Randolph "Randall" McCoy (30 October 1825-28 March 1914) was the patriarch of the McCoy family of Kentucky at the time of the Hatfield-McCoy feud.
Biography[]
Randolph McCoy was the fourth of thirteen children born to Daniel and Margaret Taylor McCoy, and he lived on the Kentucky side of the Tug Fork in present-day Hardy, Pike County. He married his first cousin Sally McCoy and fathered 16 children, including Jim, Tolbert, Alifair, Roseanna, Calvin, Pharmer, and Bud. He served in the 45th Virginia Infantry Battalion during the American Civil War, while his brother Asa Harmon McCoy served in the Union Army and was murdered by Confederate sympathizer Jim Vance in January 1865. This caused uneasy relations between McCoy, Vance, and Vance's nephew Devil Anse McCoy, who had deserted during the war. The rivalry intensified due to Perry Cline and Anse Hatfield's land dispute in the late 1870s and Floyd Hatfield and Randolph's court case over a hog which Randolph believed had been stolen from him. His relatives Sam and Paris McCoy murdered Bill Staton for testifying in Floyd's favor and for drunkenly threatening to kill any McCoy who went after him as a result, leading to another escalation. He went on to disown his daughter Roseanna for havinga n affair with Johnse Hatfield, and Roseanna suffered a miscarriage after Johnse abandoned her to marry Nancy McCoy; Roseanna died shortly after at the age of 29. The feuding continued when Randolph's three sons Tolbert, Pharmer, and Bud were massacred by Anse for killing his brother Ellison Hatfield on Election Day of 1882. On 1 January 1888, Cap Hatfield and Jim Vance burned down the McCoy cabin, killing McCoy's children Calvin and Alifair in the process. Sally was left disabled after being savagely beaten, and Randolph was forced to flee to Pikeville with his family. There, he operated a ferry while Kentucky deputy Frank Phillips and a posse of McCoys killed Jim Vance and arrested Cap Hatfield. Randolph McCoy died in an accidental fire in 1914.