Hatfield-McCoy Feud (Part II)

Hatfield–McCoy production (July 2012)

In 2002, Bo and Ron McCoy brought a lawsuit to acquire access to the McCoy Cemetery which holds the graves of six family members, including five slain during the feud. The McCoys took on a private property owner, John Vance, who had restricted access to the cemetery.

In the 2000s, a 500-mile (800 km) all-terrain vehicle trail system, the Hatfield–McCoy Trails, was created around the theme of the feud.

On June 14, 2003, in Pikeville, Kentucky, the McCoy cousins partnered with Reo Hatfield of Waynesboro, Virginia, to declare an official truce between the families. Reo Hatfield said that he wanted to show that if the two families could reach an accord, others could also. He had said that he wanted to send a broader message to the world that when national security is at risk, Americans put their differences aside and stand united: "We're not saying you don't have to fight because sometimes you do have to fight," he said. "But you don't have to fight forever." Signed by more than sixty descendants during the fourth Hatfield–McCoy Festival, the truce was touted as a proclamation of peace, saying "We ask by God's grace and love that we be forever remembered as those that bound together the hearts of two families to form a family of freedom in America." Governor Paul E. Patton of Kentucky and Governor Bob Wise of West Virginia signed proclamations declaring June 14 Hatfield and McCoy Reconciliation Day. Ron McCoy, one of the festival's founders said it is unknown where the three signed proclamations will be exhibited and that "the Hatfields and McCoys symbolize violence and feuding and fighting, but by signing this, hopefully, people will realize that's not the final chapter."

In 2011, the Hatfields and McCoys Dinner Show, a musical comedy production, opened in the resort community of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, near the entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The Hatfield and McCoy Reunion Festival and Marathon are held annually in June on a three-day weekend. The events take place in Pikeville, Kentucky, Matewan, West Virginia, and Williamson, West Virginia. The festival commemorates the famed feud and includes a marathon and half-marathon (the motto is "no feudin', just runnin'"), in addition to an ATV ride in all three towns. There is also a tug-of-war across the Tug Fork tributary near which the feuding families lived, a live re-enactment of scenes from their most famous fight, a motorcycle ride, live entertainment, Hatfield–McCoy landmark tours, a cornbread contest, pancake breakfast, arts, crafts, and dancing. Launched in 2000, the festival typically attracts thousands with more than 300 runners taking part in the races.

In August 2015 members of both families helped archeologists dig for ruins at a site where they believe Randolph McCoy's house was burned.

In 2016, the history podcast The Broadsides aired an episode going into detail about the conflict between the Hatfields and McCoys.

In September 2018, a wooden statue, standing over 8 feet tall was erected in honor of Randolph McCoy at the McCoy homeplace in Hardy, Kentucky. Carved by chainsaw carver Travis Williams and donated to the property, this statue had been commissioned by McCoy property owner and Hatfield descendant Bob Scott. The statue was unveiled during Hatfield-McCoy Heritage Days in Pike County, Kentucky, an event that occurs every September that brings Hatfield and McCoy descendants back to Pike County to celebrate the long-standing peace between the families. The McCoy homeplace, like many others associated with the feud is open to tourists year-round.

Media

Film

The 1923 Buster Keaton comedy Our Hospitality centers on the "Canfield–McKay feud," a thinly disguised fictional version of the Hatfield–McCoy feud.

The 1938 Merrie Melodies cartoon A Feud There Was depicts a feud between two backwoods families, called the Weavers and the McCoys. It features Egghead as a peace activist - going by the name Elmer Fudd (before he was a hunter) - trying to put an end to the two feuding hillbilly clans.

The 1939 Max Fleischer cartoon Musical Mountaineers has Betty Boop wander into the territory of the Peters family who are at war with the Hatfields.

The 1946 Disney cartoon short The Martins and the Coys in Make Mine Music animated feature was another very thinly disguised caricature of the Hatfield–McCoy feud.

In 1949, the Samuel Goldwyn feature film Roseanna McCoy told a fictionalized version of the romance between the title character, played by Joan Evans and Johnse Hatfield, played by Farley Granger.

The 1949 Screen Songs short "Comin' Round the Mountain" features another thinly disguised caricature of the Hatfield–McCoy feud, with cats (called "Catfields") and dogs ("McHounds") fighting each other, until a new schoolteacher arrives.

In 1950, Warner Bros. released a spoof of the Hatfield–McCoy feud titled Hillbilly Hare, featuring Bugs Bunny interacting with members of the "Martin family", obviously a reference to a family in the other famous Kentucky feud, the Rowan County War who had been feuding with the "Coy family". When Bugs Bunny is asked, "Be y'all a Martin or be y'all a Coy rabbit?", Bugs answers, "Well, my friends say I'm very coy!" and laughs. The Martin brothers chase Bugs for the rest of the short and are outwitted by him at every turn.

The 1951 Abbott and Costello feature Comin' Round the Mountain features a feud between the Winfields and McCoys.

The 2007 movie Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud portrays the feud between the Hatfields and McCoys, but the circumstances of the feud are different.

In 2012, Lionsgate Films released a direct-to-DVD film titled Hatfields & McCoys: Bad Blood, starring Jeff Fahey, Perry King, and Christian Slater.

Literature

Ann Rinaldi authored a historical novel titled The Coffin Quilt, based on a fictionalized account of the feud.

Television

The Flintstones featured a feud between the Hatrocks and the Flintstones in the episode "The Flintstone Hillbillies" (aired January 16, 1964), which was loosely based upon the Hatfield–McCoy feud.

The Ghost of Witch McCoy appears as the main villain in The Scooby-Doo Show episode “The Ozark Witch Switch.” A fictional member of the McCoy family hanged for witchcraft, she exacts her vengeance by turning Hatfields into frogs.

The Andy Griffith Show also alluded to the rivalry in an episode called "A Feud is a Feud" (aired December 5, 1960), in which the feud is between the Wakefields and Carters.

The 1968 Merrie Melodies cartoon "Feud with a Dude" has the character Merlin the Magic Mouse trying to make peace with the two families, only to end up as the new target. This short has Hatfield claiming McCoy stole his hen, while McCoy claims Hatfield stole his pig.

A 1975 television movie titled The Hatfields and the McCoys told a fictionalized version of the story. It starred Jack Palance as "Devil Anse" Hatfield and Steve Forrest as "Randall" McCoy.

The two feuding Virginia families in the 2007 made-for-TV film Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud is called Hatfield and McCoy.

The second-season episode Vanished of NCIS takes place in a rural valley in Virginia, the two sides of which are feuding in a manner that Leroy Jethro Gibbs compares to the Hatfields and McCoys.

The eleventh episode of Bones season 7, entitled The Family in the Feud, is about a long-running family feud that main character Seeley Booth likens to the Hatfield–McCoy feud.

From May 28–30, 2012, U.S. television network The History Channel aired a three-part miniseries titled Hatfields & McCoys, starring Kevin Costner as William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield and co-starring Bill Paxton as Randolph "Ole Ran'l" McCoy, Tom Berenger as Jim Vance, and Powers Boothe as Judge Valentine "Wall" Hatfield.  The miniseries set the record as the most-watched entertainment telecast in the history of advertising-supported basic cable.

A pair of rifles owned by the Hatfields and the McCoys appeared as a pair of artifacts in the fourth season of the Syfy original show Warehouse 13. Within the show, the rifles have the ability to attract each other like magnets but open fire when they get close enough to each other.

In 2013, NBC commissioned a pilot for a television show updating the feud to present-day Pittsburgh with Rebecca De Mornay, Virginia Madsen, Sophia Bush, and James Remar but it was not picked up.

On August 1, 2013, the reality television series Hatfields & McCoys: White Lightning premiered on the History channel. The series begins with an investor offering to set up the feuding families into business making moonshine and follows the families' attempt to run the business together.

In an episode of Modern Family originally aired January 15, 2014, titled "Under Pressure," Cam is working as a gym teacher who has plans to let parents play dodgeball with each other at the school's open house, and wants to divide the two teams into Hatfields and McCoys. The school principal frowns upon this idea, however, Gloria and a competitive mother played by Jane Krakowski decide to settle their score with such a game. Hurriedly, Cam proclaims Hatfields for one side and McCoys for the other.

The fifth season of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic featured an episode titled "The Hooffields and McColts", in which two clans have a longstanding feud over whether to use the land for farming or construction. A similar theme was covered in Season 3, Episode 9 of Littlest Pet Shop, "Feud for Thought", in which two koalas are at odds with each other but don't know why, other than that their owners are in a feud.

In Bonanza, The Gunmen (season 1, episode 19) Joe and Hoss were mistaken for two gunmen called Sladeboys that were hired by Mcfadden (McCoy) to take out the Hatfields in the small Texas town of Kiowa Flats.

In the Ben 10 reboot, a season 3 episode called "Them's Fighting Words!" features a parody of the feud, where the Hartfields and McJoys have been trying to claim ownership over a missing corn flute, accusing the other family of stealing it. The villain Hex actually finds it and starts summoning in the family's ancestors, finding out the flute's power increases the more the two families fight each other, though Ben and Gwen are able to quell them and stop Hex's plans to create an army of ghost soldiers by revealing that it was meant to be shared by them as a marriage gift, ending the feud.

Music

The song "Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)" written by Bobby Emmons and Chips Moman, sung by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, makes mention of the Hatfield/McCoy feud.

The song The Hatfield and the McCoy's was written and sung by Eddie Martin a Bristol-based musician and regular at the Famous Old Duke. It is track 8 on Pillowcase Blues.

In 2018, Mountain Fever Records released a single from their album from Dave Adkins, "Right or Wrong". The song, "Blood Feud", Written by Dave Adkins and Larry Cordle is a retelling of the familiar story of the deadly discord between the Hatfield and McCoy families during the Civil War era.

"My Summer Vacation" is a song written by O'Shea Jackson (Ice Cube), Garry Marshall Shider, David L. Spradley, and George Jr. Clinton and was released in 1991, mentions the Hatfields and McCoys in its lyrics.