The fight started when Eston McClintock, the strongest of the clan, challenged Hanna to wrestle. He declined because he didn't want to soil his uniform. Eston insisted until Hanna finally consented. He swung McClintock once around and then laid him on the ground with the same ease a man would a boy. McClintock, infuriated, caught Hanna's pant leg and tore it at the knee. Hanna said, "There you have torn my trousers." This remark gave the five McClintock brothers excuse to get into the fight. Hanna soon gained his feet with the five still clutching to him. Upon freeing himself he discovered he was wounded in several places by a knife (carried by John McClintock). One cut slashed open his abdomen and his bowels, part of which dropped to the ground. But he continued to defend himself with his sturdy right. His friends, seeing the fracas, came quickly to his rescue but not until they had dispensed with some of the McClintocks who had formed a solid ring around Alexander.
"On being rescued he was taken into a house where he was first treated by Mrs. Hannah (Pringey) Hartzel. (Her son Charles P.Connelly, from a first marriage, would marry Alexander's eldest daughter.) Later Dr. Philip Muckenhaupt, the preacher-doctor of Addison, PA, arrived. While the doctor and Mrs. Hartzel dressed his wounds, the fight continued for some minutes until the McClintocks were overpowered. Some were arrested and imprisoned. Others fled the country, never to return."
As written in an article by Michael P. Connelly that appeared in the May 1996 edition of the Laurel Messenger, page 254.
