Devil Anse Hatfield. Have you heard of him? He was the head of the infamous Hatfield clan, of the Hatfield-McCoy feud fame. Born and raised in Logan, West Virginia. Fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. Founder of a successful logging company. Husband. Father of 13 children. And, most famously, the sworn enemy of a neighboring family, the McCoys.
Devil Anse Hatfield (born William Anderson Hatfield) lived a long and storied life. He died of pneumonia at age 81, in 1921, thirty years after agreeing to end the vehement, bloody feud that made him and his family so famous.
In his honor, his children commissioned a statue to stand guard over his grave. It's a prominent statue, a life sized replica of Devil Anse Hatfield himself, standing on a pedestal listing the names of his wife and children. It's made of marble. You may have even seen it.
But what most people don't know, even those who have visited Hatfield's grave, is that the statue isn't made of just any marble. It's made of Italian marble (Carrara marble, to be precise). That's right, the iconic Devil Anse Hatfield statue that presides over the Hatfield Family Cemetery in Omar, West Virginia (near Sarah Ann) was actually imported all the way from Italy.
The Hatfield Family Cemetery is open to the public and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. That means that, even though it's a bit of a trek up to the cemetery itself, you can actually still visit the grave of the infamous patriarch of the Hatfield family and see this iconic statue that made its way all the way from Italy to a permanent home in the southwestern edge of West Virginia.
Have you ever made the trip out to the Hatfield Family Cemetery and climbed the hill to Devil Anse Hatfield’s final resting place? If you’ve never been, you can find it on the Hatfield Family Cemetery Access Road off of Jerry W Highway just south of Sarah Ann, West Virginia in Logan County. Now, when you do visit, you’ll know the full story of the statue that stands guard over his grave.
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