page_title: Randolph McCoy
section_title: Conclusion
hierarchical_section_title: Randolph McCoy / Conclusion
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the Big Sandy River drainage basin.
context_page_description: Randolph "Randall" or "Ole Ran'l" McCoy was the patriarch of the McCoy clan involved in the infamous American Hatfield–McCoy feud. He was born the fourth of thirteen children to Daniel McCoy and Margaret Taylor McCoy and lived mostly on the Kentucky side of Tug Fork, a tributary of the Big Sandy River.
  During the almost thirty-year feud with the Hatfield clan under their patriarch Devil Anse Hatfield, Randolph would lose five of his children to the violence.
context_section_description: In 1888, Wall Hatfield and eight others were arrested by a posse led by Frank Phillips and brought to Kentucky to stand trial for the murder of Alifair McCoy, who was killed during the New Year's Massacre.
  The feuding and warfare brought in political leaders of Kentucky and West Virginia. The Governor of West Virginia, E. Willis Wilson, accused Kentucky of violating the extradition process and appealed the matter to the Supreme Court of the United States. Kentucky Governor Simon Bolivar Buckner sent his Adjutant General to Pike County to investigate the situation. In May 1889, the Supreme Court decided against West Virginia (Mahon v. Justice); the nine Hatfields would be tried in Pikeville. Private detectives hunted down many Hatfields, though Devil Anse was never tried nor jailed. In 1890, Ellison Mounts was executed in Kentucky for his part in the McCoy killings. He was one of the men captured along with Mahon. The feud started to wind down with Mounts' execution.
  On June 14, 2003, the McCoy cousins partnered with Reo Hatfield of Waynesboro, Virginia, to author an official truce between the families. The idea was symbolic: to show that Americans could bury their differences and unite in times of crisis.
caption: Hatfield–McCoy feud site along the Tug Fork tributary (right) in the Big Sandy River watershed
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