- WILLIAM ANDERSON "DEVIL ANSE" HATFIELD -

09 Sep 1839 - 06 Jan 1921

Photo thanks to Norma Lugar* Photo thanks to Life magazine May 22, 1944

Per Paul Curry Steele in Anse on Island Creek and Other Poems:

He was illiterate but had much mother wit. Contrary to the conception I once had of him, Anse was not what is called a really big man. He missed by about two inches being six feet tall. "He was awful strong and wiry," said Joe Hatfield. He kept his weight at around 175 pounds. He was very proud of his hair and full beard, Grizzled now but once as black as a male cowbird. In idle moments he would take out a comb And carefully comb the chest-length beard. "He had brown eyes," a daughter-in-law said, "And I remember to this day how snapping they were."

Map via Delorme Topo USA v2.0

About Aug. 1888 "Devil Anse" Hatfield moved his household from Thacker Creek on the Tug Fork to a location near Stirrat and Sarah Ann.

Per Paul Curry Steele in Anse on Island Creek and Other Poems:

In 1888, when he was almost fifty, Notorious, wanted, and bone-weary of the feud, William Anderson ("Devil Anse") Hatfield For greater safety and in hopes of tranquillity Moved his family from their old homestead On the West Virginia side of Tug Fork Twenty-six miles upcountry Across mountain ridges and along narrow valleys To a rude vastness deep in Logan County, Distant from Kentucky and the McCoy clan, A wooded, seclusive, undeveloped tract Of several hundred acres on Island Creek, Where he would live for the rest of his life.

...

By Anse's reckoning the move to Island Creek Took place when his twelfth child and eighth son, Born February 10, 1888, was six months old.


The man and boy looking at the statue are Devil Anse's son Joe, a former sheriff of Logan County, and grandson Willie Joe, aged 4. Photo and text courtesy of Life magazine Sep 22, 1944.

Per Paul Curry Steele in Anse on Island Creek and Other Poems:

In the morning of New Year's Day, 1921, Anse felt unwell after eating breakfast. He went out on the front porch and sat for a while. His grandson Joe Caldwell, Betty's boy, sat near him To keep him company. They exchanged a few remarks. Anse fingered the cane he now used. Presently Joe came inside with the news that his grandfather Was unable to speak. He had suffered a stroke. He was carried to his bed, and a doctor was brought. Five days later he succumbed to pneumonia.

...

Not long after their father's death, Joe and Tennis Hatfield commissioned Through a monument company in Huntington A life-sized statue of Anse, of Carrara marble, Fashioned in Italy using photographs they provided; For this they paid $3500. The statue was hauled by mule team on the last leg Of its long journey to the Hatfield family cemetery On Island Creek, above the hamlet of Sarah Ann. The family has professed to see a likeness of Anse In the bearded figure of Latinized visage, Expressionless, arms at the sides, constrained In frock coat, leggings, and other dry goods, that stands on a tiered pedestal bearing the surname HATFIELD in large letters, by the head of his grave And that of Vicy, who followed him there in 1929.

Per the Reverend Shirley Donnelly:

An expensive marble monument, topped by a life-sized statue of the famed feud leader, marks the graves of William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield and his wife, Levicy Chafin Hatfield, in the Hatfield Cemetery on Island Creek near Omar in Logan County. Both died of pneumonia, he at the age of 82 [sic] and she eight years later at the age of 87.

Her full name is on the marker with her birth and death dates, 1842-1929, but he is identified as Capt. Anderson Hatfield, with dates 1839-1921, without his first name or the descriptive nickname by which he was known from Civil War days and still is called in historical accounts of the feud.

The tall monument lists the names of the couple's 13 children: Johnson, William A., Robert L., Nancy, Elliott R., Mary, Elizabeth, Elias, Troy, Joseph O., Rose, Willis E., and Tennis.

TROY'S REAL name was Detroit and Tennis's given name was Tennyson. William A, was commonly called "Cap."


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*Per Norma Lugar's original photo credits: Pictures courtesy of Pike County, KY. Tourism Commission, West Virginia State Archives, National Tape & Disc Corporation. Except as noted, foreground and background images are from original photos and artwork by the webmaster.