almost
like a time machine now you're reliving the eighteen hundreds
of daily How did you become so well, how did
you become so involved in this, you know, this feud
and telling the tale of the history and stuff.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Because of you?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Well not because not because of me.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
It wasn't me.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
This is what started at all here, Yeah, yeah, I
remember that.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Okay, yeap, just what.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Started at all?
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
So yes, it was because of you.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
So for those that don't know, Eric and I worked
together many years ago at Blue Cross or Anthem Lacrosse
Bushield and we sat across from you each other in
a call center and Eric kept saying, Oh, if I
had your name and all those recipes that you've got
over there, I'd be making me a cookbook and sell
(09:09):
in a cookbook. I thought he might be on something there.
So he's my first book, Eating with the hot Fields
Cookbook that we did, and I did that thanks to you, Eric,
and it's done very very well. Actually, and because of
that book, I was when I relocated to Florida, I
(09:33):
was a publisher or a publisher what are they called
a I'm trying to think of the name. What they're called.
I can't think anymore. Like a public it's not a publicist.
It's a literary agent. No, no, I had nothing to
do with that. Actually, they represent people like an agent,
but it wasn't anyway. It's like a marketing agency that
(09:57):
you hire. And they called me up saying, Hey, there's
this lady named Judy and she's throwing this fundraiser for
the hat Fields McCoy's Foundation, and we would love for
you to attend, to bring your book and set up
and do autographs and sell your book, you know. And
so that's how it all began. I ended up meeting
(10:19):
her at the fundraiser and oddly enough, come to find out,
we're from the same child of devil Ance, so we
shared the same great great grandfather, which would be her
great grandfather and my great great grandfather were different dinner generations,
but that's actually so. She was actually my closest relative
(10:39):
that I had on the Hatfield side outside of my
immediate family, that I had ever met, so you know,
an extended family. So me and her became very close
over the years, and what we were doing with the
foundation throughout the years, we're doing different events around the country,
(11:00):
traveling around the country representing the family, you know, educating
people about the feud and the history and things like that.
And eventually she ended up buying deval Ance's home place
here in Logan County where I'm located, and bought it
back for the family. And it had been out of
the family for over one hundred years. So she purchased
(11:20):
it back with the intent to do what I'm doing,
which is, you know, the museum here and restoring their
historic property and all that, and she hired several people
trying to do it, but they took advantage of her
in the situation unfortunately, and she kind of gave up
during COVID. I had a mental break, and I knew
I needed to make some changes in my life quickly.
(11:43):
So I quit my job through the dogs and the
RV and took off and I ended up back home
because she kept calling me, begging me to go home,
to come here and to take over the foundation and
to make her dream and my dream come troops. So
that's a long story short of how I ended up here.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Wow, it's like a full circle, you know.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Yeh?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
It's interesting. Well.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Paperback Warrior listeners and viewers are probably like, you know,
what's this got to do with books? But my conversation
with you today was in part motivated by a new
publication that I just I just recently purchased again, this
book right over my shoulder here. The book's called An
American Vendetta Legend of the Hatfield McCoy Feud. It's a
really cool book. It's magazine size dimensions, It's about one
(12:36):
hundred and ten pages. It's got maps, timelines, family trees, photos,
It's got some modern insight into the families in the feud.
I think it's twenty bucks. You can get it at
the Hatfield McCoy Foundation dot org.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
But one of the most interesting things.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
About this particular book is that it's a type of
collaboration really that you've experienced with the book's original author,
a guy named the Clark Crawford, and he actually died
in nineteen twenty five, but you've reprinted his original work
and then added your own insight into it with a
really awesome preface into the book, and then you've got
(13:14):
probably about twenty twenty five pages worth of insight at
the back with your thoughts are some of your experiences
with researching the history, and then as I mentioned, a
lot of pages of maps and photos and stuff like that.
So tell me about the book, like how did you
find out about this book and what made you want
to reprint it for modern audiences.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
The reason why I wanted to reprint it and the
next one that I'm working on is because there are
hardly any books in print right now about the Feud
that I can buy in bulk to have as inventory
in the gift shop, you know, so I thought, you know,
what am I going to do? And then books are
so expensive on a wholesale level, like there's hardly any
(13:56):
market in the books because you know you're paying the
royalty then you're paying the supplier and then of course
the manufacturer who made the book. So from a financial standpoint,
it also did not make good sense. So I went
looking for books that are now in the public domain
and decided to create my own inventory, so which would
(14:21):
also increase increase our profit margin. So yeah, and there's
my Judy on the back. I dedicated that book to her.
I made it the magazine size to stand out because
every I noticed, every bookstore I went into, everything, of course,
is like my original cookbook six by nine, and I
wanted it to stand out. So I did it as
(14:42):
like a magazine size, not to mention the photos that
are in the book, you know, to be able to
give them a bigger, you know view. It just made sense.
So I'm actually following that same measurement guide with the
next one that's coming out here as soon. But this book,
(15:03):
in particular is the first ever published works about the feud,
and the reason why I chose it was not only
that it was also the only ever first hand account
interviewed with my great grandfather devil Ance. Yeah, so it
(15:25):
is the first hand account interview with devil Ants and
the book is very interesting. But to say the least.
It's entertaining, to say the least. But you know, this
book actually is rumored to be the whole reason for
(15:49):
the term hillbilly. Really, yeah, this book paints the picture
of what a hillbilly would have been, you know, back then.
And this you know, as you know T. C. Crawford,
you know, the original author. He was a reporter and
he came down to do a story on the feud
(16:12):
and was just amazed by what he found when he
got here and wrote about the area, the region, his
journey here, and his time spent with devil ants. So
I thought it was an interesting take on Appalachia at
the time, and it was a very entertaining view of it.
(16:38):
But yeah, you're right, I had, you know, with the
way he painted things in the book, I wanted to
make sure people really saw what things were really like
because it was very clear to me that he was
selling books, right, So he painted a very colorful picture
of who we are at that time, and no doubt
(17:00):
some of it's true, but you know, I wanted people
to see what the real hat Pub family was like,
so I made sure to include a lot of photos
of the family and things that you know, the home
and how he described things. But you know, you see
the home, what it actually looked like in there, And
of course you know a lot I get asked a
lot of questions about the feud and the families take
(17:24):
and view on things whatnot. Which is you know the
commentary that added at the end as well.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah, it was you know, checking into the author because
here paperback where we we love digging into authors lives
and the books that they wrote in the careers that
they had, so checking into T. C.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Crawford.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
He, like you mentioned, he was a journalist, He was
an author, He was a minor, He was an entrepreneur.
He was born in the US in eighteen forty nine,
but he mainly worked and lived in London. It's interesting
he also wrote a couple of books, or what we
would call novellas that bordered on science fiction or a
type of dystopian Fictioning enough, he also worked as a
(18:01):
newspaper correspondent, and he actually worked with Joseph Pulitzer of
all people, which was interesting, and I found out he
also financed Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. But like you mentioned,
you know he traveled over here to Logan County.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
This was in.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Eighteen eighty eight, And I've read the book.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
It's it's a really fascinating book.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
But he travels here in eighteen eighty eight, which you
could probably agree with me was probably the height of
the feud, was that.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
It was kind of the ending of it actually ending.
Cotton Pop was hung in eighteen eighty, so hold on, mate,
Cotton Top was on in eighteen eighty ninety, eighteen ninety.
The Supreme Court made their decision in eighteen eighty eight,
(18:49):
which led to his hanging in eighteen ninety.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Okay, Yeah, So he's here in eighteen eighty eight, and
like you said, he's talking with the family, he's interviewing devil,
and I mean the book itself documents everything he learned
through his interviews, his first in accounts of what was
happening in that year, and then you know, going back
to the past, all the way back.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
In fact, I think he.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
He kind of does a good job of explaining everything
that happened from eighteen sixty five with the murder of
Asa Harmon McCoy to the killing of Bill Dempsey in
eighteen eighty eight. And I think I was gonna ask
you about this because I thought this was really interesting
in chapter two because Crawford when he's writing this, like
(19:32):
almost every line of his narrative is like just surprise,
Like I can't believe that people are living like this
in the late in nineteenth century, and it's so funny.
In chapter two he writes to describe Logan County, West Virginia,
he writes this one line, Jack, and it says, where
murder is considered creditable And do you think do you
(19:55):
think he summed it up pretty accurately at that time period?
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Yeah? I do time period. I Yeah, people don't understand
what life was like here in a tug Valley. You know,
you're you're I mean even today, I'm still deep in
the mountains. I have no cell service here. I use
Wi Fi cell calling. You know. I have definitely a
backup generator in a well for when you know, my
conveniences go out. I mean even today, it's still you know,
(20:24):
deep in the mountains. So, you know, And with this
new museum location I'm working on, that was one of
the things that I was I'm glad to have a
lot more space to be able to explain, is to
try to paint the picture of what it actually was
like living here during that time frame, you know, because
some people criticize the feud and you know, the way
(20:46):
it came out, but they don't understand what it was
like living here during that time frame. I mean, this
was still you're I mean, you're still pretty much almost
pioneering here in the in the Appalachian region during this
time frame. And then you've got the Civil War entering,
you know, at the same time, and and then you know,
this kind of sparks off of the Civil War. So yeah,
(21:09):
I do think he was something. Some of it up
pretty accurately, but some of it was also very colorful
as well. But one interesting thing Eric, I did not
know that I just learned from you, was that he
financed the Buffalo Bill Show and devil Ance actually appeared
(21:31):
in that show a few times.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Really, I had no idea.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah, I did not know that it was from T. C. Crawford,
but he did appear in that. There was also a
silent movie done that he appeared in as well, but
that's lost to history. No one can find it anywhere.
There's a scene or two. We have a scene or two,
like a snip from it, a photo, but there's but
(21:56):
nobody can find the film that I'm aware of, I.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Think, and in reading this book, you know, obviously you're
looking at the perspectives of the hat Fields and the
McCoy's and you know them, you know, at at odds
throughout the most of this uh timeline. But it seemed
like the common theme that Crawford was kind of touching
up on. And and maybe I'm wrong here, but looking
(22:20):
now on everything that transpired, it seemed like the instigator
that really provoked the most violence in the feud was
a deputy assigned to this case by the governor of Kentucky,
Frank Phillips.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
And where you look in.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
This feud, it always seems to me that Phillips was
the bad actor, because maybe you can add some insight
in this, but do you think he was an actual,
you know, an actual you know, lawman or was he
just an outlaw?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Like he doesn't seem like he was.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
With a madge.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah, it's an us Like, what's the brief history on
how he played into it? He And the thing you
have to remember, listeners, is that the Hatfields are on
the West Virginia side, the McCoys are on the Kentucky
side mostly, and the governor of Kentucky orders Deputy Frank
Phillips to go over to the West Virginia side to
(23:14):
investigate a killing or learn more about what's going on
over there with a killing. But he really, Jack, he
didn't really have authority to be able to go across
state lines, did he hit?
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Okay, and that's you guys think.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
I mean, the Civil War just happened. States were at
odds with each other, right. West Virginia was the only
state born out of the Civil War, so it was
kind of getting its stuff together, so to speak.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Right, Yeah, yeah, So.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Devil ants abandoned a while during the war to come
home and create what's what was known as the Logan Wildcats.
Him and some other Confederate veterans created local home guard
militias that protected the community because you I think if
you were a man had a gun, because they didn't
provide you on during the Civil War or hardly anything.
(24:06):
You responsible for your own uniforms, your own guns, ammunition,
and everything. You were out fighting over here at the war,
which left all your farms, families, women, children, everything just
open for pillaging. So you know, Union soldiers were coming
through pillaging and taking the spoils of war. While these
men were out fighting, their homes were burning. Yeah, So
(24:28):
they said, forget the war, We've got to protect our
own community. So they created different militias. The one that
was most instrumental, which Devaliance was known to be associated with,
was the Logan Wildcats. And the Logan Wildcats ended up
becoming a recognized we'll just call it, sort of a
(24:51):
police force that the governor deputized to keep law and
order together here at the boy right. So it was
illegal for them to arrest someone in West Virginia come
across from Kentucky, arrest someone arrest West Virginia and drag
him across the border to face charges. That was illegal
(25:14):
at the time. There was no extradition like that, so
that's what they were doing. So the governor of Kentucky
actually wanted to invade and take West Virginia for some
of the land of southern Westerncion for Kentucky. So the
river was chosen to be the divided line and the
Tug River, and so they would cross the river to
(25:37):
try to arrest us and pull us across to Kentucky.
Because the Kentucky governor put warrants and bounties on the
heads of the Hatfields as political leverage to invade and
take West Virginia. So that's how the governors both got
involved in West Virginia and Kentucky. So it became a
political employ at that point. And of course Frank Phelps,
(26:01):
who from my understanding, and again there's a lot of
theories here with the feud, there's a lot of things
that are unknown. So I can only go by what
I've been told by historians and researched and found and
just summed everything up, you know that I could that
would make sense because some of the stuff you here
just totally wouldn't even fit with a time period, wouldn't
(26:22):
make sense. You know. There's there's a lot of theories
out there. So I always make a disclaimer that I'm
not a historian. I'm a proud grandson that just likes
to tell stories just so you know. So anyways, Frank Phelps,
from my understanding, I don't know much about his prior
history to the feud, but from my understanding, he had
(26:43):
a bad reputation and he was trying to clean it up,
and what better way than to capture the most notorious
outlaws during his time, which would have been the hat Fields.
So he made his way into Pike County and ended
up becoming recognized as a sheriff for Pike County, Kentucky.
(27:06):
And his whole goal was to capture the hat Fields.
So they organized posse's and raids and they would come
across the border, attacking the family, attacking the neighbors, the communities.
You know. It was. It was a nightmare, you know,
living in this area during that time for many reasons,
(27:27):
the Civil War, and then you're getting attacked by Kentucky,
you know, when you're just trying to come out here
and you know, farm to feed your family. You know,
it was. It was a crazy time. People don't understand
how complicated it was during that time.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah, Phillips didn't occur to me to be anything remotely
close to what we would consider a peacekeeper. He was
and despite being sent from the Kentucky side of it,
he really didn't have any allegiance to either side because
he was going after McCoy's an Hatfields equally. At some points, Yeah,
it seemed like he was really just he was just
(28:04):
feeding the violence and he was.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
You know, and Jim Vance on the Hatfield side, they
were called the posters of both sides.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Yeah, I would agree with that. And you know, I
don't timply cover nonfiction books on this channel. I don't
read a lot of nonfiction unless it's books about bands
or music, which I do like those. But this book
it appealed to me because it does read like a
like a gritty, violent western yarn and and I think
Crawford the way he writes it. Obviously he's writing a
(28:38):
journalistic nonfiction work about the families, but he's really able
to turn it into this rousing you know, reading experience
that comes across as like you're reading you feel like
you're reading a novel.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Wouldn't you agree it's kind of like reading a novel.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Yeah, it's it's quite entertaining.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah, I really enjoyed it. I'm gonna ask you a
couple of questions here before we go. Uh, sure, having
the knowledge you now possessed in this day and age
and you know kind of what you know now, do
you think that if you had lived during that time
you could have played the role peacekeeper? Do you think
you would have had any impact whatsoever?
Speaker 3 (29:11):
No? No, it got out of the family's hands, you know,
I mean, it was beyond the family. I mean you
got to think that, you know, with the extradition situation,
this case made it all the way up to the
United States Supreme Court. Yeah, and then you know, they solidified,
you know, the juris the extradition between the states in
(29:32):
the United States. And when they did that, the only
confession they had of, you know, was from cotton Top,
who was mentally handicapped, not all there, and you know,
he was trying to make the family proud, holler and
I killed a McCoy, I cut a McCoy. And he
confessed to killing Ala Fair during the cabin ry, which
(29:55):
may or may not have been true. There was whole
there was twenty thirty people shooting at that CA. I
don't know how many exactly, but it was a lot
of people shooting at that cabin So who knows whose
bullet really hit who. And you know, I'm not even
sure that cotton Top was guilty of anything when he
was hung unfortunately, and you know, uh that happened after T. C.
(30:17):
Crawford came here, and he actually had to put in
the dindem in the book for that actually to write
that in after he published so which is in this book.
But there's no way. I don't I don't think. I mean,
it went way beyond the family's hands and the family allegiances.
I mean you're talking about state alliances and then federal
(30:37):
alliances between the states. I mean, it got, it got
so big. There's no there's no way.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Do you think, you know, looking at it now, and
do you think the legend of the feud has actually
outgrown the facts?
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Oh? Most definitely, most definitely. Uh, you know, part of
the story I hate is the pig. Everybody comes in here.
Did you guys really kill each other throughty years of
a pig? Yeah, we sure did. We were hungry and
we needed bacon. I mean yeah, I mean it ain't
nothing like bacon. Yeah, that's exactly what happened. Yeah, but
as the Supreme Court, you know, they'll they'll they'll tell you, you know,
(31:14):
who won the pig. You know, it's ridiculous. But yeah,
there's there's so many twists and turns, and you know,
I have a lot of people who troll me for
even you know, my stories and my events that I
believe are accurate as can be based on the resources
(31:38):
that I have, you know, because there's so many theories
out there, and you know, the truth is, unless we
were standing there at each one of those events that happened,
we would never know. And you know, some of it
was captured of course in court documents, which we do have,
and a lot of it wasn't, you know. So so
(32:01):
a lot of it is stories and theories passed down
through the families. What was passed down because again, not
a lot of them like to talk about it. I've
even been criticized by family for doing what I'm doing
today because again they don't they don't want to talk
about it. It's not something they're proud of. So, you know,
it's it's quite interesting. But there's there's so many different avenues.
(32:25):
I mean, I mean, you've got the love story of
the Romeo and Juliet part, you know, the murder of
the court, the legal situations, you know, the Civil War, like,
there's so many pieces of the puzzle to this feud,
which made it so complicated and and so you know
mainstream I mean, you know, now we have extradition with
the entire world. I mean, yeah, this is rippled throughout
(32:48):
the entire world in our legal system, you know, So
it's it's it's quite large and there's no way. I
don't think anybody could have stopped it except for the
Supreme Court, which is basically what happened. Because you had
governors going at each other, you had families going to
each other, you had outlaws just out to kill somebody.
(33:08):
You know, it was it was crazy, It was I mean,
some of the stuff that T. C. Crawford talks about
it's pretty on point, but some of it's also pretty colorful.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
And your experiences running the foundation and also being on
the ground there because you live at the home place
and you know that's your business being on the ground there.
What are some of the craziest misconceptions are just you know,
straight up inaccuracies that tourists or spectators have brought to you, Like,
were some of the most outrageous things you've ever heard
about the feud?
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Uh a lot of it, you know. The number of
people killed, you know, I've heard from three to three
four or five hundred, six hundred, you know, but there
was a lot more killed than we even know about.
Because again, you have these raids going on, these possible
raids coming in and they were with bad frank, you know,
(34:04):
as you were talking about, So there were a lot
of people killed, even outside the feud that wasn't particularly related.
You know, they weren't involved in the feud, but you know,
very few family members on the Hatfield side. The only
one ever killed, of course, was caught top Hunk and
Jim Vance was taken out by bad Frank Philips. But
(34:26):
fortunately the McCoy's side lost quite a bit of children
during that situation. But you know the number of people
killed in the hog and everybody thinks we fought over
a hog. Devil Ants wasn't even part of that Hall trial.
They had nothing to do with the Hall And even
to even get to his cousin who was part of
(34:49):
that Hall trial, you'd have to go back to his
great grandfather's second marriage and then down a few generations.
So it was even a far distant cousin who had
that hog dispute, and that was with Randall McCoy. But
it was not devl Ance and Randall McCoy. And everybody
thinks that it was Devalance and random McCoy who had
this Hall dispute. That was not the case. Devlance had
(35:10):
a land dispute with Perry Kleine. Randall McCoy's cousin, and
both of those disputes were going on around the same time,
and they both went to court within three months of
each other, and the Hatfields won both court cases. So
between the murder from the Civil War of Asa and
then these two court cases, winning these two court cases,
that just kind of, you know, the that just you know,
(35:33):
kind of ignited the flame, so to speak. And then
when they killed Devalance's brother at the election day event,
that just poured gasoline on the fire. So from there
it exploded, you know. And then of course you've got
the love story and really it's a love triangle in there,
because Johnson ended up marrying Nancy Randam McCoy's nephew. But yeah,
(35:55):
it's who then she's the one who betrayed the family
and I married Frank back Frank Nancy did, and she
was the daughter of Asa Harmon McCoy, the first McCoy
ever killed during the Civil War, during the feud, so
she she became, you know, a trader to the Hatfield
family after marrying Jauncy, and that's how they actually killed
(36:16):
Frank Philips and almost killed cap At what was trump
think the name of it. I can't think the name
of the Mountain Battle of grape Vine Creek.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
I think it was grape Vine Creek.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Yeah, so they ended up killing them there while they
were out hunting. She knew their hunting spots, so that
Frank and his posse's were waiting there till they came
hunting and then tried to take him out. But yeah,
it was it went far beyond any anybody could have
ever imagined.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Uh, just talk about misconceptions.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
I was telling my my daughter Gracie last night, I
was gonna be interviewing you today to talk about the
Halfield McCoy feud, and she said, oh, yeah, that's the
one they made that television show about the Dukes of Hazzard.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
I was like, no, the Dukes of Hazard.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Don't have anything to do with it, doesn't anything to
do with Halfilton McCoy's. She's like, well, I thought it was.
I thought they were in Kentucky and they were feuding
with a family.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
It's like, no, it's not Dukes of Hazard.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
So you can you can add that one's your list
of anybody asked Dukes of.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Hazzard does nothing.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Yeah, you touched on this, you touched on this briefly.
But I'm gotna see if I can pull it up here.
You have a new book that you're working on, or
maybe it's coming out soon. This one right here, The
Devil's Brigade. What can you tell us about it?
Speaker 3 (37:35):
It's in production right now. The Devil's Brigade is a
really cool book. This one was done in nineteen thirty.
It is only that we know of the second publication
ever made with the feud. It just became public domain,
so I was just able to utilize it. And the
(37:55):
fact that it became just became public domain, there was
no resources for me to pull from to try to
put the book together easily, unfortunately. So it's quite a
lengthy book. He did. It was over three hundred pages,
but of course it was a six by nine I
think mine ended up being about two hundred after I
added to it and put it in you know, eight
and a half by eleven format. But this book I
(38:18):
actually really enjoy and like this book. It's it's very interesting.
And you want to do a deep dive on an author,
This author'spivot dunk spivot. Now that is a story.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Oh really?
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Oh yeah, yeah, do you research on that one. You'll
probably want to do another interview on this one that
author is quite interesting. But this book here is more
about the feud itself, and he basically kind of puts
you in like a first person narrative as you're you know,
he writes it like you were in the conversation with
(38:54):
like Johnsy and Roseanne and Rosanna and Leviisi Devalance's wife
for you know, kind of mine in law, but interesting.
So he puts it like first person narrative. And you
know he had to do. He actually came to the
Tug Valley here to write about the Coalman Wars going
(39:16):
on in the nineteen thirties. So, and what's interesting I
never thought about it is is so when he came
here to write about the coal Mine Wars, he learned
about the feud and thought it would be make a
better book. So he ended up writing The Devil's Brigade.
And this book what I really enjoyed about it is
(39:39):
that he talks about where the Civil War set the
stage for the hat filmcoy feud, the hat Film McCoy feud,
and the Civil War set the stage for the Coalman Wars.
So by the time the Coalman Wars came, you know,
you had every man here already knew how to fight
owned weapons, was prepared, and I mean there was all
(40:00):
ready literally mountains full of soldiers already here, ready to
fight the coal mining wars, right.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
So yeah, that's that's that's what I thought. You know,
I had never even thought about, you know, how that
I knew how the Civil War kind of set the
stage and tied in for the feud, but I never
thought about it how it translated over to the coal
mine Wars following the feud. So you know, this this
area was hit you know, with the Civil War and
then the fil McCoy feud and then the coal mine Wars,
you know, back to back to back. So it's been
(40:30):
a rough life for you know, the Appalachian people here.
So I do like this book a lot, although again
it's probably a lot of fiction that he you know,
came up with after the interviews. I don't think he
met with family. I do think he interviewed a lot
of neighbors and people who would actually talk to him,
(40:52):
because at this point none of the family would talk
to any reporters or authors or anyone you know, trying
to get to the family. You as you probably read
in T. C. Crawford's book. The family was very well protected,
and and and the way they reached you, I don't
know if you remember him traveling through and reaching the property,
(41:14):
and how it was everybody was warning each other ahead
before they even got ahead. You know, you were you
were coming into a hornet's nest the whole way coming
here to get to Devil Lance and then across the
street here is literally a ledge on the mountain while
the sharpshooters hit out, and he built a moat wall
around the property and had a draw bridge. So which
(41:37):
is all still here. But yeah, this this book is
quite interesting. I think you'll enjoy it too. I should
have it out in a few weeks. Hopefully it's in
the it's in the design stages with the printing company
right now. So but yeah, both of these again, you know,
both of these I decided to do because it was
(41:58):
hard for me to get inventory. There's only one or
two books on the market now that you know, we
can even order wholesale to carry in the shop. So
you know, what better way to give a old and
a new updated version of the story, you.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Know, And Jackie, you also last thing I'll let you
go here of There's also another book on the Have
Film McCoy Foundation dot org website, which is The Feud
that have fielts McCoy is the True story by Dean King.
Have you read that one or do you have anything
to say about that one?
Speaker 3 (42:29):
I haven't read it. That is one of the ones
that we can order steal its in print. Dean King
the author. It's a very thick book, so he it's
it is pretty a lot of fiction. You know that
he filled in a lot of colorful pages. I do
know that a lot of the family disagrees with his
(42:50):
view on the feud and what he wrote, so I
tend to shy away from it. So I don't get
any family disputes, right. But you know, he's been here
to the property a few times. We've talked about some
possible TV shows and things a few times with him.
(43:10):
But you know, he's a good he's a good man.
He's a good guy, and you know, and I think
his book does well, but I do think it's a
lot of fiction.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
When you mentioned TV that mimightd me have one more thing,
or actually two more things.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
One.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Is there any television show, documentary or movie that you
felt tells the tale the best or one that you
find in favor of.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
There is some good things out there by the by
the biography channel that kind of go over the feud,
and it's I think it was done in the early
two thousands and it's a good like summation. It's about
an hour hour and a half long. The mini series
(43:54):
is the one I get questioned about the most, the
one with Kevin Costner that came out in twenty twelve.
That mini series, you know, again there's a lot of
Hollywood and fiction written into that, but it does do
a good job, I guess, giving you the main points
of the feud, but there's there's you know, things that
(44:14):
they've got twisted and wrong in there. So like you know,
they show the feud starting about a bar fight between
Jim Vance and Asa Harmon McCoy, which wasn't the case.
It was they were trying to assassinate devil ants after
the Civil War because of the incident on Devil's Backbone Mountain.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
And then of course they hunted Asadam the Love and
wildcast did and took him out for trying to take
out devil ants again. Back then it was killer be killed,
you know, you know, they have some things twisted. They
have some characters combined who were like two different characters
that had the same name, so you know, they thought
they were the same person, while the Preacher and the
(44:55):
Judge they were actually two different people. Things like that,
you know, But they do get the main points of
the few that happened pretty at least into the story.
But you know, I'd say it's probably about sixty seventy accurate.
There's still a lot of fiction written into that as well,
of course, to be entertaining.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Yeah, this guy T. C. Crawford is actually he's he's
played by an actor in the movie. He's actually part
of that of that movie that you're referring to. Yeah,
the mini series actually features C. C. Crawford in there,
I think briefly, and I can't remember who he's played by.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
I'm watch it again. I don't remember seeing that part
in there. I had to watch this again. Dan watched it.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Yeah, they came out a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Do you, uh, does your foundation or you personally do
you have anything to do with the half of McCoy
Dinner Theater and Pigeon Forge.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Is that you are something different that's different?
Speaker 3 (45:50):
Yeah, that's totally different. I used to do some appearances
there for him and autograph sessions and things. When it
was owned by fi Headrick Entertainment. It was a family
owned operation, and they got so big that Dolly Partner's group,
I think it's called w C I maybe I don't know.
Her group bought it out and they took anything and
(46:11):
everything authentic out, including my books and me and everything else.
So I haven't really had any relationship with them since
they bought it a few years back. I'm hoping though,
when we open our new museum location in that area,
that you know, we can I don't know, work together somehow.
But no, that is they're sailing Chicken with their name
(46:32):
on it. They I mean, it's an entertaining show, you know,
it's but it's you know, it's a family friendly show,
and you know it and it is nowhere near you know,
the truth or nowhere near the feud. It's it's it's
a very different type of show. But yeah, it's just
(46:52):
got our name on it, you know. Same thing with
the trail system. You know, there's there's a big misconception
which I did talk about in my portion of book,
where people think that we get a lot of royalties
and fees from all these things with our name on it.
But you know, like the miniseries for example, you can't
copyright history, so you know, we there's no way we
(47:13):
can control that. So a lot of people can use
our name and our story unfortunately, whether we like it
or not, and we do not get compensated for it.
So that's one of the things, you know that. And
then we have a trail system here, which is an
awesome trail system. It's a thousand miles of ATV trails
(47:33):
and it's bringing tourism into this area which is now
boom towns from coal mines right in the coal mine wars.
So you know, we have nothing to do with that either,
you know, nor do we get any kind of royalties
or anything to assistance to help with any of that.
So all the preservation work, everything that we've done here
is mostly come out of my pocket with a few
(47:55):
small grants that's helped pitch in here and there. But
you know, there's still a long way to go before
we get to where we want to be.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
So wrapping us up here, how do people visit the
home place? What's going on there? What's the sea there.
What do we do to get closer to this feud
in that in that area.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
Yeah, well, of course if you want to come and
ride to ATV trails, you can come by a TV
or you come by car. They when they built these
ATV trails, they kind of funnel out to me in
the graveyard cemetery next door. So of course this is
Devalance's home place where he hid out deering the feud.
I know, like for example, in the mini series they
showed him hiding out in some little shack in the
(48:36):
middle of the woods. It was a two story concrete
block building he built to protect himself and it was
across the street here before he built the home on
this side of of the property of the creek and
then the moat you know, around the property. So next
door is where everybody's laid to rest. You've got John C.
(48:56):
Devl Ance, you know, we have his other to kids,
Troy and Elias, who were shot for moonshine rights with
the Italians probably the mafia back then, I don't know,
but they got into it with Octavia Drome. He was
over liquor rights. So there's a lot of stuff that
goes even beyond the feud with the family. I mean,
(49:19):
there's a lot of history there. But you know, you
cover the property here. You can see of course the
cemetery next door, and there are markers and statues and
everything that are there. We here on the property. Of course,
we have you know, the historic drawbridge and things, the
moat still around the property. The original will that they
(49:41):
used is here. Unfortunately, the home burned down in nineteen
thirty two. So that's one of my main goals is
to rebuild his home here on the property, but that's
going to be expensive. I just had to build a
new bridge, which was like sixty thousand dollars to because
the historic bridge is too narrow because it was built
for verus and buggies and it's crumbling at that. And
(50:04):
of course we have the museum and give shop here
on the property, a little gym mining sluice, so you know,
all the kiddo's could come and paying for gold and gyms,
you know. So it's you know, it's a cute little visit,
you know. So it's a good, you know, day visit
day thing to do coming down the area. We also
to uh just published a map. Again. We have a
(50:26):
lot of problems with the counties working together much less
the states. So we published a map which is actually
a true, full blong Hatfield McCoy feud site tourist map,
so they can actually even get a copy downloaded off
of our website Hatfi McCoy Foundation dot org, or you
can make the museum here your first stop and pick
(50:46):
up a physical copy here. But it's a map of
all the feud sites that they can do a driving
tortoo all the way from here to Pipeville.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
Okay, cool. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
The Hatfield McCoy Foundation dot org has the the GPS
coordinates and also the addresses, so if you want to
go check out the area, you can. I haven't been
up there, but it sounds like something i'd want to do.
I've enjoyed the book again. This one's out now, and
then Devil's Brigade will be out in a few weeks,
and I'll probably have a review of this book up
on the blog as well as as a written a
(51:18):
book review of that one, and then I'll review the
Devil's Brigade. But Jack, thanks so much for being on
the show. I really appreciate it. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 3 (51:25):
I appreciate the exposure.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
You bet you take care. Thank you so much, thank you,
Bye bye now
Hello, Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
My name is Eric, and I host the Paperback Warrior
blog podcast and YouTube channel. At the time of this recording,
the podcast boast over one hundred and fifteen episodes and
it can be streamed anywhere where great podcasts can be found.
A few weeks back, I incorporated a new series of
special episodes of the podcast focusing on more like one
on one conversations with authors, publishers, bloggers, publishing personnel. So
(00:26):
today's episode continues that conversation trend. I'm happy to introduce
Jackie Lee Hatfield Junior. Jackie, who gives me for prior
permission to call him Jack is a direct He's a
direct descendant of William Anderson devil Ants Hatfield, who was
the I would consider him the central figure of the
(00:46):
famed Hatfield McCoy feud. And who on earth hasn't heard
of the legendary American feud between these rural Appalachian families
of the nineteenth century. But I do promise that this
ties into a book, this one right over here over
my shoulder. It ties into book because that's what we
do here at Paperback were we talk books, books, books.
So now jack serves as the president of the Hatfield
(01:08):
McCoy Family Foundation, he's the curator of the Hatfield McCoy Museum.
But today trumping all of those accomplishments is that he's
the guest of honor for this Paperback Wear Podcast episode
and it's going to be amazing. Jack, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Thanks Brede, appreciate you having me.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Thank you so much for coming on. The first thing
I want to do, though, is say congratulations. You were
just awarded the West Virginia History Hero Award from the
States Department of Arts, Culture, and History for your activities
promoting peace, a unity, reconciliation of just not only the
Hatfield McCoy few, but also just your efforts to promote
(01:46):
peace and tranquility and coexistence among all people.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
So what was that, Like, what was your what was
the award ceremony?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Like, that's pretty cool. I got, you know, a nice
little sertificate from the governor. It's hard to see them there,
but yeah, so it was cool. We actually just got
a new governor in office, so it was cool to
meet the new governor and establish a rapport. But yeah,
they were It was awarded by the state for all
(02:14):
the work that I've done trying to preserve all the
history of West Virginia and of course the feud and
the family artifacts and all that good stuff. And yeah,
the foundation itself was created by my aunt Judy Hatfield,
and Rio Hatfield and Ron McCoy were on the board
(02:38):
and beginning Rio still is he's the vice president of
the board of a nonprofit and they were the two
who were instrumental and signing the peace treaty between the
two families. So they did that in after nine to eleven.
They just felt like America was divided and thought, you know,
signing a truce between the two families officially and broadcasting that,
(03:00):
you know, kind of promote unity between our country. You know,
we've been divided so much politically and in every different way.
So they were hoping that, you know, that's that showcasing
the two families coming together, the rest of the world
could two, you know. So that's how the foundation began
(03:20):
and started, and you know, we still carry that message
forward today, you know, and it's needed ever more than
it ever has been. You know, our country is still devided,
so you know, we try to do everything we can.
I even work a lot here locally with all the
different tourism boards. You know, you have different county tourisms
(03:40):
and not to mention, we're on a tri state border,
so you've got counties and states that don't really want
to work together with their tourism and you know they
all want their dollar versus you know, looking at the
bigger picture. But you know, the feud itself and everything,
you know, it happened over to you know, state borders.
That's why it became so nasty during the Civil War.
(04:02):
So it can be very complicated. So we even try
to bring unity even just here locally to keep the
history going. So it's been quite eventful, say the least.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, I'd say so. And you know in my introduction
there you you play a prominent role in the family.
You are the great great great or i should say,
your your devil an Halfield was your great great great grandfather.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
But Jack, despite you.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Know, being born a Hatfield, from what I understand, it
took years for you to actually realize that you had
any connection at all with this, you know, this famous
Hatfield family that was involved in this infamous feud. Right, like,
tell me a little bit about that. How did you
how did you even find out about it?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
So my grandfather was born over here in Logan County
where it all began, and my great great grandfather, I'm sorry,
my grantgrandfather. His dad died very young and actually a
bad moonshine, so so that's the story anyway, but he
(05:13):
died very young. So my grandfather was raised mostly by
his mother's side of the family, and he followed the
coal mines during the boom, which led him over to
Wyoming County, which is the next county over and I
was raised there. Now, what's interesting is the families, both
(05:36):
Hatfields and McCoy's neither were proud of the feud, so
they didn't really talk about it very much after the
feud was over, so a lot of stuff was lost
during you know, there's generations, you know, dying off and
the family you know, spreading out. So you know, my
grandfather didn't really know much of anything. And my dad,
(06:01):
after my grandfather passed, he passed pretty young, in his
early sixties, my dad got curious of our history and
our genealogy and started tracing it back. And with you know,
our name being so infamous, the lineage was easy to
trace back then. This was pre internet days, right, so
(06:21):
it was pretty easy for him to trace, and it
was it was there in black and white, so and
now it's there in DNA, so you know, it's it
was quite interesting. So ever since you know, I was
probably my late teens when I knew, and you know,
you don't really get interested in history or the story
(06:45):
usually to your probably in your thirties or so, which
is kind of what I did. And you know, throughout
that time frame I started becoming interested in it, asking
questions and learning more about the feud, and of course
starting my member Billia collection in my you know, artifact collection.
So that's led me to today.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Actually nice. Okay, So just to kind of get an
idea like geographically were you where were you born? Were
you born in Logan County or where?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
I was born in Raleigh County, which is the closest
hospital to Walming County. And my grandfather was born here
in Logan County and well actually he was born in Warrencliffe.
They now call it Mingo County, but at one point
it was Logan County, and my dad was born in
(07:38):
Walming County. And then I was born in Raleigh. So, uh,
my grandparents live in Beckley, which is where Raleigh County
is it's about an hour from where my parents grew up,
in an hour and a half from here.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Okay, well, gosh, you've had your hands in, you know,
a variety of ventures you've earned. You earned a master's
degree from National Business College in Sale in Virginia, just
south of there from where you were born. You've held
prominent roles with companies like you know, Florida Blue, Verizon
Signa Like, how did you end up stepping away from
(08:13):
like the corporate business world of the twenty first century
to enter this What I can say, it's like almost
like a time machine now you're reliving the eighteen hundreds
of daily How did you become so well, how did
you become so involved in this, you know, this feud
and telling the tale of the history and stuff.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Because of you?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Well not because not because of me.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
It wasn't me.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
This is what started at all here, Yeah, yeah, I
remember that.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Okay, yeap, just what.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Started at all?
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
So yes, it was because of you.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
So for those that don't know, Eric and I worked
together many years ago at Blue Cross or Anthem Lacrosse
Bushield and we sat across from you each other in
a call center and Eric kept saying, Oh, if I
had your name and all those recipes that you've got
over there, I'd be making me a cookbook and sell
(09:09):
in a cookbook. I thought he might be on something there.
So he's my first book, Eating with the hot Fields
Cookbook that we did, and I did that thanks to you, Eric,
and it's done very very well. Actually, and because of
that book, I was when I relocated to Florida, I
(09:33):
was a publisher or a publisher what are they called
a I'm trying to think of the name. What they're called.
I can't think anymore. Like a public it's not a publicist.
It's a literary agent. No, no, I had nothing to
do with that. Actually, they represent people like an agent,
but it wasn't anyway. It's like a marketing agency that
(09:57):
you hire. And they called me up saying, Hey, there's
this lady named Judy and she's throwing this fundraiser for
the hat Fields McCoy's Foundation, and we would love for
you to attend, to bring your book and set up
and do autographs and sell your book, you know. And
so that's how it all began. I ended up meeting
(10:19):
her at the fundraiser and oddly enough, come to find out,
we're from the same child of devil Ance, so we
shared the same great great grandfather, which would be her
great grandfather and my great great grandfather were different dinner generations,
but that's actually so. She was actually my closest relative
(10:39):
that I had on the Hatfield side outside of my
immediate family, that I had ever met, so you know,
an extended family. So me and her became very close
over the years, and what we were doing with the
foundation throughout the years, we're doing different events around the country,
(11:00):
traveling around the country representing the family, you know, educating
people about the feud and the history and things like that.
And eventually she ended up buying deval Ance's home place
here in Logan County where I'm located, and bought it
back for the family. And it had been out of
the family for over one hundred years. So she purchased
(11:20):
it back with the intent to do what I'm doing,
which is, you know, the museum here and restoring their
historic property and all that, and she hired several people
trying to do it, but they took advantage of her
in the situation unfortunately, and she kind of gave up
during COVID. I had a mental break, and I knew
I needed to make some changes in my life quickly.
(11:43):
So I quit my job through the dogs and the
RV and took off and I ended up back home
because she kept calling me, begging me to go home,
to come here and to take over the foundation and
to make her dream and my dream come troops. So
that's a long story short of how I ended up here.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Wow, it's like a full circle, you know.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Yeh?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
It's interesting. Well.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Paperback Warrior listeners and viewers are probably like, you know,
what's this got to do with books? But my conversation
with you today was in part motivated by a new
publication that I just I just recently purchased again, this
book right over my shoulder here. The book's called An
American Vendetta Legend of the Hatfield McCoy Feud. It's a
really cool book. It's magazine size dimensions, It's about one
(12:36):
hundred and ten pages. It's got maps, timelines, family trees, photos,
It's got some modern insight into the families in the feud.
I think it's twenty bucks. You can get it at
the Hatfield McCoy Foundation dot org.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
But one of the most interesting things.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
About this particular book is that it's a type of
collaboration really that you've experienced with the book's original author,
a guy named the Clark Crawford, and he actually died
in nineteen twenty five, but you've reprinted his original work
and then added your own insight into it with a
really awesome preface into the book, and then you've got
(13:14):
probably about twenty twenty five pages worth of insight at
the back with your thoughts are some of your experiences
with researching the history, and then as I mentioned, a
lot of pages of maps and photos and stuff like that.
So tell me about the book, like how did you
find out about this book and what made you want
to reprint it for modern audiences.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
The reason why I wanted to reprint it and the
next one that I'm working on is because there are
hardly any books in print right now about the Feud
that I can buy in bulk to have as inventory
in the gift shop, you know, so I thought, you know,
what am I going to do? And then books are
so expensive on a wholesale level, like there's hardly any
(13:56):
market in the books because you know you're paying the
royalty then you're paying the supplier and then of course
the manufacturer who made the book. So from a financial standpoint,
it also did not make good sense. So I went
looking for books that are now in the public domain
and decided to create my own inventory, so which would
(14:21):
also increase increase our profit margin. So yeah, and there's
my Judy on the back. I dedicated that book to her.
I made it the magazine size to stand out because
every I noticed, every bookstore I went into, everything, of course,
is like my original cookbook six by nine, and I
wanted it to stand out. So I did it as
(14:42):
like a magazine size, not to mention the photos that
are in the book, you know, to be able to
give them a bigger, you know view. It just made sense.
So I'm actually following that same measurement guide with the
next one that's coming out here as soon. But this book,
(15:03):
in particular is the first ever published works about the feud,
and the reason why I chose it was not only
that it was also the only ever first hand account
interviewed with my great grandfather devil Ance. Yeah, so it
(15:25):
is the first hand account interview with devil Ants and
the book is very interesting. But to say the least.
It's entertaining, to say the least. But you know, this
book actually is rumored to be the whole reason for
(15:49):
the term hillbilly. Really, yeah, this book paints the picture
of what a hillbilly would have been, you know, back then.
And this you know, as you know T. C. Crawford,
you know, the original author. He was a reporter and
he came down to do a story on the feud
(16:12):
and was just amazed by what he found when he
got here and wrote about the area, the region, his
journey here, and his time spent with devil ants. So
I thought it was an interesting take on Appalachia at
the time, and it was a very entertaining view of it.
(16:38):
But yeah, you're right, I had, you know, with the
way he painted things in the book, I wanted to
make sure people really saw what things were really like
because it was very clear to me that he was
selling books, right, So he painted a very colorful picture
of who we are at that time, and no doubt
(17:00):
some of it's true, but you know, I wanted people
to see what the real hat Pub family was like,
so I made sure to include a lot of photos
of the family and things that you know, the home
and how he described things. But you know, you see
the home, what it actually looked like in there, And
of course you know a lot I get asked a
lot of questions about the feud and the families take
(17:24):
and view on things whatnot. Which is you know the
commentary that added at the end as well.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah, it was you know, checking into the author because
here paperback where we we love digging into authors lives
and the books that they wrote in the careers that
they had, so checking into T. C.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Crawford.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
He, like you mentioned, he was a journalist, He was
an author, He was a minor, He was an entrepreneur.
He was born in the US in eighteen forty nine,
but he mainly worked and lived in London. It's interesting
he also wrote a couple of books, or what we
would call novellas that bordered on science fiction or a
type of dystopian Fictioning enough, he also worked as a
(18:01):
newspaper correspondent, and he actually worked with Joseph Pulitzer of
all people, which was interesting, and I found out he
also financed Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. But like you mentioned,
you know he traveled over here to Logan County.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
This was in.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Eighteen eighty eight, And I've read the book.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
It's it's a really fascinating book.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
But he travels here in eighteen eighty eight, which you
could probably agree with me was probably the height of
the feud, was that.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
It was kind of the ending of it actually ending.
Cotton Pop was hung in eighteen eighty, so hold on, mate,
Cotton Top was on in eighteen eighty ninety, eighteen ninety.
The Supreme Court made their decision in eighteen eighty eight,
(18:49):
which led to his hanging in eighteen ninety.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Okay, Yeah, So he's here in eighteen eighty eight, and
like you said, he's talking with the family, he's interviewing devil,
and I mean the book itself documents everything he learned
through his interviews, his first in accounts of what was
happening in that year, and then you know, going back
to the past, all the way back.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
In fact, I think he.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
He kind of does a good job of explaining everything
that happened from eighteen sixty five with the murder of
Asa Harmon McCoy to the killing of Bill Dempsey in
eighteen eighty eight. And I think I was gonna ask
you about this because I thought this was really interesting
in chapter two because Crawford when he's writing this, like
(19:32):
almost every line of his narrative is like just surprise,
Like I can't believe that people are living like this
in the late in nineteenth century, and it's so funny.
In chapter two he writes to describe Logan County, West Virginia,
he writes this one line, Jack, and it says, where
murder is considered creditable And do you think do you
(19:55):
think he summed it up pretty accurately at that time period?
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Yeah? I do time period. I Yeah, people don't understand
what life was like here in a tug Valley. You know,
you're you're I mean even today, I'm still deep in
the mountains. I have no cell service here. I use
Wi Fi cell calling. You know. I have definitely a
backup generator in a well for when you know, my
conveniences go out. I mean even today, it's still you know,
(20:24):
deep in the mountains. So, you know, And with this
new museum location I'm working on, that was one of
the things that I was I'm glad to have a
lot more space to be able to explain, is to
try to paint the picture of what it actually was
like living here during that time frame, you know, because
some people criticize the feud and you know, the way
(20:46):
it came out, but they don't understand what it was
like living here during that time frame. I mean, this
was still you're I mean, you're still pretty much almost
pioneering here in the in the Appalachian region during this
time frame. And then you've got the Civil War entering,
you know, at the same time, and and then you know,
this kind of sparks off of the Civil War. So yeah,
(21:09):
I do think he was something. Some of it up
pretty accurately, but some of it was also very colorful
as well. But one interesting thing Eric, I did not
know that I just learned from you, was that he
financed the Buffalo Bill Show and devil Ance actually appeared
(21:31):
in that show a few times.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Really, I had no idea.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah, I did not know that it was from T. C. Crawford,
but he did appear in that. There was also a
silent movie done that he appeared in as well, but
that's lost to history. No one can find it anywhere.
There's a scene or two. We have a scene or two,
like a snip from it, a photo, but there's but
(21:56):
nobody can find the film that I'm aware of, I.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Think, and in reading this book, you know, obviously you're
looking at the perspectives of the hat Fields and the
McCoy's and you know them, you know, at at odds
throughout the most of this uh timeline. But it seemed
like the common theme that Crawford was kind of touching
up on. And and maybe I'm wrong here, but looking
(22:20):
now on everything that transpired, it seemed like the instigator
that really provoked the most violence in the feud was
a deputy assigned to this case by the governor of Kentucky,
Frank Phillips.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
And where you look in.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
This feud, it always seems to me that Phillips was
the bad actor, because maybe you can add some insight
in this, but do you think he was an actual,
you know, an actual you know, lawman or was he
just an outlaw?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Like he doesn't seem like he was.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
With a madge.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah, it's an us Like, what's the brief history on
how he played into it? He And the thing you
have to remember, listeners, is that the Hatfields are on
the West Virginia side, the McCoys are on the Kentucky
side mostly, and the governor of Kentucky orders Deputy Frank
Phillips to go over to the West Virginia side to
(23:14):
investigate a killing or learn more about what's going on
over there with a killing. But he really, Jack, he
didn't really have authority to be able to go across
state lines, did he hit?
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Okay, and that's you guys think.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
I mean, the Civil War just happened. States were at
odds with each other, right. West Virginia was the only
state born out of the Civil War, so it was
kind of getting its stuff together, so to speak.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Right, Yeah, yeah, So.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Devil ants abandoned a while during the war to come
home and create what's what was known as the Logan Wildcats.
Him and some other Confederate veterans created local home guard
militias that protected the community because you I think if
you were a man had a gun, because they didn't
provide you on during the Civil War or hardly anything.
(24:06):
You responsible for your own uniforms, your own guns, ammunition,
and everything. You were out fighting over here at the war,
which left all your farms, families, women, children, everything just
open for pillaging. So you know, Union soldiers were coming
through pillaging and taking the spoils of war. While these
men were out fighting, their homes were burning. Yeah, So
(24:28):
they said, forget the war, We've got to protect our
own community. So they created different militias. The one that
was most instrumental, which Devaliance was known to be associated with,
was the Logan Wildcats. And the Logan Wildcats ended up
becoming a recognized we'll just call it, sort of a
(24:51):
police force that the governor deputized to keep law and
order together here at the boy right. So it was
illegal for them to arrest someone in West Virginia come
across from Kentucky, arrest someone arrest West Virginia and drag
him across the border to face charges. That was illegal
(25:14):
at the time. There was no extradition like that, so
that's what they were doing. So the governor of Kentucky
actually wanted to invade and take West Virginia for some
of the land of southern Westerncion for Kentucky. So the
river was chosen to be the divided line and the
Tug River, and so they would cross the river to
(25:37):
try to arrest us and pull us across to Kentucky.
Because the Kentucky governor put warrants and bounties on the
heads of the Hatfields as political leverage to invade and
take West Virginia. So that's how the governors both got
involved in West Virginia and Kentucky. So it became a
political employ at that point. And of course Frank Phelps,
(26:01):
who from my understanding, and again there's a lot of
theories here with the feud, there's a lot of things
that are unknown. So I can only go by what
I've been told by historians and researched and found and
just summed everything up, you know that I could that
would make sense because some of the stuff you here
just totally wouldn't even fit with a time period, wouldn't
(26:22):
make sense. You know. There's there's a lot of theories
out there. So I always make a disclaimer that I'm
not a historian. I'm a proud grandson that just likes
to tell stories just so you know. So anyways, Frank Phelps,
from my understanding, I don't know much about his prior
history to the feud, but from my understanding, he had
(26:43):
a bad reputation and he was trying to clean it up,
and what better way than to capture the most notorious
outlaws during his time, which would have been the hat Fields.
So he made his way into Pike County and ended
up becoming recognized as a sheriff for Pike County, Kentucky.
(27:06):
And his whole goal was to capture the hat Fields.
So they organized posse's and raids and they would come
across the border, attacking the family, attacking the neighbors, the communities.
You know. It was. It was a nightmare, you know,
living in this area during that time for many reasons,
(27:27):
the Civil War, and then you're getting attacked by Kentucky,
you know, when you're just trying to come out here
and you know, farm to feed your family. You know,
it was. It was a crazy time. People don't understand
how complicated it was during that time.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah, Phillips didn't occur to me to be anything remotely
close to what we would consider a peacekeeper. He was
and despite being sent from the Kentucky side of it,
he really didn't have any allegiance to either side because
he was going after McCoy's an Hatfields equally. At some points, Yeah,
it seemed like he was really just he was just
(28:04):
feeding the violence and he was.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
You know, and Jim Vance on the Hatfield side, they
were called the posters of both sides.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Yeah, I would agree with that. And you know, I
don't timply cover nonfiction books on this channel. I don't
read a lot of nonfiction unless it's books about bands
or music, which I do like those. But this book
it appealed to me because it does read like a
like a gritty, violent western yarn and and I think
Crawford the way he writes it. Obviously he's writing a
(28:38):
journalistic nonfiction work about the families, but he's really able
to turn it into this rousing you know, reading experience
that comes across as like you're reading you feel like
you're reading a novel.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Wouldn't you agree it's kind of like reading a novel.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Yeah, it's it's quite entertaining.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah, I really enjoyed it. I'm gonna ask you a
couple of questions here before we go. Uh, sure, having
the knowledge you now possessed in this day and age
and you know kind of what you know now, do
you think that if you had lived during that time
you could have played the role peacekeeper? Do you think
you would have had any impact whatsoever?
Speaker 3 (29:11):
No? No, it got out of the family's hands, you know,
I mean, it was beyond the family. I mean you
got to think that, you know, with the extradition situation,
this case made it all the way up to the
United States Supreme Court. Yeah, and then you know, they solidified,
you know, the juris the extradition between the states in
(29:32):
the United States. And when they did that, the only
confession they had of, you know, was from cotton Top,
who was mentally handicapped, not all there, and you know,
he was trying to make the family proud, holler and
I killed a McCoy, I cut a McCoy. And he
confessed to killing Ala Fair during the cabin ry, which
(29:55):
may or may not have been true. There was whole
there was twenty thirty people shooting at that CA. I
don't know how many exactly, but it was a lot
of people shooting at that cabin So who knows whose
bullet really hit who. And you know, I'm not even
sure that cotton Top was guilty of anything when he
was hung unfortunately, and you know, uh that happened after T. C.
(30:17):
Crawford came here, and he actually had to put in
the dindem in the book for that actually to write
that in after he published so which is in this book.
But there's no way. I don't I don't think. I mean,
it went way beyond the family's hands and the family allegiances.
I mean you're talking about state alliances and then federal
(30:37):
alliances between the states. I mean, it got, it got
so big. There's no there's no way.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Do you think, you know, looking at it now, and
do you think the legend of the feud has actually
outgrown the facts?
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Oh? Most definitely, most definitely. Uh, you know, part of
the story I hate is the pig. Everybody comes in here.
Did you guys really kill each other throughty years of
a pig? Yeah, we sure did. We were hungry and
we needed bacon. I mean yeah, I mean it ain't
nothing like bacon. Yeah, that's exactly what happened. Yeah, but
as the Supreme Court, you know, they'll they'll they'll tell you, you know,
(31:14):
who won the pig. You know, it's ridiculous. But yeah,
there's there's so many twists and turns, and you know,
I have a lot of people who troll me for
even you know, my stories and my events that I
believe are accurate as can be based on the resources
(31:38):
that I have, you know, because there's so many theories
out there, and you know, the truth is, unless we
were standing there at each one of those events that happened,
we would never know. And you know, some of it
was captured of course in court documents, which we do have,
and a lot of it wasn't, you know. So so
(32:01):
a lot of it is stories and theories passed down
through the families. What was passed down because again, not
a lot of them like to talk about it. I've
even been criticized by family for doing what I'm doing
today because again they don't they don't want to talk
about it. It's not something they're proud of. So, you know,
it's it's quite interesting. But there's there's so many different avenues.
(32:25):
I mean, I mean, you've got the love story of
the Romeo and Juliet part, you know, the murder of
the court, the legal situations, you know, the Civil War, like,
there's so many pieces of the puzzle to this feud,
which made it so complicated and and so you know
mainstream I mean, you know, now we have extradition with
the entire world. I mean, yeah, this is rippled throughout
(32:48):
the entire world in our legal system, you know, So
it's it's it's quite large and there's no way. I
don't think anybody could have stopped it except for the
Supreme Court, which is basically what happened. Because you had
governors going at each other, you had families going to
each other, you had outlaws just out to kill somebody.
(33:08):
You know, it was it was crazy, It was I mean,
some of the stuff that T. C. Crawford talks about
it's pretty on point, but some of it's also pretty colorful.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
And your experiences running the foundation and also being on
the ground there because you live at the home place
and you know that's your business being on the ground there.
What are some of the craziest misconceptions are just you know,
straight up inaccuracies that tourists or spectators have brought to you, Like,
were some of the most outrageous things you've ever heard
about the feud?
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Uh a lot of it, you know. The number of
people killed, you know, I've heard from three to three
four or five hundred, six hundred, you know, but there
was a lot more killed than we even know about.
Because again, you have these raids going on, these possible
raids coming in and they were with bad frank, you know,
(34:04):
as you were talking about, So there were a lot
of people killed, even outside the feud that wasn't particularly related.
You know, they weren't involved in the feud, but you know,
very few family members on the Hatfield side. The only
one ever killed, of course, was caught top Hunk and
Jim Vance was taken out by bad Frank Philips. But
(34:26):
fortunately the McCoy's side lost quite a bit of children
during that situation. But you know the number of people
killed in the hog and everybody thinks we fought over
a hog. Devil Ants wasn't even part of that Hall trial.
They had nothing to do with the Hall And even
to even get to his cousin who was part of
(34:49):
that Hall trial, you'd have to go back to his
great grandfather's second marriage and then down a few generations.
So it was even a far distant cousin who had
that hog dispute, and that was with Randall McCoy. But
it was not devl Ance and Randall McCoy. And everybody
thinks that it was Devalance and random McCoy who had
this Hall dispute. That was not the case. Devlance had
(35:10):
a land dispute with Perry Kleine. Randall McCoy's cousin, and
both of those disputes were going on around the same time,
and they both went to court within three months of
each other, and the Hatfields won both court cases. So
between the murder from the Civil War of Asa and
then these two court cases, winning these two court cases,
that just kind of, you know, the that just you know,
(35:33):
kind of ignited the flame, so to speak. And then
when they killed Devalance's brother at the election day event,
that just poured gasoline on the fire. So from there
it exploded, you know. And then of course you've got
the love story and really it's a love triangle in there,
because Johnson ended up marrying Nancy Randam McCoy's nephew. But yeah,
(35:55):
it's who then she's the one who betrayed the family
and I married Frank back Frank Nancy did, and she
was the daughter of Asa Harmon McCoy, the first McCoy
ever killed during the Civil War, during the feud, so
she she became, you know, a trader to the Hatfield
family after marrying Jauncy, and that's how they actually killed
(36:16):
Frank Philips and almost killed cap At what was trump
think the name of it. I can't think the name
of the Mountain Battle of grape Vine Creek.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
I think it was grape Vine Creek.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Yeah, so they ended up killing them there while they
were out hunting. She knew their hunting spots, so that
Frank and his posse's were waiting there till they came
hunting and then tried to take him out. But yeah,
it was it went far beyond any anybody could have
ever imagined.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Uh, just talk about misconceptions.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
I was telling my my daughter Gracie last night, I
was gonna be interviewing you today to talk about the
Halfield McCoy feud, and she said, oh, yeah, that's the
one they made that television show about the Dukes of Hazzard.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
I was like, no, the Dukes of Hazard.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Don't have anything to do with it, doesn't anything to
do with Halfilton McCoy's. She's like, well, I thought it was.
I thought they were in Kentucky and they were feuding
with a family.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
It's like, no, it's not Dukes of Hazard.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
So you can you can add that one's your list
of anybody asked Dukes of.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Hazzard does nothing.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Yeah, you touched on this, you touched on this briefly.
But I'm gotna see if I can pull it up here.
You have a new book that you're working on, or
maybe it's coming out soon. This one right here, The
Devil's Brigade. What can you tell us about it?
Speaker 3 (37:35):
It's in production right now. The Devil's Brigade is a
really cool book. This one was done in nineteen thirty.
It is only that we know of the second publication
ever made with the feud. It just became public domain,
so I was just able to utilize it. And the
(37:55):
fact that it became just became public domain, there was
no resources for me to pull from to try to
put the book together easily, unfortunately. So it's quite a
lengthy book. He did. It was over three hundred pages,
but of course it was a six by nine I
think mine ended up being about two hundred after I
added to it and put it in you know, eight
and a half by eleven format. But this book I
(38:18):
actually really enjoy and like this book. It's it's very interesting.
And you want to do a deep dive on an author,
This author'spivot dunk spivot. Now that is a story.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Oh really?
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Oh yeah, yeah, do you research on that one. You'll
probably want to do another interview on this one that
author is quite interesting. But this book here is more
about the feud itself, and he basically kind of puts
you in like a first person narrative as you're you know,
he writes it like you were in the conversation with
(38:54):
like Johnsy and Roseanne and Rosanna and Leviisi Devalance's wife
for you know, kind of mine in law, but interesting.
So he puts it like first person narrative. And you
know he had to do. He actually came to the
Tug Valley here to write about the Coalman Wars going
(39:16):
on in the nineteen thirties. So, and what's interesting I
never thought about it is is so when he came
here to write about the coal Mine Wars, he learned
about the feud and thought it would be make a
better book. So he ended up writing The Devil's Brigade.
And this book what I really enjoyed about it is
(39:39):
that he talks about where the Civil War set the
stage for the hat filmcoy feud, the hat Film McCoy feud,
and the Civil War set the stage for the Coalman Wars.
So by the time the Coalman Wars came, you know,
you had every man here already knew how to fight
owned weapons, was prepared, and I mean there was all
(40:00):
ready literally mountains full of soldiers already here, ready to
fight the coal mining wars, right.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
So yeah, that's that's that's what I thought. You know,
I had never even thought about, you know, how that
I knew how the Civil War kind of set the
stage and tied in for the feud, but I never
thought about it how it translated over to the coal
mine Wars following the feud. So you know, this this
area was hit you know, with the Civil War and
then the fil McCoy feud and then the coal mine Wars,
you know, back to back to back. So it's been
(40:30):
a rough life for you know, the Appalachian people here.
So I do like this book a lot, although again
it's probably a lot of fiction that he you know,
came up with after the interviews. I don't think he
met with family. I do think he interviewed a lot
of neighbors and people who would actually talk to him,
(40:52):
because at this point none of the family would talk
to any reporters or authors or anyone you know, trying
to get to the family. You as you probably read
in T. C. Crawford's book. The family was very well protected,
and and and the way they reached you, I don't
know if you remember him traveling through and reaching the property,
(41:14):
and how it was everybody was warning each other ahead
before they even got ahead. You know, you were you
were coming into a hornet's nest the whole way coming
here to get to Devil Lance and then across the
street here is literally a ledge on the mountain while
the sharpshooters hit out, and he built a moat wall
around the property and had a draw bridge. So which
(41:37):
is all still here. But yeah, this this book is
quite interesting. I think you'll enjoy it too. I should
have it out in a few weeks. Hopefully it's in
the it's in the design stages with the printing company
right now. So but yeah, both of these again, you know,
both of these I decided to do because it was
(41:58):
hard for me to get inventory. There's only one or
two books on the market now that you know, we
can even order wholesale to carry in the shop. So
you know, what better way to give a old and
a new updated version of the story, you.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Know, And Jackie, you also last thing I'll let you
go here of There's also another book on the Have
Film McCoy Foundation dot org website, which is The Feud
that have fielts McCoy is the True story by Dean King.
Have you read that one or do you have anything
to say about that one?
Speaker 3 (42:29):
I haven't read it. That is one of the ones
that we can order steal its in print. Dean King
the author. It's a very thick book, so he it's
it is pretty a lot of fiction. You know that
he filled in a lot of colorful pages. I do
know that a lot of the family disagrees with his
(42:50):
view on the feud and what he wrote, so I
tend to shy away from it. So I don't get
any family disputes, right. But you know, he's been here
to the property a few times. We've talked about some
possible TV shows and things a few times with him.
(43:10):
But you know, he's a good he's a good man.
He's a good guy, and you know, and I think
his book does well, but I do think it's a
lot of fiction.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
When you mentioned TV that mimightd me have one more thing,
or actually two more things.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
One.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Is there any television show, documentary or movie that you
felt tells the tale the best or one that you
find in favor of.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
There is some good things out there by the by
the biography channel that kind of go over the feud,
and it's I think it was done in the early
two thousands and it's a good like summation. It's about
an hour hour and a half long. The mini series
(43:54):
is the one I get questioned about the most, the
one with Kevin Costner that came out in twenty twelve.
That mini series, you know, again there's a lot of
Hollywood and fiction written into that, but it does do
a good job, I guess, giving you the main points
of the feud, but there's there's you know, things that
(44:14):
they've got twisted and wrong in there. So like you know,
they show the feud starting about a bar fight between
Jim Vance and Asa Harmon McCoy, which wasn't the case.
It was they were trying to assassinate devil ants after
the Civil War because of the incident on Devil's Backbone Mountain.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
And then of course they hunted Asadam the Love and
wildcast did and took him out for trying to take
out devil ants again. Back then it was killer be killed,
you know, you know, they have some things twisted. They
have some characters combined who were like two different characters
that had the same name, so you know, they thought
they were the same person, while the Preacher and the
(44:55):
Judge they were actually two different people. Things like that,
you know, But they do get the main points of
the few that happened pretty at least into the story.
But you know, I'd say it's probably about sixty seventy accurate.
There's still a lot of fiction written into that as well,
of course, to be entertaining.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Yeah, this guy T. C. Crawford is actually he's he's
played by an actor in the movie. He's actually part
of that of that movie that you're referring to. Yeah,
the mini series actually features C. C. Crawford in there,
I think briefly, and I can't remember who he's played by.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
I'm watch it again. I don't remember seeing that part
in there. I had to watch this again. Dan watched it.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Yeah, they came out a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Do you, uh, does your foundation or you personally do
you have anything to do with the half of McCoy
Dinner Theater and Pigeon Forge.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Is that you are something different that's different?
Speaker 3 (45:50):
Yeah, that's totally different. I used to do some appearances
there for him and autograph sessions and things. When it
was owned by fi Headrick Entertainment. It was a family
owned operation, and they got so big that Dolly Partner's group,
I think it's called w C I maybe I don't know.
Her group bought it out and they took anything and
(46:11):
everything authentic out, including my books and me and everything else.
So I haven't really had any relationship with them since
they bought it a few years back. I'm hoping though,
when we open our new museum location in that area,
that you know, we can I don't know, work together somehow.
But no, that is they're sailing Chicken with their name
(46:32):
on it. They I mean, it's an entertaining show, you know,
it's but it's you know, it's a family friendly show,
and you know it and it is nowhere near you know,
the truth or nowhere near the feud. It's it's it's
a very different type of show. But yeah, it's just
(46:52):
got our name on it, you know. Same thing with
the trail system. You know, there's there's a big misconception
which I did talk about in my portion of book,
where people think that we get a lot of royalties
and fees from all these things with our name on it.
But you know, like the miniseries for example, you can't
copyright history, so you know, we there's no way we
(47:13):
can control that. So a lot of people can use
our name and our story unfortunately, whether we like it
or not, and we do not get compensated for it.
So that's one of the things, you know that. And
then we have a trail system here, which is an
awesome trail system. It's a thousand miles of ATV trails
(47:33):
and it's bringing tourism into this area which is now
boom towns from coal mines right in the coal mine wars.
So you know, we have nothing to do with that either,
you know, nor do we get any kind of royalties
or anything to assistance to help with any of that.
So all the preservation work, everything that we've done here
is mostly come out of my pocket with a few
(47:55):
small grants that's helped pitch in here and there. But
you know, there's still a long way to go before
we get to where we want to be.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
So wrapping us up here, how do people visit the
home place? What's going on there? What's the sea there.
What do we do to get closer to this feud
in that in that area.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
Yeah, well, of course if you want to come and
ride to ATV trails, you can come by a TV
or you come by car. They when they built these
ATV trails, they kind of funnel out to me in
the graveyard cemetery next door. So of course this is
Devalance's home place where he hid out deering the feud.
I know, like for example, in the mini series they
showed him hiding out in some little shack in the
(48:36):
middle of the woods. It was a two story concrete
block building he built to protect himself and it was
across the street here before he built the home on
this side of of the property of the creek and
then the moat you know, around the property. So next
door is where everybody's laid to rest. You've got John C.
(48:56):
Devl Ance, you know, we have his other to kids,
Troy and Elias, who were shot for moonshine rights with
the Italians probably the mafia back then, I don't know,
but they got into it with Octavia Drome. He was
over liquor rights. So there's a lot of stuff that
goes even beyond the feud with the family. I mean,
(49:19):
there's a lot of history there. But you know, you
cover the property here. You can see of course the
cemetery next door, and there are markers and statues and
everything that are there. We here on the property. Of course,
we have you know, the historic drawbridge and things, the
moat still around the property. The original will that they
(49:41):
used is here. Unfortunately, the home burned down in nineteen
thirty two. So that's one of my main goals is
to rebuild his home here on the property, but that's
going to be expensive. I just had to build a
new bridge, which was like sixty thousand dollars to because
the historic bridge is too narrow because it was built
for verus and buggies and it's crumbling at that. And
(50:04):
of course we have the museum and give shop here
on the property, a little gym mining sluice, so you know,
all the kiddo's could come and paying for gold and gyms,
you know. So it's you know, it's a cute little visit,
you know. So it's a good, you know, day visit
day thing to do coming down the area. We also
to uh just published a map. Again. We have a
(50:26):
lot of problems with the counties working together much less
the states. So we published a map which is actually
a true, full blong Hatfield McCoy feud site tourist map,
so they can actually even get a copy downloaded off
of our website Hatfi McCoy Foundation dot org, or you
can make the museum here your first stop and pick
(50:46):
up a physical copy here. But it's a map of
all the feud sites that they can do a driving
tortoo all the way from here to Pipeville.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
Okay, cool. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
The Hatfield McCoy Foundation dot org has the the GPS
coordinates and also the addresses, so if you want to
go check out the area, you can. I haven't been
up there, but it sounds like something i'd want to do.
I've enjoyed the book again. This one's out now, and
then Devil's Brigade will be out in a few weeks,
and I'll probably have a review of this book up
on the blog as well as as a written a
(51:18):
book review of that one, and then I'll review the
Devil's Brigade. But Jack, thanks so much for being on
the show. I really appreciate it. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 3 (51:25):
I appreciate the exposure.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
You bet you take care. Thank you so much, thank you,
Bye bye now
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