In my upcoming novel, A Hundred Miles to Water, a blood feud between Texas ranching families serves as the catalyst for all of the book's conflict. And fittingly, both protagonist and antagonist families arrive in Texas from Kentucky.Kentucky is well recognized as the home to some of the bloodiest feuds in the United States. One of the better-known feuds, the Hatfields and McCoys, began when Floyd Hatfield penned a number of wild hogs he captured in the forest. Sometime later, Randolph McCoy passed the pen and claimed the hogs as his. Other well known feuds in the state were the Tolliver-Martin-Logan vendetta, the French-Eversole war, the Howard-Turner feud, and Bloody Breathitt, which included the Little-Strong and the Hargis-Marcum feuds. (Photo- The Hatfields circa 1897)
Clay County, Kentucky, is located in the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains. In late 1775, the county’s first settler, James Collins, tracked game to a large salt lick located on Goose Creek, a tributary of the south fork of the Kentucky River. The value of salt in frontier America soon became apparent as settlers who followed Collins into the area began to sink salt wells up and down "Goose Creek".
One of the longest running feuds in Clay County began in 1844 when Abner Baker, a man thought to have suffered from mental illness, shot his friend, Daniel Bates in the back. Baker and his wife, Susan (White) Baker lived in the Bates home. It is thought that Abner believed his wife and Bates were engaged in an affair.
Before he died, Bates dictated his last will and testament, in which he instructed his son to take revenge on his killer. A local magistrate, T.T. Garrard, joined sides when he refused to turn over the unstable Baker to the sheriff or the Bates.
Enraged, both the Whites and the Bates joined forces and persuaded the Commonwealth to indict Baker for murder. A jury found Baker guilty. He was hanged in 1845. Baker’s hanging caused lines to be drawn among the families with the Bates and Whites on one side and the Bakers and Garrards on the other.
The feud lasted fifty-plus years and by some estimates took over one hundred lives.
Some well known Texas feuds were: The Horrell-Higgins feud in Lampasas County in 1877, the Hoodoo War or Mason County War of 1875, and the Jaybird-Woodpecker War of 1889 in Fort Bend County.
Mike Kearby's Texas copyright 2010
