the Hatfields and the McCoys

                                             THE HATFIELDS AND THE McCOYS

 

                     Of course everybody know the story of the legendary feud, which occurred in the cragged mountains of West Virginia and Kentucky, just about the time of the Civil War, although what happened in between 1863, 1965 and beyond, in truth, proved it never ended.

                    It was not a legitimate war, nor a Police Action. It was a family feud and the origin was as deleterious as its dubious beginning.

                    One accord was that a Hatfield kidnapped a McCoy beauty and took her up in the hills to wed her in his own way. The other pertained to the amount of territory Kentucky could acquire from the breakaway state of West (by God) Virginia. Then there was the fact that the McCoys were of Irish descent and the Hatfields…well, they were English.

                    Now the Irish never forgot Cromwell nor are they short on memory for anything. They have a cultural trait of being heavy drinkers, composers of unique music and literature, but they don't forget and after all a family feud is a family feud forever.

                    It was quite possible that the Hatfields knew this so that the idea of of without end was quite plausible.

                   Then the modern times took effect and the result was immigration. The descendants of the Hatfields and the McCoys sold their lands, which were once ancestral battlefields to real estate investors who put up condominiums and then monuments were erected to attract tourists who would visit on the weekend'

                  After that, right on the Hatfield/McCoy line, a college was founded. It was called Hatfield/McCoy College, because the Hatfields had donated the buildings, while the McCoys donated the family library.

                 It was all tax free and that was what the descendants wanted. They lived in far off places like Phenix or New Orleans. They were all doctors, lawyers or businessmen which in the eyes of their ancestors, could be defined as not real Hatfields or McCoys. In fact they were all pretty much of mixed blood by that time, which was a long way from a McCoy maiden being abducted by a Hatfield.

                In retrospect, the Hatfields and the McCoys never did put down their coon guns or make a long lasting peace. It seemed that their descendants resolved themselves to progress and economic gain. Some coon guns were displayed for the tourists on the weekend and others put in the historical building at Hatfield and McCoy College.

               It was not an everlasting peace…but where can you find that?