Sid Hatfield

Sid Hatfield grew up in poverty in Blackberry, Kentucky, one of Jacob and Rebecca Hatfield's 9 surviving (of 12) children. A miner in his teens, he then became a blacksmith. He was nicknamed 'Smilin' Sid' because of his distinctive grin, showing gold-capped teeth. Despite his boyish appearance - he was small and slight, but wiry - he had a tough reputation. However, in 1919, when the mining community of Matewan came under threat from the Baldwin-Felts Agency, the mayor, Cabell Cornelis Testerman, appointed him police chief. Hatfield was an effective lawman, keeping order in the mining town and standing up to the coal companies and the Baldwin-Felts agents as the miners fought for their right to organise. The Baldwin-Felts Agency offered him substantial bribes if he would permit them to station machine-guns in the town. He refused. On 19 May 1920, he and Testerman resisted the Baldwin-Felts agents' forcible evictions of unionised miners. In the gun battle, known as the battle of Matewan or the Matewan Massacre, 7 of the 13 Baldwin-Felts men were killed, included Albert and Lee Felts, brothers of the agency's head. Two miners were killed, and Mayor Testerman was mortally wounded, apparently by Albert Felts. Several more men, on both sides, were wounded. Sid Hatfield married Testerman's widow, Jessie, only a couple of weeks after her first husband's death. Tom Felts (and, later, the agency spy Charles Everett Lively) claimed that this proved that he, not Albert Felts, had shot her husband in order to marry her. However, they had been friends for a long time: according to Jessie, the Mayor had asked Sid to look after her and their young son if anything were to befall him, given the dangers they knew they faced. The trial over the Matewan gunfight took place in spring 1921, with the acquittal of Hatfield and the miners. Hatfield was filmed, playing himself, in 'Smilin' Sid' (1920), a short film re-enactment of the battle made by and for the United Mine Workers of America, and became a local celebrity: the miners' hero. But he knew himself to be a marked man. As the struggle continued, the new local authorities in Matewan were less supportive of the union. Martial law was declared in the summer of 1921. Hatfield lost his post as Chief of Police in Matewan, but was elected Constable for Magnolia District. He was unarmed and accompanied by Jessie when he arrived in Welch on 1 August 1921 for trial for his alleged involvement in other mining-related disturbances. His friend and deputy Edward Chambers, and his wife, Sallie, were with them, too, as Ed was also charged. As they began to climb the steps to the courthouse, the two young men were gunned down by Baldwin-Felts agents, including Charlie Lively. Sid Hatfield died almost instantly from three or four chest wounds; Lively finished off Chambers with a shot in the head, despite his wife's protestations. Although the killers were charged, none was ever convicted of the murders. For the second time in 14 months, Jessie was a widow. Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers were buried as heroes. Outrage at their murder fuelled the miners' uprising, culminating in the battle of Blair Mountain.