Tag: Jessie Lee Maynard Testerman Hatfield

Hellraisers Journal: Hired Gunthugs Acquitted of Murder in Killing of Miners’ Hero Sid Hatfield at Welch, West Virginia

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Sallie Chambers re Murder of Sid Hatfield n Ed, Blt Sun p2, Aug 5, 1921—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 27, 1922
Welch, West Virginia – Gunthugs Acquitted of Murder in Killing of Sid Hatfield

From the Baltimore Sun of April 25, 1922:

Three Are Acquitted Of Hatfield Killing
———-

Matewan Defendants Sid Hatfield n Ed Chambers, WV Hx Center, see also UMWJ p14, June 15, 1921

Welch, W. Va., April 24.-The final chapter in one of Mingo’s numerous industrial tragedies was written here today when a jury in Circuit Court returned a verdict of not guilty against C. E. Lively, Buster Pence and William Salters, indicted in connection with the killing of Sid Hatfield.

A similar verdict was returned when the same defendants were tried on charges of having killed Ed Chambers.

On August 1 last, Hatfield and Chambers came to Welch to answer for the part they were alleged to have played in the shooting up of the little mining town of Mohawk. As they were walking up the Courthouse steps, near where the three defendants were standing, a shot was heard, and when the smoke of general shooting cleared away the bodies of Hatfield and Chambers lay at the bottom of the steps.

They were accompanied by their wives when the shooting occurred.

Lively was the chief witness against Hatfield and the other men who were tried in connection with the killing of seven private detectives at Matewan. In that fight 10 men met death, including Mayor C. C. Testerman.

Shortly after this affray, Hatfield married Testerman’s widow, and soon after Sid went down at Welch his widow married a State trooper. 

—————

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mrs. Sid Hatfield and Mrs. Ed Chambers Testify Before Senate Committe in Washington, D. C.

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Sallie Chambers re Murder of Sid Hatfield n Ed, Blt Sun p2, Aug 5, 1921—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 28, 1921
Washington, D. C. – Wives Charge Mine Guards with Cold-Blooded Murder

From the New York Daily News of October 26, 1921:

Jessie Hatfield Sallie Chambers, in WDC, NY Dly Ns p1, Oct 26, 1921

From the Baltimore Sun of October 26, 1921:

HdLn Jessie Hatfield n Sallie Chambers Testify WVCF Sen Com, WDC Oct 25, Blt Sun p1, Oct 26, 1921

(From The Sun Bureau.)

Washington, Oct. 25. -Mrs. Sid Hatfield and Mrs. Ed. Chambers today charged mine guards of the West Virginia operators with cold-blooded murder of their husbands both of whom were conspicuous in the Mingo county mine war and were among the acquitted defendants in the Matewan murder case. Hatfield and Chambers were killed recently at Welch, W. Va.

The two black-garbed widows testified before the Kenyon committee, which is investigating the mine war. Their testimony that their husbands were shot down while walking with them up the Courthouse steps in Welch followed immediately testimony from Attorney-General E. T. England, of West Virginia, that mine guards in Logan county beat and shot men down, drove out of the county visitors regarded as undesirable, including union organizers; practiced intimidation at the polls, interfered with the processes of justice and generally ran roughshod over the community…..

[Emphases added.]

—————

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “The Battle of Logan County”-Art Shields Reports from West Virginia, Part I

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote EVD Wlg WV Oct 24, Wlg Dly Int p2, Oct 25, 1900—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday October 5, 1921
Art Shields Reports from West Virginia on Battle of Logan County

From The Liberator of October 1921:

The Battle of Logan County
By Art Shields
———-

[Part I of II.]

WV Battle by Shields, Same Old Line Up by B Robinson, Lbtr p19, Oct 1921

“THESE are our hills and we love ’em. We had to fight for them long ago, against the bears and the panthers and the wolves and the rattlesnakes, and now I reckon Don Chafin’s thugs ain’t a-goin’ to scare us out.“

A sturdy old mountaineer of more than three score and ten voiced these sentiments as we stood together on one of the loftiest peaks of Blair Mountain and filled our eyes with the surrounding magnificence of giant shaded valleys and mighty ridges, tossed in forested glory against the sky. It was a garden of towering wonder that blinded my eyes for the moment to the shallow trench at my feet, where thousands of empty shells were ugly reminders that Don Chafin’s machine gunners and automatic rifle men had been nesting there a few days before.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Nation: “Marching Through West Virginia”-Redneck Miners’ Army Mingo Bound

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Fred Mooney, Mingo Co Gunthugs, UMWJ p15, Dec 1, 1920—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 15, 1921
“Marching Through West Virginia” by Heber Blankenhorn

From The Nation of September 14, 1921:

Marching Through West Virginia

By HEBER BLANKENHORN

I

IF—as the war correspondents used to begin—you will place your left hand on the map of West Virginia, with the edge of the palm along the Kanawha River at Charleston, the down-pointing thumb will lie along the road southwest into Logan and Mingo counties, and the outstretched fingers will represent the valleys whence the miners collected for the march along the thumb-line. That region has filled the country’s newspapers with communiques, dealing with contending “armies,” “lines” held along Spruce Fork Ridge, intrenchments, machine-gun nests, bombing planes, so many dead for the day, so many wounded.

Miners March Map Marmet to Mingo, NY Dly Ns p8, Aug 27, 1921

Marmet is ten miles from the State capital at the mouth of Lens Creek Valley. On the afternoon of August 22 a cordon of 100 armed men is stretched across the dirt road, the mine railroad, and the creek, barring out officers of the law, reporters, all inquirers. Inside lies the “trouble.” The miners have been mobilizing for four days. A snooping airplane has just been driven off with hundreds of shots. Accident and a chance acquaintance let me in.

The men, a glance shows, are mountaineers, in blue overalls or parts of khaki uniform, carrying rifles as casually as picks or sticks. They are typical. The whole village seems to be out, except the children, women, and old men. They show the usual mining-town mixture of cordiality and suspicion to strangers. But the mining-camp air of loneliness and lethargy is gone. Lens Creek Valley is electric and bustling. They mention the towns they come from, dozens of names, in the New River region, in Fayette County, in counties far to the north. All are union men, some railroaders. After a mile we reach camp. Hundreds are moving out of it—toward Logan. Over half are youths, a quarter are Negroes, another quarter seem to be heads of families, sober looking, sober speaking. Camp is being broken to a point four miles further on. Trucks of provisions, meat, groceries, canned goods move up past us.

“This time we’re sure going through to Mingo,” the boys say.

Them Baldwin-Feltses [company detectives] has got to go. They gotta stop shooting miners down there. Keeney turned us back the last time, him and that last Governor. Maybe Keeney was right that time. This new Governor got elected on a promise to take these Baldwin-Feltses out. If nobody else can budge them thugs, we’re the boys that can. This time we go through with it.

“What started you?”

This thing’s been brewing a long while. Then two of our people gets shot down on the courthouse steps—you heard of Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers? The Governor gives them a safe conduct; they leave their guns behind and get killed in front of their wives. It was a trap.

“But that was several weeks ago.”

Well, it takes a while for word to get ’round. Then they let his murderer, that Baldwin-Felts, Lively, out on bond-free-with a hundred miners in jail in Mingo on no charges at all—just martial law. Well, we heard from up the river that everybody was coming here. We knew what for. When we found lots had no guns we sent back to get them.

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Hellraisers Journal: Witnesses to Murder of Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers Declare Lively’s Claim of Self-Defense is False

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones Princeton WV Speech Aug 15, 1920, Steel Speeches, p230—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday August 21, 1921
Sworn Statements Show That Neither Hatfield Nor Chambers Had Guns

From the Duluth Labor World of August 20, 1921:

Mingo Sid Hatfield Thugs Story False, LW p1, Aug 20, 1921

(Charleston, West Va., Special to the Labor Press.)

That the statement of Lively, carried in the press to the effect that he acted in self defense, and that Sid Hatfield pulled his gun first, is absolutely false has been sworn to by three reputable citizens of McDowell county, who were present when the shooting took place and they have furnished the names of many others who will substantiate their statements.

One of the men making sworn statements said that “this is one of the most foul and brutal murders he has ever read or heard of.” He also said that he saw Lively run down the steps and pick up the gun that he had thrown over toward Chambers and say “here is his gun and it is empty too.”

Fired Into Dead body.

In the sworn statement of another he says,”I seen men shooting Chambers and saw them come down the steps past Chambers and saw him raise up a little as they passed and at that time saw one of them place a pistol almost against him and fire into him body.”

The affidavits of these men prove conclusively that murder had been carefully planned and arranged beforehand and that it was a deliberate and cold blooded murder and that neither of the victims used or attempted to use  a gun.

The editor of the West Virginia Federationist is in receipt of a letter from an attorney who with others are investigating the murder. Accompanying the letter are three affidavits from eye witnesses, but the names of the witnesses are withheld from publication They will be produced in court and at the trial.

[…..]

Organized labor throughout the state is passing strong resolutions against the reign of terror in West Virginia. The governor of the state is severely condemned for not furnishing protection to Hatfield and Chambers as he had promised to do when informed of the plot to take their their lives.

—————

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers Were Unarmed When Murdered on Steps of McDowell County Courthouse

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Sallie Chambers re Murder of Sid Hatfield n Ed, Blt Sun p2, Aug 5, 1921————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 6, 1921
Matewan, West Virginia – Widows of Hatfield and Chambers Speak Out

From the Baltimore Sun of August 5, 1921:

Hatfield Was Unarmed, His Widow Asserts
———-

Mrs. Chambers Declares That Her Husband
Also Was Without Weapon.

Sid and Jessie Testerman Hatfield, Stt Str p14, Sept 15, 1920
Sid Hatfield (inset) and
Jessie Testerman Hatfield
—–

Matewan, W. Va., Aug. 4.-Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers, Mingo mountaineers, who were killed on the steps of the Courthouse at Welch, McDowell county, in a gun fight last Monday, were unarmed, their widow told newspaper men here today. Both Mrs. Hatfield and Mrs. Chambers accompanied their husbands to the court last Monday, where Sid, former chief of police at Matewan, was to have answered a charge of being the instigator of the “shooting up” of Mohawk, McDowell county, last year.

The widows said that they or their husbands did not anticipate trouble in Welch and that Hatfield locked his pistols in a traveling bag and Chambers laid aside his arms before starting for the Courthouse.

The women declared that C. E. Lively, Baldwin-Felts detective, charged with being implicated in the killings, boarded the train on which they were going to Welch early in the morning and followed them about the town until it was almost time for them to appear at the court. Mrs. Chambers, describing how she and her husband and Sid and his wife went to the Courthouse and started for the entrance, said:

I heard a shot fired. I turned and looked at Sid and he was falling. Then I looked at my husband and he was falling loose from my arm. The shooting then became general. I saw only two men shooting and they were C. E. Lively and a short, heavy-set man who wore glasses.

Mrs. Hatfield said that she lost consciousness while the shooting was going on. She charged Sheriff Bill Hatfield with negligence in not protecting her husband.

—————

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Bodies of Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers Brought Home to Matewan from Welch for Double Funeral

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote FK re Murders of Sid and Ed, Wlg Int p1, Aug 2, 1921—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 3, 1921
Matewan, West Virginia – Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers Return Home

From The West Virginian of August 2, 1921:

Mingo WV, HdLn Sid and Ed Taken Home, WVgn p1, Aug 2, 1921

MATEWAN, W. Va., Aug 2.-Sid. Hatfield and Edward Chambers, who yesterday were shot to death on the court house steps at Welch, W. Va., as they were about to be tried for the part they were alleged to have played in a pistol attack on a mining town in the Mingo coal field were brought home last midnight. The open space around the little railroad station was filled with former friends and neighbors but there was no demonstration. State police and armed militiamen patrolled the streets and after the body had been taken to the little homes where the men had formerly lived the crowd quietly dispersed.

Mrs. Hatfield and Mrs. Chambers who were in Welch when the tragedy occurred arrived on the same train and were given sincere sympathy by their friends in the village.

 

Arrangements for the double funeral were not completed today but it was stated by friends of the family that services probably would be held tomorrow afternoon and interment made in the cemetery here.

Matewan was quiet this morning. At an early hour friends of the dead men called at their homes, looked for a moment upon the body and then passed out to their dally work or to discuss the tragedy as they walked along the streets. There were no better known men in all the Tug river country than Hatfield and Chambers and many incidents of their stormy lives in he narrow valley and out through the mountains were told and retold as the day advanced.

Armed militiamen and state policemen were here in force but from outward appearances they were not needed as the town was strangely quiet. Leading citizens who had sounded public sentiment in the fear that reprisals for the killing of the men might develop during the day expressed the opinion that there would be no disorder of any kind. Many persons from the surrounding country came in during the morning and it was expected that a great crowd would be here for the funeral.

—————

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Williamson, Mingo County, West Virginia: “Sid Hatfield and Tom Felts Size Each Other Up in Court”

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Sid Hatfield, re Gunthugs n Right to Organize, Altoona Tb Lbr Ns p10, Sept 3, 1920————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 8, 1921
Williamson, West Virginia – Hatfield and Felts Size Each Other Up in Court

From the Baltimore Sun of February 6, 1921:

Sid Hatfield And Tom Felts Size
Each Other Up In Court
———-

Principal In Mingo Trial Engages In Duel Of Eyes With
Head Of Detective Agency, As Process Of Securing
Jury Slowly Drags Along.
———-

(By a Staff Correspondent of The Sun.)

Sid Hatfield, ed Labor News, Altoona Tb PA p10, Sept 3, 1920Williamson, W. Va., Feb. 5.-This has been a day of speculation and rumors and of desperate struggle on the part of everyone, except Sid Hatfield and the 20 others on trial for the Matewan murders, to be reasonably cheerful and comfortable. Court adjourned before noon today without having added to the jury panel and left all of those in attendance upon the case with nothing to do except talk and wander about muddy streets in a dismal rain, with bare, scarred, cut-over hills rising at one’s elbows, it seemed, to press down the gloom.

Out of all that came to the front stories from quarters favorable to the defense that the prosecution is deliberately trying to prevent a jury being selected in this county. The theory is that there is little hope of any Mingo county jury convicting Hatfield and the others, while there may be some hope that a jury from another county will do so, if the West Virginia Legislature passes the bill permitting juries to be drawn in murder cases from other counties. Also the theory is that the desire of the prosecution to get the case before a jury where there would be more chance to convict is based upon more than the usual ardor of the prosecution for success, or even that ardor plus the anxiety of the Williamson coal operators for conviction.

Added to all of that is the blood feud created by the killing of Albert and Lee Felts in the Matewan battle. They were brothers of Tom Felts, manager of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency. Tom Felts, known in these parts as “the man-hunter extraordinary,” a suave gracious-mannered man, and next to John J. Coniff, chief counsel for the defense, the most impressive and distinguished looking man connected with the case, is on the spot, surrounded by a large number of trusted operatives. He is supposed to be paying part of the large force of lawyers assisting Prosecuting Attorney Bronson, and he wants blood for the blood of his brothers.

Melodrama in life is had when he appears in court. Sid Hatfield occupies his consciousness, and he occupies that of Hatfield. After he had directed attention of the court to Hatfield’s possession of guns in court, and thereby led not merely to disarming the mountain fighter, but to the frisking of everyone entering the courtroom, including reporters, who do not know which end of a pistol goes off, the absorption of the two men in each other, when Felts is in court, became more pronounced. Each concentrated upon the other, is moved by an almost boyish craving to emphasize by physical proximity lack of fear.

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Hellraisers Journal: Sid Hatfield, Matewan Police Chief, and 19 Citizens on Trial in Mingo County for Killing of Gunthugs

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Sid Hatfield, re Evictions per R Minor, Lbtr p11 , Aug 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 26, 1921
Williamson, West Virginia – Trial of Sid Hatfield and 19 Matewan Men Set to Start

From Indiana’s Logansport Pharos-Tribune of January 25, 1921:

TWENTY MEN GOING ON TRIAL FOR THE KILLING
OF MINE GUARDS AT MATEWAN
—–

FRIENDS AND FOES MEET IN WILLIAMSON, W. VA.,
AS POLICE CHIEF AND 19 CITIZENS FACE COURT
—– 

Matewan Trial Sid Hatfield etc, DRWGs, Bismarck Dly Tb p2, Jan 27, 1921

(N. E. A. Staff Special.)

WILLIAMSON, W. Va., Jan. 26.-Friend and foe rub elbows here, as miners and Baldwin-Felt guards assemble for the trial of Sid Hatfield, chief of police at Matewan, and 19 of his fellow citizens charged with killing seven Baldwins in a street battle.

Five Baldwin-Felts detectives engaged in the same battle will be tried under change of venue at Lewisburg, Greenbrier county, in April.

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Hellraisers Journal: Widow of Mayor Testerman, Now Mrs. Sid Hatfield, Center of Attraction at Williamson Courthouse

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Sid Hatfield, re Evictions per R Minor, Lbtr p11 , Aug 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 16, 1920
Williamson, West Virginia – Bride of Sid Hatfield Main Attraction at Court

From The Seattle Star of September 15, 1920:

Sid Hatfield Bride, Stt Str p14, Sept 15, 1920

Mrs. Sid Hatfield [Jessie Lee Maynard Testerman Hatfield], wife of Chief of Police Sid Hatfield, of Matewan, West Virginia, under indictment for the killing of Albert Felts, mine detective, in a street  battle last May, is said by many to be the prettiest woman in Mingo county. She was the widow of Mayor Testerman, shot, it is charged, by Felts. She married Hatfield shortly after Testerman’s death. It is said that this was the dying wish of the mayor. Mrs. Hatfield accompanied her husband to court at Williamson and was the center of attraction in the crowded court room during the preliminary hearings of Hatfield’s case.

———-

[Emphasis added.]

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