Hatfield-McCoy feud
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The Hatfield-McCoy feud is a legend of Americana that has become a metaphor for bitterly feuding rival parties. In something like an Appalachian Capulet-Montague fight to the finish, the two warring families of the West Virginia-Kentucky backcountry along the Tug Fork River finally agreed to disagree in 1891.
Between 1860 and 1891 the feud claimed more than a dozen members of these families including Ellison Hatfield brother of "Devil Anse" Hatfield.
The Hatfields were led by William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield (1839-1921); the McCoys were led by Randolph "Ran'l" McCoy, born 1825. Randolph died as a result of burns at his home on March 28, 1914.
In the popular imagination, the Hatfields-McCoy feud became a curiosity, proverb, and even joke. In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain's description of a feud between the "Grangerford" and "Shepherdson" families fits this pattern, as does the "Harkness" – "Folwell" vendetta (set in the Cumberlands) from O Henry's Squaring The Circle (http://www.gutenberg.net/etext98/vccty10.txt). Many cartoon characters, from Bugs Bunny to Ren and Stimpy, have exploited the apocryphal feud.
On Monday, June 16, 2003 descendants of the Hatfield and McCoy families signed a truce in Pikeville, Kentucky. This was more of a publicity event than anything else as, in reality, the feud had ended more than a century earlier.
External links
- Hatfield-McCoy Timeline (http://www.blueridgecountry.com/hatmac/timeline.html)
- details of the story (http://www.blueridgecountry.com/hatmac/hatmac.html)