Matewan Shootout sends the Hatfields west

Estimated reading time: 16 minutes

Photo above: 1880s photo of Gunnison, CO, Main Street, looking north from Tomichi Ave.

Please welcome guest author F. Keith Davis. Davis is a longtime Mountain State newspaperman and former independent book publisher. He has penned articles for a number of national and state publications including WildWest Magazine, Rotorcraft Professional, West Virginia Magazine, and Goldenseal. As an author, Keith was interviewed on-camera for HISTORY channel’s 2012 documentary, “Hatfields and McCoys: America’s Greatest Feud,” narrated by Kevin Costner; and he was interviewed for a segment on the feud for the 700 Club on Christian Broadcasting Network. He’s written five books, and published and/or edited more than 40 groundbreaking Appalachian-based books. Keith and his wife Cheryl live in Logan County, WV.

It was morning and as he exited the cramped passenger car, his worn, knee-high leather boots clumped onto a rickety boardwalk at the small train depot. The feudist clutched his Model 1873 Winchester repeater tightly and peered through the belching clouds of steam. The lingering smell of the burning oak, the locomotive’s fuel source that produces the steam in its boiler, almost choked him as he gulped some air.

Slowly panning his surroundings, he watched intently for anyone armed and suspicious hanging outside the train station. Seeing that all looked relatively calm and clear, he noticed the community and realized immediately that Gunnison City, Colorado, was much smaller than he imagined it would be—a cow town really, that’s not much larger than the village where his trip originated.

Much like home, the municipality was rather small and sheltered by a mountain range, but that’s where similarities stopped. The monotone, barren, and eroded rock formations that stretched along the horizon outside Gunnison had little in common with the vibrant, lush and green Appalachian Mountains he was accustomed to. Still, he stood for a second awestruck by the raw splendor of the scene as the sun rose over the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

Weeks earlier he and his gangly younger brothers had chosen to escape the law, a local posse, and possibly a hangman’s noose and head west, leaving the town of Matewan in the Tug Valley basin of southern West Virginia.

On horseback, he and his brothers negotiated the challenging course out of the Appalachians and traveled as far as the prairie grasslands of Oklahoma Territory. The teens decided to remain there, but he decided to trek onwards to elude any determined bounty hunters or unprincipled posses seeking the sizable reward on his head. He sold his horse and a pack mule in Oklahoma and hopped a locomotive heading even further westward—to this remote region of Colorado.

As he stood on the boardwalk and assessed this new, strange environment, he was still convinced he’d had no choice but to run from the law when he did.

Where he came from, in perhaps the most rugged and isolated region of West Virginia, he was considered as proficient and dangerous with a pistol or lever action as any Old West gunslinger, but the odds had been against him the day he’d faced a vicious shootout with at least five others in the rough, muddy streets of Matewan. 

He and his stepson regretfully killed several townspeople on Election Day, November 3, 1896, before the two of them escaped from what turned into an angry mob. Even though he and his stepson made it out of the immediate area, within days he was arrested and jailed in the Mingo County jailhouse. Soon afterwards, though, he escaped his cell when he found he was going to be hauled across the Tug River border to face old feud charges in the State of Kentucky, as well.

An unrelated incident made things even more complicated. His teenage brothers were charged in a separate killing in neighboring Logan County. He decided the only thing left was for all of them to saddle up and head for the only place even more remote than Tug Valley—the American frontier.

His thoughts of the past immediately shifted back to the boardwalk in Gunnison when the baggage master came to the bottom steps of the baggage car and barked, “CAPTAIN HATFIELD!”

He jerked—looking around quickly through squinted eyes—trying to view through the billows of steam to see if anyone on the boardwalk or outside the depot reacted to that name the employee shouted. 

No one looked his way, so he nodded at the baggage master who threw his frayed canvas bag and dog-eared saddlebags in front of him with a thud. Soon calming down, he realized the train worker must have noticed his name scrawled on the inside flaps of his saddle bags—being carved deeply into the leather with a pen knife long ago by his wife, Nancy.

William Anderson “Cap” Hatfield, who was the second son of clan patriarch Anderson “Devil Anse” Hatfield, and arguably the most violent of the participants in the now infamous Hatfield and McCoy Feud, blandly muttered a thank-you to the train employee and whipped the canvas bag and belongings over his shoulder. 

From the time he was a toddler, he was known as “Little Captain,” being named after his father, who was once captain of the Logan Wildcats, a confederate guerrilla-fighting unit. The nickname stuck, although it eventually shortened to Captain, or, more frequently, just Cap.

Once he straightened himself, Cap sighed with relief, knowing all too well what it could mean to have his name shouted in public anywhere.

The troubles of the Hatfields and McCoys were well known by the 1890s. At a time when Dime Novels were still popular in the East about the West, equally exciting stories and serials—some true, many exaggerated—and others completely concocted by “yellow journalists” had run as front-page headlines in newspapers across the county over the previous two decades. 

Such a public instance like what just took place, with Cap’s name being uttered publicly, could mean an instant showdown with local gunfighters or road detectives from back East.

The detection of Cap in Colorado could ultimately mean the discovery and capture of his brothers, Elias and Troy Hatfield, in Oklahoma, as well.

Cap gazed one last time at his surroundings along the boardwalk and reinforced his grip on his rifle stock. Gritting his teeth, Cap prepared to stroll toward Gunnison and begin his new life with a new name. 

As he walked onward, his thoughts lapsed back to the beginning—at least to the start of his most current problems—and he thought about the series of events that led him to leave his beloved family in the Mountain State, placing them all in a considerable hardship, and travel all the way to the base camp of the Rockies.

Matewan Shootout

Dogwood trees and wild flowers were in bloom and the mountains were at their most colorful and dense—the sights and the fragrances were magnificent. In the spring of 1895 Cap, thirty-seven years of age, had acquired a tract of land and moved his wife, Nancy (Nan), and their children from the head of Island Creek in neighboring Logan County to the small town of Matewan, at the confluence of the Tug Fork River and Mate Creek in the new County of Mingo, which had been formed that same year out of portions of old Logan.

Although the town was located in the southern borderlands of West Virginia, Matewan had more in common with unruly cow towns of the western frontier than it did with a modern village on the east coast. An isolated and lawless region, Matewan still had occasional gun battles in the streets where mountain or vigilante justice still ruled with its iron fist. It was now the location of a daily Norfolk and Western train stop and had its own depot, but even so, law enforcement in this region was still deemed inadequate, and most times, nonexistent. People mostly took care of their own problems.

Cap had been in the timber business since a youngster, mostly working for his demanding father, Devil Anse, who owned approximately five thousand wooded acres across the mountain from Matewan, along Main Island Creek. 

Cap’s present intentions were to live near town for a while to be in closer proximity to a new sawmill built on Mate Creek, and further his father’s business interests.

By this period the most noted and most brutal Hatfield and McCoy feud events had already transpired. Yet, even as late as the mid-1890s, for Cap, the reverberations of the feud were still very much alive as eastern detectives, unlawful posses from Kentucky, and so-called peace officers continued to flood into West Virginia seeking the remaining rewards on the heads of Devil Anse and his sons, Johnse and Cap, and several other family members and supporters.

Due to these circumstances, Cap, who had been an active feudist since he was nineteen, lived a life of continual suspicion, paranoid that eager bounty hunters would one day capture him or his family. Therefore, he remained heavily armed and aware of his surroundings, being on guard and prepared for any circumstance. Local citizens already knew he was a man to be reckoned with and most often gave him and his family a wide berth.

Historian Virgil Carrington Jones once wrote about him: “People looked at Cap with awe. They said among themselves he had a record probably unparalleled by any other living person, that he had killed at least eighteen men at one time or another.”

In town lived another man with an equally fierce reputation, often known as the “bully of Matewan” by locals. His name was John Rutherford, the adult son of Dr. Elliott “Doc” Rutherford. Doc Rutherford had once been a loyal friend of Devil Anse and the Hatfield clan before bad blood arose between them. Anse had, in fact, named his son Elliott after the physician.

Family contentions began a couple years before when Doc got into a showdown with John Chafin, a first cousin of Levicy Chafin Hatfield, Devil Anse’s wife and Cap’s mother. In the violent encounter, Chafin received a .38 slug in the spine, which crippled him for life. Strong resentment grew from the incident. There were further hard feelings between John Rutherford and the Hatfields because of the claim by Rutherford that some time prior to the election of 1896 Cap had shot up his house, which Cap denied.

According to writings and documentation of Coleman A. Hatfield, historian and Cap’s son, around mid-September of 1896, John Rutherford told a crowd of Democratic volunteers at a saloon in Pike County, across the Tug River from Matewan, that Cap Hatfield, who was one of the few Republicans in the area, was making a stir trying to convert citizens to his political persuasion.

“If Cap comes [to Matawan] and votes the Republican ticket,” Rutherford growled, “let’s put him over in Kentucky!”

Old feud charges persisted in the Bluegrass State and bounties remained on the heads of many of the Hatfields, so “putting a Hatfield over into Kentucky” meant turning Cap over to legal authorities. If tried there, he could hang for murder charges stemming from the 1882 assassination of three McCoy boys and the 1888 New Year’s surprise attack on Ran’l McCoy’s cabin that resulted in the killing of his two children, Calvin and Allifair McCoy, and the ruthless beating of his wife, Sally.

Within days of the saloon gathering, multiple gunshots struck Rutherford’s Matewan home.

Such was the backdrop when Cap arrived at the Matewan polling grounds on Election Day, November 3, 1896.

Elections along the borderline had not changed significantly since the 1860s. People still congregated around the polls at the edge of town. Many drank heavily; some argued politics; others, inebriated, wrestled and fought each other. 

While many onlookers came just to watch events unfold, other citizens came to enjoy the mountain music—with dulcimers, fiddles, mouth harps, and guitars. Others clogged or square danced, picnicked, and participated in the social doings and party-like atmosphere.

On this particular afternoon, everyone was in town when Cap, carrying his lever action, strolled onto the grounds and mingled among the crowd. Cap’s teenage stepson, Joe Glenn, tagged along, carrying the double-barreled shotgun his stepfather had recently bought him for hunting squirrels and wild turkeys.

They eventually came upon the mercantile owned by Doc Rutherford, where he and his son, John, and others stored their homespun whiskey on such occasions. Bliss Rutherford, John’s older brother—leaning against a wooden column on the porch of the store, obviously inebriated—shouted, “Cap, I’m surprised you had the guts to come down here today. I can smell the stench on you from here.”

Angered by the insult, Cap stopped abruptly and glared at Bliss.

At that moment, John Rutherford stepped out of the store and joined his brother. John reached down and clutched a handful of .38 caliber short-shells from a pail sitting on the porch. Pitching one toward Cap, he snarled, “Pick that up, Cap. I might have to kill some man today.”

“John, there’s no glory in killing,” Cap responded as he tried to control his notorious temper. “I wouldn’t want to hurt anybody, and I wouldn’t want to see you hurt anyone either. Best let bygones be bygones.”

For a few tense moments, the adversaries stared each other down until John finally looked away, grabbed Bliss by the arm. The brothers walked back into the mercantile. Cap relaxed, shrugged his shoulders, and walked on.

Toward evening, Cap cast his ballot for the Republicans, regardless of the partisan jokes and negative comments old friends had made throughout the day. After voting, a friend met up with Cap, put his arm around his shoulder, and said, “Cap, let’s get us something to eat.”

Just then all hell broke loose. John Rutherford stepped out of the store shouting, “Look here, Cap Hatfield, look here!” Rutherford fired his shotgun twice. One wild shot cut the skin off the top of Cap’s left ear, and the other shot blistered him across the base of his neck. Blood oozed from the wounds.

In the book, The Tale of the Devil, Cap’s son later wrote about the events: “Dad was an awfully quick man. He shot Rutherford along on his right side just as Rutherford pulled a pistol from a holster and began firing again.”

Within seconds of Rutherford’s first gunshot, the election grounds exploded with as many as four other men now shooting handguns, including Reece Halsey, Ed Hopson, Lewis Rutherford, and Elliott Rutherford.

Running out to the steps of the poll, an election official named Henderson Chambers yelled, “Pour it to him, Johnny! Pour it to him!” At that instance, a shotgun blast hit Chambers in the chest and he dropped backwards, dead. Some at the scene later said Joe Glenn fired the fatal shot, though Glenn denied the accusation.

Cap grasped Glenn’s double barrel from him as he tossed him his Winchester. As they switched weapons a stray bullet ricocheted off the shotgun and the shell shattered on the barrels. Lead fragments shrapneled into Cap’s hand, leaving his knuckles bleeding profusely.

Joe Glenn lunged toward Cap screaming, “Pa, let’s get ‘way from here! They’ll kill you!” Cap and Joe spun and ran for a nearby alley in the direction of the railroad tracks and the road that led out of Matewan.

They exited the alleyway, sprinted through town and over to the dirt road, turned and headed up Tug Fork to the mouth of the creek bed. Shooting wildly, Ed Rutherford and several others chased them to a wooden railroad trestle that was built over the roadway.

Elliott Rutherford, standing on top of the trestle, emptied two pistols at Cap, who was squatted at the large support-beams below, as Joe Glenn simultaneously ran ahead another seventy-five yards up Mate Creek.

When Cap found an opportunity to flee his position, he rotated and leveled his shotgun at Reece Halsey, shooting him in the foot, slicing off three toes.

Once he reloaded, Elliott Rutherford, from his vantage point toward the top of the trestle, fired at least two more pistol shots that hit the ground between Joe Glenn’s feet.

Cap sprinted toward the boy as Joe fired a shot from Cap’s Winchester that whizzed far over Rutherford’s head.

Instantaneously, as he met up with his stepson, Cap threw the double barrel at Joe’s feet; he grabbed his rifle from the boy and fired a second shot, directly through Rutherford’s heart. His lifeless body collapsed over the trestle and nose-dived to the ground.

Turning, Cap shouted, “Take to the woods!” They burst into action again and ran through the gunsmoke. As bullets zinged overhead, Cap and Joe crossed the dry bed and ran through the dense thicket and charged up a steep hillside. When they finally got to the top of the ridge, they dove into the thick underbrush. Thorns, twigs, and thistles ripped at their legs and arms as they wriggled, maneuvered, and crawled even deeper into the brush and brambles. 

Now out of sight, they were able to pause and catch their breath along the woods line. The gunfire below finally ceased.

They still had a clear view from the hillside down to town, through camouflage in the vegetation, protected from being detected. They could easily see the remaining crowd outside the polls. Cap and Joe remained motionless and listened to the ongoing commotion below.

Dogs were barking. Men were swearing. Some women were still shrieking from the excitement of the gunfire, while others were crying from the deaths of loved ones.

After hours had passed, Cap nudged Joe and whispered, “We can go to Dan Christian’s.” Dan was a longtime friend of the Hatfields—nearly family—having practically been raised by Devil Anse and Levicey.

Out of fear of being caught, though, the pair remained in the woods for the remainder of the day and the next, before starting their nighttime journey. 

They scrambled down into the gullies, where it was most difficult to travel. Joe leading Cap, who was blind in one eye from a childhood accident: a percussion cap had exploded, which caused him to have great difficulty seeing in the dark. They eventually arrived at Dan Christian’s rural home. There they slept in the attic crawlspace, and Christian’s daughters brought them their first meal since the shooting began two days earlier.

Unfortunately, the showdown in Matewan had brought the Hatfields even more unwanted attention.

continues here…

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America’s very own Montagues and Capulets(Opens in a new browser tab)

Dean King’s “Feud” — fresh eyes on America’s most famous quarrel(Opens in a new browser tab)

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