Sid Hatfield Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

January 17, 1947: Labor Lawyer Harold Houston Dies in Florida

Labor lawyer Harold Houston died in Florida on January 17, 1947, at age 74. When he was young, his parents moved from Ohio to Jackson County and then to Charleston.

In 1901, after getting a law degree from West Virginia University, Houston opened a legal practice in Parkersburg.

By 1912, he’d returned to Charleston and soon became chief attorney and counsel for most of the state’s major labor organizations. Among his clients were striking coal miners, Sid Hatfield and others accused of murder in the Matewan Massacre, and United Mine Workers of America leaders charged with treason following the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain.

After the treason trials, Houston was fired as UMWA counsel by national president John L. Lewis. In 1931, Houston helped Frank Keeney organize the West Virginia Mine Workers Union—which briefly competed with the UMWA. Houston also ran for local, state, and federal offices on the Socialist ticket.

In later years, he was involved in an automobile dealership and a real estate addition in the Spring Hill section of South Charleston that bears his name. He eventually retired to Lake Worth, Florida.

May 28, 1962: Labor Spy C.E. Lively Dies in Huntington

Labor spy C. E. Lively died in Huntington on May 28, 1962, at age 75. Lively first came to Matewan in Mingo County in 1920 and joined the union during the drive to organize Tug Fork miners. He also befriended Sid Hatfield, the police chief of Matewan, who became a hero to miners after the 1920 Matewan Massacre.

Lively coaxed details from miners about the Matewan shootout, while secretly reporting to the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, which was working for the coal operators. Lively revealed his true identity when he testified against Hatfield and the miners in the Matewan Massacre trial; nevertheless, all were acquitted.

On August 1, 1921, Hatfield arrived at the McDowell County Courthouse in Welch to stand trial for allegedly leading a raid on the town of Mohawk. As he and his friend Ed Chambers climbed the courthouse steps—unarmed and with their wives by their sides—Lively and a half dozen other Baldwin-Felts detectives gunned them down in broad daylight. The shooting helped incite the miners’ armed march several weeks later. Lively was acquitted of murdering Hatfield and Chambers the following year.

Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers Shot in Welch: August 1, 1921

On August 1, 1921, Matewan police chief Sid Hatfield and his friend Ed Chambers were gunned down by Baldwin-Felt Detectives in front of the McDowell County Courthouse in Welch.

The trouble between Hatfield and the Baldwin-Felts had started more than a year earlier. In May of 1920, a shootout in the Mingo County town of Matewan had pitted Baldwin-Felts detectives against Hatfield and a crowd of angry miners.

A shootout left seven of the detectives, two miners, and the town’s mayor dead in the streets of Matewan.

After the Matewan Massacre, as it’s now known, Hatfield became a hero to the miners who were trying to unionize southern West Virginia. The Baldwin-Felts detectives decided to take revenge against Hatfield after he and 17 others were acquitted of all charges related to the massacre.

They seized their chance when Hatfield and Chambers were set to appear at the McDowell County Courthouse on charges unrelated to the earlier shootout. Hatfield’s murder sparked an uprising that led weeks later to an armed march on Logan County and the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest single conflict of the Mine Wars.