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1-7 of 7
- Roy Wells Gordon was the third of four sons born to John W. Gordon and Nancy Ellen Wells Gordon. He was born October 18, 1884 in Beaver Village, Pike County, Ohio. The family soon moved to Portsmouth, Ohio, where Roy grew up. He was always interested in the theater and acting, and decided to make it his profession. In the 1910s, 20s, and early 30s, he performed in dramas and musicals (he was a tenor) in Portsmouth, Ohio; Columbus, Ohio; Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois, and on Broadway in New York City. In the late 1930s, Roy moved to Los Angeles, California to become a motion-picture actor; this was his profession for the rest of his life. He performed as a supporting actor in a wide variety of credited and uncredited roles; in his later years, he often played bankers, businessmen, judges, senior military officers and other men of authority. He also performed in numerous TV series. He died at the age of 87 on July 23, 1972 in Encino, Los Angeles County, California.
- 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. - Writer/journalist Jacques Futrelle was born in Pike County, GA, in 1875. After graduating from high school, he held a variety of jobs--including theater manager--but finally secured a position in the editorial department of the Boston "American" newspaper. While there he wrote a series of short stories, which were eventually published. He began a series of detective novels, "The Thinking Machine", featuring Prof. Augustus Van Deusen, a professor at an American university who used his intellect to solve crimes. Van Densen first appeared in the closing chapters of an adventure serial Futrelle wrote, "The Case of the Golden Plate", in 1906. The series was featured in several magazine articles, and the stories were later published in two volumes of collections.
Futurelle was one of the passengers on the SS Titanic, which sank on April 15, 1912. He did not survive. - Curtis Cooksey was born on 9 December 1891 in Pike County, Indiana, USA. He was an actor, known for Scaramouche (1952), Death of a Scoundrel (1956) and Milady's Boudoir (1915). He died on 19 April 1962 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Floyd Hatfield was born on 7 January 1858 in Pike County, Kentucky, USA. He was married to Anne Pinson and Jenny Hunt. He died in April 1938 in Hardy, Kentucky, USA.
- Anderson Hatfield was born on 25 September 1835 in Blackberry Creek, Pike County, Kentucky, USA. He was married to Mary 'Polly' Runyon. He died on 6 March 1920 in Blackberry Creek, Pike County, Kentucky, USA.
- "Mack" Wolford, born 1968 in Pike County, was an American Pentecostal pastor at the Full Gospel Apostolic House of the Lord Jesus, Matoaka, West Virginia, one of the few remaining small Appalachian Pentecostal sects known as "sign followers". He was known all over Appalachia as a daring man of conviction. He believed that the Bible mandates that Christians handle serpents to test their faith in God - and that, if they are bitten, they trust in God alone to heal them. The son of Mrs. Vicie Hicks Haywood and a serpent handler who himself died in 1983 after being bitten, Wolford was trying to keep the practice alive, both in West Virginia, where it is legal, and in neighboring states where it is not. He was married to Frances Elizabeth Dawson Wolford. The flamboyant Pentecostal pastor whose serpent-handling talents were profiled November 2011 in The Washington Post Magazine, hoped the outdoor service he had planned for this Sunday, at an isolated state park would be a "homecoming like the old days," full of folks speaking in tongues, handling snakes and having a "great time." But it was not the sort of homecoming he foresaw. Instead, Mack Wolford, who turned 44 the previous day, was bitten by a rattlesnake he owned for years. He died late Sunday 27/12 2012.