Retracing the life and death of Cottontop Hatfield Mounts-Locations and graves -Executed in Kentucky

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] well hello YouTube I'm going to tell the story of the life and death of Ellison cotton top mounts Hatfield who was hanged 130 years ago today at 12:37 p.m. on February 18th 1890 for his part in the Hatfield McCoy Feud except we're going to do it a little bit differently of course we're going to do it the hillbilly files way uh not the pass down accepted version but we're going to tell you the story that Heather and I have put together through research along with eyewitness accounts from those times and newspapers during the time period we will be looking into the family he was born into his wife and possibly an unknown daughter a lost line we will also be looking at newspapers from that time which are highly unreliable because to be honest for some the goal was and is to this day to make money from trumped up stories and exaggerations you know just like I I said just like it is today that being said there are times that a grain of Truth or a tiny detail seems to just kind of pull all of the little pieces together and this is definitely one time that newspapers helped paint a completed picture now first before I go any further I want to go ahead and say right now up front no human no one knows 100% the truth in this story I don't care what they claim no one can say that he thought this or he thought that or exactly what he did on the night of the murders of alifair and Calvin McCoy but we can give you some details about what we found and you you can decide for yourself which way you lean so we all know this story ends with cotton Top's death at age 25 on The Hangman's Gallows but where did his story begin well that's one reason I'm at this Cemetery today Ellison mounts was known by everyone as cotton top because of his white hair he was born on a summer day in August 1864 as usual once you start looking into these old stories dates and names can become a little bit gray sometimes so you just have to realize that records back then were on occasion they were off on some of the details names were misspelled dates were given wrong or written wrong you know any time there are humans there are going to be errors but this is where you use common sense really or take it with that grain of salt that I mentioned a minute ago now we're going to be heading right up here in just a second there is a grave well there's several Graves up here that uh that are related to this story this is the Ellison Hatfield Cemetery just outside of of mate one West Virginia that's mate Creek going right up through there y like that little Bridge wild looking Little Critter isn't it I was kind of leery about taking the car across it but I saw tire tracks somebody else did it they did it I guess I can do it so I guess as usual there's only one one thing standing in between me and telling you this story the mountain that Leo has to climb have y'all noticed this seems like 90% of the stories there is somewhere somewhere along the line there's a mountain that Leo has to climb at least this one s this one has steps most of the way so I guess go climb here Mountain y'all we'll see you guys up top see y'all just in a second now this is the upper section and I'm parked way down the hill there by the road and this is the upper section of the graveyard now why are we here well we're here for that we're here for that but mostly we're here for that right there you see we know that Ellison well cotton Top's mother is definitely harri at Hatfield the daughter of John Hatfield and Isabelle Vance Hatfield grimit who went by the name of went by Tabby so looking at this name something sticks out of course right the name Vance kind of stands out does it not okay you with me so far right okay now hang on here we go Vance is the maiden name of cotton Top's father's mother as well okay cotton top is of course the illegitimate son of Ellison Hatfield we we'll call him Ellison senior he is the brother of the Hatfield McCoy Feud patriarch devil ants Hatfield his mother is Nancy Vance I'll try not to confuse you here but I'll be honest it it's not easy I'll put it I'll put it like this there were some first cousins getting married and you know reproducing here not once but twice in a row cotton Top's mother Harriet was also the first cousin of cotton Top's father Ellison Hatfield it [Music] is he found that that Harriet's birth date on her find a grave does not match Census records or paperwork in several other areas which makes us believe that the find to grave listing is wrong again it has her as being born in 1838 but in reality it has to be more around the mid 40s maybe you know give or take because on the census in 1870 she's 23 and Ellison is six she and her husband David mounts are living with the Gibson family Ellison was given David's last name and became a mount but even without being related to Ellison senior here he's still a Hatfield blood Hatfield by Blood through Harriet with Ellison senior he's he's actually a Double Hat field so we really wanted to visit cotton Top's mother Harriet and we had it all planned out but we found out last minute that a coal company owns the land now and has has the ground gated they have a gate up and we've actually gotten several lost lives requests for that Cemetery from from you guys our viewers and we're told that they will open the gate for grave visitation so I I guess we'll just we'll have to see on that one right anyway Harriet married David mounts in 1870 and according to the the 1900 census and keep in mind this is information that Harriet and David told the census themselves Ellison Senior married in 1865 to his wife Sarah ston Sarah and Ellison senior had a child named Elliot which are eerily similar names let me get down here I'm going to relax a little bit sit down here a little bit which are eerily similar names like I said and he was born the same year as cotton toop according to one census in 1870 which also shows him being 6 years old at the time but find a grave has him being born in 1866 2 years after cotton top was [Music] born so let's move 10 more years years into the future cotton top is now 16 he lives at home with his mom David and five siblings ranging from 3 to 11 years old with him being the oldest at 16 it shows him as single and as a farmer so he helped out on the homestead fulltime you know is pretty much what that means it was pretty common for the day it also shows that he cannot read or write so we know he didn't go to school the next information we find is a couple years later when he's 19 on December 25th 1883 there is a marriage certificate filed to Ellison Hatfield and Rebecca J uh justice it shows her as being 17 years older at at 36 and here's cotton top would be hanged a short seven years later so there is no 1990 census for him [Music] we did however find a Rebecca Justice in that area at the proper age in the 1880 census listed as a servant we also stumbled across this grave looking for Harriet his mother and found it to be very curious It's claiming to be a possible out of wedlock child of cotton tops born in 1888 with a girl named Clara new uh and named after his mother Harriet but some of the information just doesn't stack up completely but if it's true a lot of people are running around right now with cotton Toops that blood in their veins and don't even know it but I guess I guess that's a story for another day right this one this one here is full enough so so cotton Top's dad is presumed to be Ellison Hatfield who I'm here visiting today he was involved in a brawl with uh three of Randall McCoy's Sons at an election day event not far from here he was stabbed over 25 times and then shot he died di a couple days later on September 9th in 1882 that around the same year that cotton top got married and 7 years before he would be hanged Ellison senior's death led to the pawpa tree incident where the three sons were gathered up and eventually tied to trees and Gunn down in Revenge for Ellison senior's death several years later in 1888 cotton toop would then be involved in an attack on the mcoy cabin with other Hatfields and several friends which led to the death of two more of Randall McCoy's children and a violent assault on Randall's aging wife that she never recovered from dying a long time before Randall did Ellison's parents are also buried here Nancy Vance of course and Ephraim who they call Big F some people call him Big E some people call him big f i i if it's if his real name is Ephraim I'm thinking it's F but anyway that's irrelevant but the cemetery this Cemetery right here is actually full of interesting characters and lost burials that we just now beginning to actually discover you know now that these days I get up yeah my pant legs getting wet from the ground but there's just all sorts of different things that are coming to light these days with the with the Advent of computers and everything being stored digitally you can look up a lot of stuff you can do a lot of things and so we're looking very much looking forward to coming up here and digging into some more of these stories and see what we can find there's efim and Nancy Vance and some of my mother's family some Blair's mom was a Blair and there are some blares right up there so some of my mom's some of my immediate family are what well 50 yard 75 yards away from the historic grade beginning I wanted to bring you guys up here this is The Logical spot to begin our story and like I said there there is going to be some stuff in this video that some people will consider to be controversial and I that is just fine with me all right guys I guess I'm going to get out of here still got a long way to go uh all that good stuff and we will see you for the rest of the story as Paul Harvey used to say see you guys in well from your perspective right about now [Music] [Music] okay now this as you can see is the Pike County courthouse and Jail uh this is in Pikeville in Pike County Kentucky and that is the old part of the Old Courthouse there's been some new added on to it but if you come over here you can tell you can look at the building and you can tell the the privil war sections from the newer sections and I was just over here on my way in speaking to uh you know a couple couple guys with the sheriff's department asking questions and stuff like that and they gave me a whole bunch of information the old courthouse is still there as a matter of fact and you can go in there so we're going to go in there in just in a minute but anyhow uh back to our story uh Ellison cotton top mounts a 25-year-old who took part in the raid of the McCoy home in 1888 was found guilty of the murder of alfair McCoy most likely believing at worst that he would be sentenced to life in prison According to some Feud historians but the quick the jury quickly found mounts guilty and sentenced him to death by hanging mounts immediately attempted to change his plea to not guilty and requested a new trial but the request was denied and mounts was hanged on February 18th 1890 here in Pikeville rumor is he declared the Hatfields made me do it and some historians believe that mounts was a scapegoat for the whole McCoy FL whole clan excuse me uh though he was said to have done it just as well by the other people at the New Year's Day Massacre the Pik County Sheriff's Office carried out the sentence publicly ending the fuse via County and state legal mechanisms during the hanging the first in Pike County in four decades Drew thousands of Spectators many of who anticipated a rescue attempt by the Hatfield Clan cotton toop also hoped to see the Hatfields ride into town to challenge the law but his hopes were in vain other rumors surrounding that day include bad Frank Phillips drunk as a skunk that day and hollering about his part and taking the Hat Fields down this photo for example is from a church Revival according to historians not cotton tops hanging though some would love to believe that's the case though I I didn't take the picture so I can't say who it is personally but I tend to think it's a little too good to be true considering the lack of pictures from that day and to capture the exact second and to see The McCoys sitting front and center looking distraught it just seems a little bit like I said too good to be true now I'm going to head in here just in a second and from my understanding you can go in there and they will let you look around they'll let you look at the Old Courthouse and it's been changed some since then uh the Old Courthouse for my understanding has been uh the sheriff's guys over there were telling me that the Old Courthouse has been split uh some of it is still the Old Courthouse and some of it I think he said was legal offices of some sort but uh I'm going to head on in and we'll see what we can see guys see you inside guys you're not going to believe this I have got chills right now I really do I've got chills up my back right now I am sitting in the exact courtroom that cotton top was tried in and found guilty and sentenced to death I'm sitting in the defendant's chair this is where cotton top would have said at now the courtroom has been modified a little bit over the years obviously it's been updated new seats and knew knew pretty much everything but you can tell the Old Courthouse underneath capacity 240 wow can you just imagine people standing here standing here giving testimony in the Hatfield McCoy cotton trop cotton top murder trial that is wild it's a beautiful old courtroom uh I asked about coming down here sure certainly yeah go right ahead no problem and I came down and the lights were all off and y'all know anybody has a GoPro knows they're great in good light but they're terrible in the dark so I went back and asked and told them you know who we were what we were doing you know that sort of thing and asked if there was any way if they could turn the lights on for just a minute for just long enough for me to record this for all of you they said yes they came in turned all the lights on showed me where they were and said turn the lights out when you're done how cool is that look at the the artwork on these walls look at that that is absolutely beautiful and to think this building like the uh Sheriff's Office you know that the guys outside were telling me this is pre- Civil War guys this is amazing to just roam around unabated unhindered in any way in the very courtroom where everything happened and bringing it to you guys you know y'all know how we are we don't like to just we don't just go to the places we bring you guys along and we try to show you the places including the defendant's chair especially the defendant's chair but can you imagine the prosecution the prosecution sitting here cotton top in a defense sitting there the judge the room completely filled to capacity with people here waiting hoping that something interesting something wild would happen but it never did amazing isn't it history real live history laid out right in front of your face right in the center of your camera well Center of your screen center of my camera you know like I said what we do now 10 years ago would have taken an entire production staff to do but with YouTube's platform and you guys behind us you guys supporting us need I say more here it is all right we've got to move on we've still got more sites to go to more things to see now just how amazing was that to actually stand in the very spot in the exact spot where this stuff happened I'll just leave that there for one second y'all can pause if you want to and read the sign the other side says the same thing I'll just leave that there for a second okay so cotton top was loaded up on loaded on a carriage right down here it is said that he was sitting on top of his own coffin as he slowly made his way to where his life would soon end and I will take that very same ride now years later to the day and a car named after a horse instead of a horse pulling me uh anyway thousands of people came from all over by foot by horse by Carriage they brought the entire family with them including kids picnic lunches moonshine and blankets to get as comfortable as they possibly could while they waited for the big event to unfold I'm going to go down here and get in my car and we're going to retrace the route that cotton top took from this Courthouse to be executed and there's the courthouse so he would have came right straight up this way [Music] and imagine sitting on top of your own coffin heading to your execution kind of eye opening is't it hopefully I'll beine it and I won't miss my turn the turn's up here on the left and I have missed it once or twice so just saying this is the old Pikeville college right down here and the Pikeville City Cemetery that's Octavia Hatcher right there looking down on the city' done stories about her there's several Legends the legend of Octavia that's not what we're doing today though is it we're going down to the Valley Little Valley turns off to the left right down here no that's not [Music] it there it is I have sailed right by this before [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] eventually The Carriage with cotton top came creaking up this little Hill right here toward this very spot and was met with excitement all except for cotton tops family that was there which according to newspapers was his mother and uncles and we assume it was her brothers one being Floyd Hatfield from the famous hog trial which some claim started the feud though it really didn't but it certainly didn't help the situation very much uh cotton toop has been reported as possibly having a mental disorder of some kind though we haven't found any proof of that for ourselves besides being possibly hot-tempered and impulsive uh maybe below average intelligence as some papers at the time called him a half wit at the time in articles but reading Court doc do court documents he seemed to talk in a way that peers totally normal compared to others from the time period you know the the same terms and so on uh reports stated that days before his hanging he was upset and refused to eat and was extremely troubled which is very different from more widespread accounts of him being passive and had no clue what was happening to him at all uh virtually uh basically a simpleton [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] anyone who tries to do a mental evaluation on a man in 1890 well I'm going to say that's pretty much guessing at this point now a't it but we honestly we just don't know enough about him to say and even if we did is what they accused him of is that is that the same as what we would just simply call a slow learner or a mental disorder or just simply ADHD you know we'll never know we'll never know the truth but I've got one more little spot you see that little spot right up there that's where we're headed to right there I'll be right back be right with you okay now this is the old Pikeville Cemetery that I just showed you from down there beside that brick building the sign is right beside of it in that little grassy area and this part of the cemetery would have been in plain view of the scaffolding that's important because uh it is said by one of the reporters that his grave was within sight of where he was hanged this is a direct line of sight you can see the sign right there this is the only graveyard anyway one newspaper article the day after his hanging says that he was cool till the last minute and a black hood was put over his head and then he declared the Hat Fields made me do it before being hanged at 1237 p.m. he was hung in this very Valley with this Cemetery overlooking it a small board fence was built around the scaffold to prevent people from stopping the execution and everyone was armed and waiting for Hatfields to come rescue cotton top or a riot to exploded any second but it didn't another article says his body was then released to his mother and uncles and buried within ey shot of where he was hanged which is this spot to be clear and there has been some speculation about this to be clear I'm going to say that twice he is not buried at Dill's Cemetery like his finder grave says he is Randall McCoy is buried there though and a cotton top is is accused of killing his daughter alifair John Dills owned that cemetery and was a very good friend of Randall's and his neighbor I can assure you he did not allow cotton top mounts to be buried there after being hung for killing alfair McCoy he is here somewhere in this Cemetery lies the Lost grave of Ellison cotton top mounts so this ends the story of cotton top mounts and his life on this Earth and where he is now only he and God know for sure but I can tell you his Earthly vessel his body is not at Dill Cemetery it is very fitting in my opinion that we end our video here because if we're correct and our research and the actual evidence that we found is to be believed the Lost grave of Ellison cotton top mounts is somewhere on your screen right now imagine that wild isn't it great story great place anyway guys I hope you enjoyed our little story today it took a lot of work to bring this one to you guys it really did it took a lot of work matter of fact and a lot of miles and we appreciate you guys like I told you earlier we couldn't do it without you guys so we appreciate you guys for supporting us and one thing I do want to mention before we head out before I close the video out I don't know if some of you have seen um other YouTubers have mentioned it and we have had a few people contact us as well about it uh about our subscribers apparently somehow somewhere or another subscribers are falling off so just take a look up top and make sure that you're subscribed so that you'll see our future videos when they come out and we thank you guys for your continued support thank you very much from Pikeville Kentucky with little flowers coming up already I just noticed that from Pikeville Kentucky and from the lost lost and unknown grave 99 .9% is what we'll go we'll leave a little bit just in case [Music] 99.9% from the grave of Ellison cotton top mounts this is Leo with the hillbilly files Hillbilly's out [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music]

Channel: The Hillbilly Files - Legends and Locations

Views: 80,296

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Id: 5-0VCvtKe20

Length: 46min 45sec (2805 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 19 2024