This past Monday, September 9, was the 180th birthday of William Anderson Hatfield, better known as Devil Anse Hatfield, the leader of the Hatfield part of the Hatfield-McCoy feud.
Years later Devil Anse found religion and was baptized in Island Creek by renowned mountain preacher and friend William “Uncle Dyke” Garrett in 1911.
He died on January 6, 1921, and is buried in the Hatfield Cemetery near Sarah Ann, West Virginia, in Logan County, with a huge statue of the man marking his burial plot.
It’s said, though, that his spirit may not rest peacefully there. Tales are told of folks driving by that part of Appalachia late on a foggy night who spot figures walking down the hill from the cemetery to Island Creek.
Those figures are the ghosts of Devil Anse and his sons, heading down to be baptized in the waters below. When they get to the creek, the ghost of Uncle Dyke arises and baptizes the apparitions once again, washing away their sins in the eyes of God. They are then said to simply fade away, only to repeat the performance on some other foggy night.
(Picture of Hatfield Cemetery by Brian M. Powell, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9374203)