05/03/2026
THE HATFIELDS HEAD WEST…
By 1896, Johnse Hatfield and his brothers, Troy, Elias, and Cap Hatfield, were worn thin in both body and spirit, worn down by years spent dodging the law for crimes in the Mountain State and lingering feud-related charges awaiting them in Kentucky. In search of anonymity—and perhaps a measure of peace—they turned their backs on the rugged hills of West Virginia and pressed westward into the frontier.
It had been months earlier, Cap, then 32, and his young stepson, Joe Glenn, had been swept into a violent Election Day gunfight with an armed mob on the streets of Matewan, West Virginia. When the smoke cleared, several men lay dead, including John Rutherford, son of Doc Rutherford. In the aftermath, young Joe Glenn was quickly sent off to the reform school at Pruntytown, a state institution for boys. Meanwhile, Cap’s fate took a different turn. Being tried and convicted of manslaughter, he was confined to the small jail cell at Williamson, the county seat of Mingo County. It did not hold him long. Before long, Cap engineered an escape and disappeared into the shadows, a fugitive again. He headed west.
Around that same time, Troy and Elias—still in their teens—found themselves accused in the killing of Dave Kenney, a neighbor and former coworker from the timber camps. Witnesses claimed the brothers, along with a third man—some said Cap—had been seen in a heated confrontation with Kenney at a Hatfield logging site. By the next morning, Kenney’s body, riddled with bullets, was discovered nearby.
Suspicion quickly settled on Troy and Elias. Even before formal charges could be secured, they chose flight over trial, slipping quietly out of the region to avoid arrest. With the law closing in, they fled to the Oklahoma Territory, while Cap, who had separated from the others, kept a low profile working a modest dirt farm near Gunnison City, Colorado.
The oldest brother, Johnse, with bounty hunters hot after him, had already gone west, eventually finding work in the lumber camps of the Pacific Northwest.
Yet, distance offered only the illusion of escape. Before long, all four brothers would find their way back to the mountains of southern West Virginia, discovering that no matter how far they ran, true refuge could only be found under the watchful presence of their father, Anderson “Devil Anse” Hatfield.
— KD
