Feudists On Trial (Hanging Site)
Pikeville, Kentucky
Ellison "Cottontop" Mounts was a member of the Hatfield clan and the last official death in the famous Hatfield-McCoy feud. He was hanged on February 18, 1890, for the murder of one of the McCoys two years earlier. Newspaper accounts at the time note that Cottontop blew smoke rings from a cigar as his death warrant was read, and that his last words as the trap was sprung were, "The Hatfields made me do it!"
By law the gallows had to be surrounded by a high fence, shielding it from the public -- but because thousands of people had come to see the hanging, the gallows was built at the base of a hill so that everyone could have a clear view from the hillside.