How did the Hatfield-McCoy feud end, anyway?
Rather than rekindle any hard feelings up in the Appalachians, let’s just say it was a draw. Really, there’s no way to answer the question. From 1875 onwards, the most famous family feud in American history resulted in 12 deaths within the two families, plus those of several bounty hunters hoping to earn rewards offered by one side for the capture of parties on the other. Although the feud theoretically ended in 1891, it wasn’t until 1976 that representatives from the two sides came together to shake hands, and even that wasn’t the end of all contentiousness; in 2000, the issue of access to a historic cemetery led to a legal dispute that set Hatfields against McCoys yet again. The court battle ended with a compromise in which both sides claimed victory, and that’s a fair way to describe the outcome of the feud’s earlier, more violent phase as well. Both sides lost lives, but neither could be said to have gotten the worst of it. Tensions between the two families had been escalating stea
