Rest In War....Ahem, Peace

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One of the least scenic stops on my jaunt east was at the Dils Cemetery in Pikeville, Kentucky. The cemetery is on the National Register of Historic Places, primarily due to its association with those feudin’ families from that area. My dear mother of blessed memory used to say that Kentucky frequently makes headlines for all the wrong reasons. She had a point, given that one of the most infamous feuds in history occurred in Kentucky: the Hatfield-McCoy feud. Randolph McCoy, from Kentucky, was the patriarch of one family; while West Virginia’s William A. Hatfield was the father of the other clan. There’s some speculation, even to this day, about why the feud started. Some say there was claim of a stolen pig. Others say their disdain for one another started in the Civil War (where the Hatfields were Confederates and the McCoys were Unionists). Whatever started it, the feud became a notorious, headline-news war. West Virginia has a Hatfield/McCoy Feud trail, where you can go to various spots in the history of the feud. Pikeville, Kentucky, near the West Virginia border, also has numerous markers depicting events in the feud. Dils Cemetery marks the permanent end of it. Randolph McCoy, his wife Sarah, and daughter Roseanna (who was murdered in the feud, and considered a “traitor” because she was dating one of the Hatfields) are buried in a family plot. Up the hill you can find Basil Hatfield, the uncle of William Anderson Hatfield, buried with his wife, along with members of the Cline family (who figured into both sides of the feud: some were friends of the Hatfields, others, the McCoys). They’re resting in war....ahem, peace now. PS — Dils Cemetery is also significant because it is thought to be the first cemetery in the south that allowed for African-Americans to be buried in the same cemetery as Caucasians. Colonel John Dils, who owned the land, was opposed to slavery and gave land to his employees (mostly freed slaves) for burial plots. The sad punch line to this is that nearly all of the 130 blacks buried in the cemetery had unmarked graves.