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 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.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday August 4, 1921 Buskirk Cemetery, Kentucky – Sam Montgomery Speaks for Hatfield and Chambers
Double Funeral Held for Miners’ Heroes, Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers
August 3.-The double funeral for Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers was held today in a drenching rain, at Buskirk Cemetery, on the Kentucky side of the Tug river, just across the bridge from Matewan. Sam Montgomery delivered the funeral oration and said, in part:
We have gathered here today to perform the last sad rites for these two boys who fell victims to one of the most contemptible systems that has ever been known to exist in the history of the so-called civilized world. Deliberately shot down, murdered in cold blood, while they were entering a place which should have been a temple of justice, and by whom? Men who are working under the direction of and taking their orders from coal operators who live in Cincinnati, Chicago, New York City, and Boston.
Sleek, dignified, church-going gentlemen who would rather pay fabulous sums to their hired gunmen to kill and slay men for joining a union than to pay like or lesser amounts to the men who delve into the subterranean depths of the earth and produce their wealth for them. At the same time these same men prate of their charities, their donations to philanthropic movements, act as vestrymen and pillars of the churches to which they belong.
Even the Heavens weep with the grief-stricken relatives and the bereaved friends of these two boys.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 3, 1921 Matewan, West Virginia – Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers Return Home
From The West Virginian of August 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.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 26, 1921 Williamson, West Virginia – Hatfield Arrives Alone to Post Bond
From The Washington Herald of May 25, 1921:
HATFIELD AVOIDS DEPUTIES AND GOES TO SHERIFF ALONE ———- Baldwin-Felts Detectives Acquitted of Slaying Mingo Mayor. ———-
WILLIAMSON. W. Va., May 24.-“Sid” Hatfield, of Matewan, reputed champion “two-gun bad man” of Mingo county, came to town today. The sheriff had sent a deputy or two to bring him on a warrant charging him with an assault with a rifle on P. J. Smith, superintendent of the Stone Mountain mine, but Hatfield took the train alone. Half the town was down to the station to see him arrive, and the “white way” was all lit up in expectation that something might happen, but Hatfield walked up to the court house, hung around until the sheriff got back from feeding the bloodhounds, then gave bonds and went home on No. 16. The town sagged back into dullness. At the sheriff’s office, Hatfield exposed his gold bridgework in a smile and remarked
When I aim to go anywhere I aim to go alone. They’ve got in the habit of blaming me for everything that happens at Matewan.
Hatfield, who is accounted the most dangerous man in the mountains is a queer mixture. He is as strong against liquor as is Bryan and as for gambling, only last week he chased a Kentucky native out of Matewan in a rage for suggesting that he be permitted to open a poker game. But gun shooting is something different. For months residents of these parts have been giving Matewan a wide berth, and one finds automobiles in this town sticking inside the city limits, unless it is something urgent.
This morning the mine of Lynn Coal and Coke company, just above Matewan, was burned. This mine was abandoned after the strike was called. The operators say that last winter strikers were allowed to take up quarters in company houses at Lynn on agreement they would vacate May 1. When moving day arrived some refused and evictions followed. Mine owners attribute the fire to strikers and term it another instance of sabotage. At Leesburg a Greenbriar county jury today acquitted the six Baldwin-Felts detectives who were on trial for killing Mayor Testerman and Tots Tinsley in the battle of Matewan May 19, 1920, when 10 were killed.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 23, 1921 Matewan, West Virginia – Sid Hatfield and Co-Defendants Return Home
From The New York Times of March 22, 1921:
Home Folk Welcome Defendants.
MATEWAN, W. Va., March 21.-This little mining village called it a holiday today to greet the sixteen mountaineers, defendants in the Matewan battle trial, who were found not guilty by the jury at Williamson this morning.
Apparently all residents of the town were at the station late in the day when the train, which brought home Sid Hatfield, Chief of Police, and his fifteen companions, arrives.
A special car attached to the train held the hillmen and their bodyguard, Pinoon, six deputies, Captain Brockus and ten State troopers.
As the sixteen men stepped from the train and rushed into the arms of relatives and friends women laughed and cried, alternately, and for an hour the defendants were kept busy shaking the hands of men, women and children.
“It is the happiest day Matewan ever knew,” declared one rugged mountaineer as he grasped the hand of Sid Hatfield.
“At least for me,” Sid replied.
Chief Hatfield was the centre of the admiring throng, and it was with great difficulty that he made his way to his home through the crowd. It took him more than an hour to traverse the 100 yards from the railroad station to his residence.
Arrived at the door of his home, Hatfield gazed upon his right hand, swollen from the hearty grasps of his neighbors, and remarked: “It’s good to know you have so many friends.”
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 —–
(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.
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:
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 streetbattle 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.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday August 22, 1920 -Mother Jones News for July 1920, Part II Speech at Williamson, W. Va., Described; Found in Indianapolis
From the Buffalo Labor Journal of July 8, 1920:
MOUNTAIN MEN AROUSED —–
Williamson, W. Va. [June 20, 1920]-“The motto of West Virginia, ‘Mountainers are always free,’ will be made effective,” declared Mother Jones in an address to over 5,000 miners of Mingo county. A drenching rain did not deter the workers from coming out of the mountains, the tent colonies of evicted strikers and neighboring towns. Mayor Porter of this place assured the meeting that he was in perfect sympathy with their efforts to rid the state of Baldwin-Feltz detective thugs, employed by the coal owners.
Secretary Pauley of the West Virginia Federation of Labor told the miners that trade unionists through out the state are behind them in this fight for law and order.
The recent murder of the mayor of Matewan and other citizens by the Baldwin-Feltz detective thugs, who were attempting to evict miners without due process of law, has aroused organized labor to greater activity against these private armies of the coal owners. The same condition prevails in Logan and McDowell counties. Governor Cornwell ignores these outlaws while delivering lectures and issuing statements on the need for “100 per cent. Americanism.”
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 21, 1920
-Mother Jones News for July 1920, Part I
Found in Washington, D. C., after Visit to Matewan, West Virginia
From the United Mine Workers Journal of July 1, 1920:
…..Mingo county is now 100 per cent organized. Approximately 6,000 new members have been taken in in that county since the Matewan battle.
The first convention of the United Mine Workers of America ever held in Mingo county was held at Williamson, the county seat, on June 23. The sessions were held in the court house, the purpose of the convention being to formulate a set of demands as to wages and working conditions to be presented to the operators. The above photograph was taken on the court house steps, and it shows the delegates, some of the officials of District 17, and also some of the international organizers who were active in effecting the organization……
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