John Hatfield: Train Robber and Hatfield-McCoy Outlaw

The Hatfield-McCoy feud is one of the best-known episodes in Appalachian history, so famous that the family names themselves became shorthand for any long and bitter conflict.

The feud is generally believed to have lasted from 1878 to 1891, although there is little solid evidence establishing such a neat timeline. Much of the popular fascination with the Hatfields and McCoys developed decades after the violence ended, allowing legends, exaggerations, and misconceptions to become intertwined with the history.

And for at least one member of the Hatfield family, trouble didn’t end with the feud.

Origins of the Hatfield-McCoy Feud

The Hatfield family, led by William Anderson “Devil Anse” Hatfield, lived in West Virginia near the Kentucky border. The Hatfields were wealthy and influential.

Across the border lived the McCoys, led by patriarch Randolph “Ole Ran’l” McCoy, whose family lacked many of the resources and connections enjoyed by their neighbors.

Exactly when the trouble between the families began remains uncertain.

Some accounts trace the animosity to the Civil War, when members of the families supported opposing sides. The Hatfields generally supported the Confederacy, while the McCoys were associated with the Union. Other stories push the dispute as far back as 1850 and an argument over stolen livestock.

One of the most frequently repeated origin stories concerns Asa Harmon McCoy, a former Union soldier who returned home around 1865 after receiving a medical discharge for a broken leg.

According to legend, Devil Anse led a group of former Confederates who ambushed and killed Harmon.

That version eventually encountered a serious problem: Devil Anse was reportedly bedridden at the time of the murder and could not have participated.

Suspicions remained that some of his relatives had been involved.

Other accounts suggest Harmon’s death played little role in the later feud at all.

Whatever its precise origins, the violence associated with the Hatfield-McCoy feud would eventually claim 13 lives.

John Hatfield’s Not-So-Great Train Robbery

The end of the feud didn’t mean every Hatfield settled into a quiet life.

John Hatfield, a cousin of Devil Anse, continued living on the wrong side of the law well into old age.

In March 1913, John joined Robert Cline and “Burman” Hatfield in a plan to rob a Southern train passing through Wise County, Virginia.

They successfully stopped the train.

There was just one problem.

They had stopped a cargo train instead of a passenger train.

The would-be robbers delayed the train for approximately six hours before fleeing empty-handed.

Despite the spectacular failure of the robbery itself, John Hatfield managed to avoid capture.

For the time being.

Murder and Prison

Hatfield remained beyond the reach of authorities for nearly another decade.

In 1922, he was finally arrested, charged, and convicted of murdering a man named Mullins.

Hatfield was 72 years old when he received a 20-year prison sentence.

Apparently, he had no intention of serving it.

By December 1923, the elderly outlaw was openly warning his jailer that he planned to escape.

The jailer laughed at him.

Hatfield continued issuing warnings. Authorities searched his cell but found no tools or anything else that appeared useful for a jailbreak. They dismissed his claims as the idle threats of an aging prisoner.

That proved to be a mistake.

John Hatfield’s Great Escape

Days later, John Hatfield escaped.

He and the other prisoners in his cell pried a steel rail from one of their beds and used it to remove the bars from a window.

They then fashioned a makeshift rope from a water hose and climbed down from the fourth floor.

How the prisoners managed to dismantle the bed and obtain the hose without attracting the guards’ attention remained something of a mystery.

Hatfield wasn’t the only dangerous prisoner to get away.

Convicted murderers Stephen Wood and Alex Mullins escaped with him, along with two other criminals.

By the time guards discovered what had happened, heavy snowfall had covered the fugitives’ tracks.

John Hatfield disappeared.

His ultimate fate remains unknown.

Before leaving, however, the elderly outlaw had one final message for the jailer who had laughed at his repeated promises to escape:

“Tell that jailer he told me a barefaced lie when he said there was no chance for me gettin’ outta here.”

Whatever else might be said about John Hatfield, he had given the man fair warning.