Dr. Henry D. Hatfield
( 1875 - 1962 )

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Dr. Henry D. Hatfield (1875-1962) was born on Mate Creek, near Matewan, West Vurginia. A nephew of Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield of the famed Hatfield-McCoy feud, he earned a medical degree at the University of Louisville and returned to West Virginia as a coal camp doctor in McDowell County. He was elected to the McDowell County Court in 1906 and to the West Virginia Senate two years later. In 1912, Hatfield was elected governor. When he took office the stste was embroiled in a prolonged and violent coal strike. As goernor, hatfield was able to broker an uneasy truce between the striking miners and the coal operators. After his term as governor, he practiced medicine in Huntington for the next 40 years, interupted ny a 1928-1934 term in the U.S. Senate, during which he secured a veterans hospital for Huntington.

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