Hellraisers Journal – Monday June 20, 1921 Lick Creek Tent Colony, Mingo County – Attorney West Describes Raid
From The Wheeling Intelligencer of June 18, 1921:
MINE WORKERS’ LAWYER MAKES ALLEGATIONS OF RUTHLESS ACTS AT THE MINERS’ TENT COLONY ———- Declares State Police and Volunteers Were Disorderly and Destructive When They Raided the Homes of Union Miners ———-
Lick Creek Tent Colony after Raid of June 14, 1921
Special to The Intelligencer.
Charleston, Va., June 17-Secretary-treasurer Fred Mooney, of District Seventeen, United Mine Workers of America, tonight made public the following report just received from the union’s lawyer, Thomas West, who was detailed to make an investigation of the activities of the state police in raiding tent colonies of union coal miners in Mingo county:
Williamson, W. Va., June 16.
H. W. Houston, Charleston, W. Va.
Dear Sir-On yesterday morning I visited the Lick Creek tent colony for the purpose of taking some statements regarding the outrage perpetrated there on the day before [June 14]. I found that the state police and their volunteer confederates [company gunthugs] had ripped up twenty or more tents. Some of them had probably a hundred slits up them, averaging about six feet each, and had knocked the legs out from under their cooking stoves and the stove pipes down, and where they found anything cooking on the stove they swiped it off into the coal box, as a rule found just back of the stove. They found some tables set for dinner and they turned these with the legs up and the dishes and food left on the under side.
They broke open every trunk and rifled every drawer. They dumped all the clothes they found out into the middle of the floor and kicked them all over the place. They dumped an organ out of one man’s tent over the hill and hit a phonograph with an axe or some other heavy tool.
They poured kerosene oil into a churn of milk found in one of the tents and in others they found such oil and poured it into the meal and flour. In one tent they found a considerable quantity of canned fruit and they put this on the bed clothes after turning them upside down on the bed and broke it up. They put the mattresses on the floor and ripped them open and put the springs on top of them.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 16, 1921 Lick Creek Tent Colony of Mingo County – Striker Alex Breedlove Shot Down
From The New York Herald of June 15, 1921:
ONE KILLED, TWO HURT IN NEW MINGO FIGHT ————— 47 in Tent Colony of Idle Miners Are Arrested. ———-
WILLIAMSON, W. Va., June 14.-One men was killed, two others were wounded and forty-seven residents of the Lick Creek tent colony of idle miners near Williamson are held in the county jail as the result of the fight to-day at Lick Creek between authorities and the colonists.
Alex Breedlove is dead, while James A. Bowles, State trooper, was wounded and Martin Justice, in charge of the colony, received wounds in the cheek and leg.
The fight started after Major Tom Davis, commanding Mingo under martial law proclamation, had returned to Lick Creek with reinforcements of citizen State troopers to arrest about two-score of the idle miners, as his forces had been fired on in the vicinity earlier in the day. Trooper Bowles, in charge of a party of citizen State police [deputized company gunthugs], encountered several men near the colony. Orders from Bowles to throw up their hands brought shots, it was said, resulting in Breedlove’s death and in the wounding of Bowles.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 10, 1921 Mingo County – Lick Creek Colony Raided; Striking Miners Arrested
From The New York Times of June 6, 1921:
ARREST FORTY IN MINGO. —– Military Authorities Accuse Them of Violating Martial Law.
WILLIAMSON, W. V Va., June 5.-Forty-two men, residents of the Lick Creek Tent Colony of idle miners, near Williamson, were arrested today and locked up in the county jail charged with violating the proclamation of martial law recently imposed following disorders in the Mingo coal fields.
The purpose of the raid, said Captain U. R. Brockus of the State Police, was an attempt to bring to justice those who had fired upon motorists in the vicinity of the tent colony during the past few weeks. Decision to make the raid, it was said, followed when reports reached State Police Headquarters that an automobile in which five persons were riding was fired upon this morning. Five bullets struck the car, according to the reports, but no one was injured.
The arrests were made by State Police and deputy sheriffs, headed byCaptain Brockus and Sheriff Pinson, and consisted of about forty men, all heavily armed. No resistance was offered, but the authorities declared that eight armed men fled into the mountains when the posse reached the camp. One was captured after an exciting chase. The prisoners will be examined tomorrow.
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[Emphasis added. Photograph added from Literary Digest of Dec. 18, 1920.]
[Note: “deputy sheriffs” often means deputized company gunthugs.]
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 – Tuesday May 24, 1921 Mingo County, West Virginia – Martial Law Used Against Union Miners
From the Minnesota Daily Star of May 24, 1921
JAIL ORGANIZER OF MINE UNION Martial Law in Mingo Is Used as Weapon Against Men
-from The Socialist and Labor Star of May 31, 1912
Washington, May 21.-Jailing of union organizers by state police has begun in Mingo county, according to word received here this morning by Frank Keeney and Fred Mooney, president and secretary of District 17.
A. D. Lavinder, organizer in the Matewan district, was arrested late yesterday in Williamson by constabulary for carrying a pistol. He was roughly handled and put in jail where he isnow held incommunicado.
Lavinder had a permit to carry weapons but under the proclamation of martial law weapons may be carried only in one’s home or place of business.
Several other union men were arrested yesterday in Mingo county.
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 – Tuesday March 22, 1921 Williamson, W. V. – Matewan Defendants Found Not Guilty
From The Pittsburg Press of March 21, 1921:
SID HATFIELD AND 15 CO-DEFENDANTS FREED BY JURY —–
By S. D. Weyer, International News Service Staff Correspondent
Courthouse, Williamson, W. Va., March 21.-Sid Hatfield and his 15 co-defendants in the trigger trial were found not guilty by the jury at 11:21 o’clock this morning.
Three minutes later judge Bailey told the defendants to go back to the county jail, where they will give bond for their appearance in court for the indictments of murdering six other detectives. Bailey arranged to allow the 16 men to go back to Matewan on the noon train.
J. J. Coniff, chief counsel for the defense, made this statement to the International News Service staff correspondent immediately after the verdict was read by the clerk of courts:
I think the result is what the public generally anticipated. It means, in my opinion that the private guard system in West Virginia has been on trial and been condemned, and the legislature now in session should take notice of this fact.
The 16 defendants received the verdict without any show of emotion, except that Sid Hatfield, chief of police of Matewan, smiled his perpetual smile.
After Judge Robert D. Bailey had told them to “go back to jail,” they crowded around Coniff and grasped his hand.
Then, accompanied by two “double gun” deputy sheriffs, they filed out of the court room, where they have sat daily since Jan. 26, and walked through lines of men and women congratulating them, across the court house lawn to the jail.
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[Drawing of Sid Hatfield by Robert Minor and emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 18, 1921 Williamson, West Virginia – Daughter of Defendant Testifies for State
From the Baltimore Sun of February 13, 1921:
By John W. Owens. Staff Correspondent of The Sun.
Williamson, W. Va., Feb. 12.-The taking of testimony for the prosecution in the trial of Sid Hatfield and others for the Matewan killings was started finally today, after weeks of fighting over preliminaries and was sufficiently dramatic to warrant the lurid predictions that have been made since the indictments were returned and to justify what has been written about the feudist spirit of the people of these hills.
AGAINST OWN FATHER. [And Brother]
When court adjourned, shortly before noon, the daughter of one of the men on trial for murder [and sister of another] was on the stand for the prosecution, smilingly giving testimony which the prosecution hopes to pass as a foundation for its contention that Albert Felts and six other Baldwin-Felts detectives were killed at Matewan on May 19 as the result of deliberate and premeditated murder plans. The girl witness had been preceded by another girl, her cousin, and the niece of the girl’s father, whose testimony was offered to the same end.
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.)
Williamson, 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.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 5, 1921 United Mine Workers of America to Support Matewan Defendants
From the United Mine Workers Journal of February 1, 1921:
Union Will Support the Twenty-four Mountaineers
WASHINGTON, January 23.-The twenty four mountaineers who go on trial on a charge of first-degree murder Wednesday at Williamson, W. Va., will have the complete support, moral and material, of the United Mine Workers of America, according to an announcement here tonight by William Green, national secretary and treasurer of the organization.
The trial is the result of a sensational gun battle in the main street of Matewan on May 19th last, which resulted in ten deaths, including the mayor of the city and seven Baldwin-Felts guards. The fight is said to have had its origin in the attempts of the guards to arrest Sid Hatfield, chief of police of Matewan. Hatfield, a descendant of the feudists of Hatfield-McCoy fame, is the most prominent in the group of defendants, which includes special police deputies of Matewan and members of the miners’ union.
In his statement here tonight Mr. Green declared:
The United Mine Workers of America are prepared to afford full support, both moral and material, to the twenty-four defendants in the murder trial at Williamson, W. Va., this week. This trial is a direct result of the barbarous warfare waged on members of the United Mine Workers by the coal operators of Mingo county. And, so long as lives of members of our organization are at stake, we intend to put at their disposal every means for establishing their innocence of the charge. The court, of course, will determine their fate. But we will offer the defense every facility in our power.
The United Mine Workers are determined to see justice done the locked-out miners of Mingo county. These men and their families were evicted from their homes for the “crime” of joining the union. The operators employed professional gunmen to hasten the evictions. We are insistent that the use of gunmen in West Virginia mining areas shall cease. It is time that a republican form of government, as ordained by the constitution, should be restored in Mingo county and the arbitrary rule of the coal barons brought to an end.
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Williamson, 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.
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