PicoBlog

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I am going to post the 1880 census pages for Blackberry Creek, where many of the feud events will soon occur. I will give as much insight as I can into the people who lived there and how they related to the principle people and events of the feud.

Blackberry Creek proper begins halfway down this page, with household 89, that of Ulysses and Sarah Hatfield. To begin with, let me explain that there were four Hatfield brothers who settled their families on Blackberry Creek in the first two decades of the 1800s. There was Joseph, Valentine, George, and Jermiah. Remember those names because I’ll refer to them frequently. Joseph and Valentine, sons of Ephraim “Eph of All” Hatfield and Mary Smith, were the first of the brothers to settle on Blackberry Creek. They were there by 1816. Then, in 1822, their father, Ephraim and his wife Annie Musick, came to Blackberry Creek with sons George and Jeremiah.

Joseph was married to Martha Evans and was a half-sister to John and Richard Ferrell. John and Richard were early explorers in the area (more on them later) and John, it has been established, was the father of Jim Vance of feud lore. Joseph and Martha’s descendants still live on Blackberry Creek on the same land the Joseph acquired in the early 1800s. Valentine and his wife Mattie Weddington moved, with their children, across the river into West Virginia in 1830. Valentine and Mattie were the grandparents of Devil Anse Hatfield, and ancestor of all of the West Virginia Hatfields. George Hatfield and wife Nancy Whitt were the parents of Preacher Anse Hatfield and other Hatfields who will figure in various feud stories. Younger brother Jeremiah Hatfield was the grandfather of Sid Hatfield, Sheriff of Matewan in the 1920s.

Blackberry Creek begins on this census page about halfway down the page, with Ulysses Hatfield and his wife Sally (nee Varney). Ulysses was a grandson of Joseph and Martha Hatfield.

(Ulysses Hatfield and his wife, Sallie Varney Hatfield with daughters Fannie, Lydia, Matilda, Bertha, and Zettie. Ulysses had three more daughters with Elizabeth Murphy.)

Next to him is his brother Tolbert Hatfield and Tolbert’s wife Martha Ferrell. Martha was the daughter of Fulton Anderson Ferrell and the granddaughter of Elder John Ferrell and Jennie Taylor. Elder John Ferrell was the head of the Mates Creek Association of the Primitive Baptist Church. His wife, Jennie, was the aunt of the feud’s Randal McCoy.

Most Peaceful Hatfield Dies

Tolbert Was Friendly,

Even With The McCoys

By The Associated Press

WILLIAMSON - Tolbert Hatfield, who stayed friendly - and stayed alive - while his kinsmen traded shots with the McCoys, died yesterday. He was 89. A cerebral stroke ten weeks ago led to pneumonia. The end for possibly the last Hatfield clansman to witness the Hatfield-McCoy "border" war of the 1880's came at his Ransom, Ky., home. Tolbert, who once made friends with Henry Ford, served as justice of the peace during the feud and kept discreetly to the sidelines while his relatives battled. The feud started over testimony at a murder trial. A Hatfield was killed. A Hatfield sheriff went to arrest a McCoy and then sent back for reinforcements. The late Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield answered the call - and the feud started. Tolbert, a first cousin of "Devil Anse", somehow remained friendly with both sides. The aged Ransom resident lived in the same house for 65 years. He was born in 1854, and witnessed one of the first battles of the Civil war in the section - at Sulphur Creek. Hatfield served at one time as Pike county, Ky., road commissioner.   He is survived by a sister and daughter, and numerous relatives in Logan and Mingo counties, W.Va., and in Pike county.  Funeral services will be held today.  

Raleigh Register Beckley, W.Va.

Wednesday November 1, 1939  

father: Richard Thomas Hatfield

mother: Mary Verlina Buriss  

Burial: Alley Cemetery Ransom Pike County Kentucky, USA

Next comes Elexious Hatfield and his wife Lydia Musick. Leck, as he was known, was a son of George Hatfield and thus brother to Preacher Anse.

Living next to Leck and Lydia is their son Monterville “Mont” Hatfield and his wife Rebecca Chafin. Rebecca was the sister of Devil Anse’s wife Levicy Chafin. Mont appears in one feud-related newspaper article, written in 1888 by John Spears. It seems that Mont had a best friend, one Shade Smith (my great great grandfather). David New, from down the creek, apparently “whipped” Smith, and in retaliation, Mont fought and ultimately killed David New. Mont spent time in prison for this. While he was in prison, his wife Rebecca divorced him and remarried. When Mont was pardoned by the governor and released, she divorced her current husband and remarried Mont. They remained together until he himself was murdered in 1902.

From The Big Sandy News, May 9, 1902

News has just reached here that King Akers shot and killed Mont Hatfield late Saturday evening. The parties lived near together. The difficulty came up over a passway through a piece of land. Akers went home after the row began, got his gun and came back and killed Hatfield. The killing took place on Cowpen creek, about seven miles from here. Hatfield is the same man who was sentenced to the penitentiary for life for the murder of Dave Newsom on Blackberry creek, about 20 years ago, and was pardoned by the Governor.

Rebecca Chafin divorced Eli Acord and remarried Montaville after his release from prison.

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Charleston Gazette
May 16, 1949

Rebecca Hatfield, 86, Widow of Monteville, Dies in Huntington

LOGAN, May 15—Mrs. Rebecca Hatfield, widow of Monteville Hatfield, died here Saturday night at the home of a daughter. She was 86.

Mrs. Hatfield was a sister-in-law of "Devil Anse" Hatfield, the leader of his clan in the storied feud with the McCoys, and an aunt of Dr. Henry D. Hatfield of Huntington, former governor and U. S. senator.

She was a daughter of the late Nathan and Matilda Chafin, the youngest and last-surviving member of a family of 11 children.

Monteville Hatfield, a "peaceful" member of the clan, left his farm on the Tug river, Mingo county, during the feud and made his way to Virginia where he lived until it subsided.

Later, he was convicted of a murder in connection with the feud, but after serving five years in prison it was discovered he had been "framed" and he was released with full pardon to return to his farm. He died about 40 years ago.

Mrs. Hatfield leaves four children, Mrs. Lydia Jackson, Hibbard and Howard Hatfield, all of Logan, and Reese Acord, a son by a former marriage, in Mingo county.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete, but the burial will be at the side of her husband in the Hatfield family cemetery on Main Island creek, where "Devil Anse" also is buried and where a monument of him commemorates his leadership of the clan.

•Birth: 29 APR 1863 in Logan County, Virginia (WV)
•Death: 14 MAY 1949 in Logan County, Virginia (WV)

Father: Nathaniel 'Nathan' Chafin b: ABT 1820 in Pike County, Kentucky
Mother: Matilda Varney b: ABT 1821 in Kentucky

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Last on the first page of the census is William H. Hackney. William was the son of Ruel Priest Hackney, who we will meet on the next page/post. His wife was Dye (Diana) May, daughter of William Jefferson May from Pond Creek. Diana’s grandfather was Adron Runyon, one of the wealthiest men on Pond Creek and thus one of the wealthiest men in the Tug Valley. Adron, like many wealthy men of the time, had two families. He had 15 children with his wife, Jenny, and another three children with their housemaid, Mary Ann May. The three sons of Adron and Mary Ann May were treated well by Adron and were provided for in his will. A story collected from the descendants of Mary Ann May tells how she often felt angry at being the mistress and by all rights should have hated Adron’s wife, Jenny. But, her descendants recall her as saying that Jenny had been so nice to her and her children with Adron that she didn’t have it in her heart to be angry with her.

One thing to keep in mind. I will be updating these census posts over the next few days, adding in photos for all of the individuals that I can find, as well as any other information about them that seems pertinent and/or interesting. My goal here is to convey as much as possible the texture of life on Blackberry Creek, and the Blackberry Fork of Pond Creek (where Ran’l and Sally lived) and, eventually, Logan County where the family of Anse Hatfield lived. I want to tease out the complex family relationships that function as a real backdrop for the feud events that will soon take place in this unsuspecting mountain community.

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