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The
short marriage produced Wyatt's older half-brother Newton Jasper
Earp (October 7, 1837 in Kentucky - December 18, 1928 in
Sacramento, California). Another half-sister Mariah Ann Earp (Feb.
12-Dec. 13, 1839) did not survive to adulthood.
On
July 30, 1840, widower Nicholas Earp wed Virginia Ann Cooksey in
Hartford, Kentucky. This
second marriage produced eight children. Note that two of Wyatt's
three full sisters did not survive to adulthood.
Wyatt's
Family
-
James
Earp (June 28, 1841 in Hartford, Kentucky - January 25,
1926 in Los Angeles, California)
-
Virgil
Walter Earp (July 18, 1843 in Hartford, Kentucky - October
19, 1905 in Goldfield, Nevada).
-
Martha
Elizabeth Earp (September 25, 1845 in Kentucky - May 26,
1856 in Monmouth, Illinois).
-
Wyatt
Berry Stapp Earp
(March 19, 1848 in Monmouth, Illinois - January 13, 1929 in
Los Angeles, California).
-
Morgan
Seth Earp (April 24, 1851 in Pella, Iowa - March 18, 1882
in Tombstone, Arizona).
-
Warren
Baxter Earp (always known as Warren) (March 9, 1855 in
Pella, Iowa - July 6, 1900 in Willcox, Arizona).
-
Virginia
Ann Earp (February 28, 1858 in Marion County, Iowa -
October 26, 1861 in Pella, Iowa).
-
Adelia
Douglas Earp (June 16, 1861 in Pella, Iowa - January 16,
1941 in San Bernadino, California).
Early Life
Wyatt Berry
Stapp Earp, born in Monmouth, Illinois on March 19, 1848.
He was named after Captain Wyatt Berry Stapp of the
Illinois Mounted Volunteers, Nicholas Earp's commanding officer
during the Mexican-American War. In March, 1850, the Earps left Monmouth for California, but
they never reached there, settling instead in Iowa.
Their new farm consisted of 160 acres, seven miles
northeast of Pella, Iowa.
On March 4,
1856, Nicholas sold his farm and returned to Monmouth, Illinois,
but was unable to find a job as a cooper or farmer.
Faced with unemployment, Nicholas chose to become a
municipal constable, serving at this post for about three years.
He reportedly had a second source of income from the selling of
alcoholic beverages, which made him the target of the local
Temperance movement, and in 1859, he was tried for bootlegging,
convicted and publicly humiliated.
Nicholas was unable to pay his fines and on November 11,
1859, Nicholas's property was sold at auction.
Two days later, the Earps left again for Pella, Iowa.
Nicholas
apparently made frequent travels back to Monmouth throughout 1860
to confirm and conclude the sale of his properties and to face
several lawsuits for debt and accusations of tax evasion.
During the
family's second stay in Pella, the American Civil War broke out.
James, Virgil and Newton joined the Union Army.
Wyatt (aged 13 at war outbreak) was too young to join, but
later tried on several occasions to run away and join the army,
only to have his father find him and bring him home.
While Nicholas was busy recruiting and drilling local
companies, Wyatt, with the help of his two younger brothers,
Morgan and Warren, was left in charge of bringing in an 80-acre
corn crop. James
returned home in summer 1863 after being severely wounded in
Fredricktown, Missouri.
On May 12th,
1864, the Earp family joined a wagon train heading to California.
The 1931 book Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal by Stuart Lake,
tells of the Wyat's encounter with Indians near Fort Laramie and
that Wyatt reportedly took the opportunity at their stop at Fort
Bridger to hunt buffalo with Jim Bridger.
Later researchers have suggested that Lake's account of
Wyatt's early life is embellished, as there is little corroborating
evidence to many of its stories.
However, there is no good reason to doubt many of these
personal tales, either, for they relate to personal actions on the
unsettled American frontier, which would not be expected to be
recorded anywhere except (with luck) in an occasional diary.
California
By late summer
1865, Wyatt and Virgil had found a common occupation as stagecoach
drivers for Phineas Banning’s Banning Stage Line in Southern
California. This is
presumed to be the time Wyatt had his first taste of whiskey. He reportedly felt sick enough to abstain from it for the
following two decades.
In the spring
of 1866, Wyatt became a teamster, transporting cargo for Chris
Taylor. His assigned
trail for 1866 - 1868 was from Wilmington, California to Prescott,
Arizona Territory. He
also worked on the route from San Bernardino through Las Vegas,
Nevada Territory to Salt Lake City.
In the spring of 1868, Wyatt was hired by Charles Chrisman
to transport supplies for the construction of the Union Pacific
Railroad. Historian
presume it is the time of his introduction to gambling and boxing.
In the spring
of 1868, the Earps moved again, this time settling in Lamar,
Missouri where Nicholas became the local constable.
When Nicholas resigned to become Justice of the Peace on
November 17, 1869, Wyatt was immediately appointed constable in
place of his father. On
November 26 and in return for his appointment, Earp filed a bond
of $1000. His
sureties for this bond were his father Nicholas Porter Earp, his
paternal uncle Jonathan Douglas Earp (April 28, 1824 - October 20,
1900) and James Maupin.
On January 10,
1870, Wyatt married his first wife, Urilla Sutherland (1849 -
1870/1871), a daughter of William and Permelia Sutherland of New
York City. The
marriage was short-lived. Urilla
is believed to have died either a few months later, or about a
year later. There are
two reported versions of her cause of death: one version claims
that she died of typhus, the other that she died in childbirth.
In August 1870,
Wyatt bought a house and land for $50.
In November, he resold the house for $75.
The later event has been used to estimate the death of
Urilla, based on presumption that a widower has less need of
permanent residence than a married man expecting children.
That November, Wyatt ran for and won his constable's post,
beating his older half-brother, Newton, 137 votes to 108.
This would be the only time Wyatt would ever run for
office.
After his
wife's death, Wyatt started to have some difficulties with the
law. On March 14,
1871, Barton County, Missouri filed a lawsuit against Wyatt and
his sureties. He had
been in charge of collecting license fees for Lamar, the collected
monies intended as funding for local schools.
They accused Wyatt of never delivering the collected money.
The action was eventually vacated, possibly because Wyatt
and his father had moved out of the state.
On March 31,
one James Cromwell filed a lawsuit against Wyatt alleging that he
had falsified court documents referring to the amount of money
that he had hand collected from Cromwell to satisfy a judgment.
To make up the difference between what Wyatt turned in and
Cromwell owed (and claimed he had paid), the court seized
Cromwell's mowing machine and sold it for $38.
Cromwell's suit claimed that Wyatt owed him $75, the
estimated value of the machine.
The outcome of this case is not known.
On April 1,
Wyatt was one of three men (along with Edward Kennedy and John
Shown) facing accusations for horse theft.
On March 28, the accused had reportedly stolen two horses,
"each of the value of one hundred dollars", from William
Keys while in the Indian Country.
On April 6, Wyatt was arrested by Deputy United States
Marshal J.G. Owens for the latter charges.
The arraignment of the charges against him was read to him
by Commissioner James Churchill on April 14.
Bail was set at $500.
On May 15, the indictment against Wyatt, Kennedy and Shown
was issued.
Anna Shown,
wife of John Shown, claimed that Wyatt and Kennedy got her husband
drunk and then threatened his life in order to earn his
assistance. However,
on June 5, Edward Kennedy was acquitted while the case against
Wyatt and John Shown remained. Faced with two lawsuits and a
trial, Wyatt apparently chose to flee the state of Missouri. An
arrest warrant was issued.
Both lawsuits
and the horse theft case were eventually dropped, in part because
of the disappearance of Wyatt. Researchers
of his life do not have enough evidence to conclude whether he was
guilty of the charges; however the acquittal of one of his
co-defendants may have been enough to cause the legal system to
lose interest. In any
case, this would not be the last time Wyatt Earp settled legal
problems through the use of distance.
Reappearance
For years, researchers had no
reliable account of Wyatt’s activities or whereabouts between
the remainder of 1871 and October 28, 1874, when he made his
reappearance in Wichita, Kansas.
It has been suggested that he spent these years hunting
buffalo (as is reported in the Stuart Lake biography) and
wandering from place to place in the great plains.
He is generally considered to
have first met his close friend Bat Masterson around this period,
on the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River.
Nevertheless, the discovery of contemporary accounts that
place Wyatt in Peoria, Illinois, and the surrounding area during
1872, have caused researchers to question these claims.
He is listed in the city directory for Peoria during 1872
as living in the house of Jane Haspel, who operated a bagnio
(brothel) from that location.
In February 1872, Peoria police
raided the Haspel bagnio, arresting four women and three men.
The three men were Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp, and George
Randall. Wyatt and
the others were charged with "Keeping and being found in a
house of ill-fame." They
were later fined twenty dollars and cost for the criminal
infraction. Two
additional arrests for Wyatt Earp for the same crime during 1872
in Peoria have also been found.
Some researchers have concluded that the Peoria information
indicates that he was intimately involved in the prostitution
trade in the Peoria area throughout 1872.
This new information has caused some researchers to
question Wyatt's accounts of Buffalo hunting in Kansas.
In Frontier
Marshal, Lake claimed that while in Kansas, Wyatt met such
notable figures as Wild Bill Hickok.
Lake also identified Wyatt as the man who arrested gunman
Ben Thompson (November 2, 1843 - March 11, 1888) in Ellsworth,
Kansas, on August 15, 1873. However,
Lake failed to identify his sources for these allegations.
Consequently, later researchers have expressed their doubt
about them. Diligent
search of the available records has uncovered no evidence that
Wyatt Earp was in Ellsworth at the time of Thompson's trouble
there. Proponents of
Wyatt's arrest of Thompson, or even his presence in Ellsworth in
August of that year, point to unsubstantiated recollections that
Wyatt registered at the Grand Central Hotel there.
Research has shown he did not check into the hotel that
summer.
In particular,
the activities of Benjamin Thompson during the year of his arrest
were covered in detail by the local press without ever mentioning
Wyatt. Thompson
published his own accounts for the events in 1884, and he too
failed to report Wyatt as the man responsible for his arrest.
Deputy Ed Hogue of Ellsworth actually made the arrest.
Wichita
Like Ellsworth,
Wichita was a train-terminal which ended cattle drives from Texas.
Such cattle boomtowns on the frontier were a modern
policeman's nightmare, as they filled with drunken, armed cowboys,
celebrating at the end of long drives.
Wyatt officially joined the Wichita marshal's office on
April 21, 1875, after election of Mike Meagher as city marshal
(this would cause endless confusion, as "city marshal"
was then a synonym for police chief, a term also in use).
One newspaper report exists referring to Wyatt as
"Officer Erp" (sic) prior to his official hiring, making
his exact role as an officer during 1874 unclear.
Probably he served in an unofficial paid role.
City Marshal
Mike Meagher was described as a tall, erect, powerful man with
chestnut brown hair, a blonde mustache and gray eyes.
No doubt, he talked with an Irish accent. He, more than
anyone, was responsible for keeping a lid on the cauldron that was
Wichita. His
assistant was John Behrens (not to be confused with Johnny Behan),
and his deputies were Jimmy Cairns and Wyatt Earp.
Wyatt received
several public acclamations while in Wichita.
He recognized and arrested a wanted horse thief (having to
fire his weapon in warning, but not hurting the man), and later a
set of wagon thieves. He
had a bit of public embarrassment in early 1876 when a
fully-loaded single action revolver dropped out of his holster
while he was leaning back on a chair and discharged when the
hammer hit the floor (single-action revolvers were always
dangerous to carry with a round under the hammer).
The bullet went through Wyatt's coat and out through the
ceiling. It may be
presumed from Wyatt's discussion of the problem in Lake's
biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal (published after
Wyatt's death) that Wyatt never carried a single-action with six
rounds again. Lake's
Earp didn't admit that he had first-hand knowledge of this error.
Wyatt also had
his nerves tested in Wichita in a situation which was not reported
by the newspapers, but which occurs in the Lake
"biography" and is substantiated in the memoirs of his
deputy Jimmy Cairns. Wyatt
had angered a number of drovers by acting to repossess an
unpaid-for piano in a brothel, forced a number of drovers to pass
the hat to collect the money to keep the instrument in place.
Later, a group of nearly 50 armed drovers collected in
Delano, preparing to "hoorah" Wichita across the river.
("Hoorah" was the Old West term for out-of-control
drunken partying). Police
and citizens in Wichita collected to oppose the cowboys.
In the end, Wyatt Earp stood in the center of the line of
defenders on the bridge from Delano to Wichita and calmly held off
the mob of armed men, speaking for the town.
Eventually, the cowboys turned and withdrew, peace having
been kept without a shot fired or man killed. This pattern would
be repeated many times in Wyatt's career.
Years later
Cairns would write of Earp: "Wyatt Earp was a wonderful
officer. He was game
to the last ditch and apparently afraid of nothing.
The cowmen all respected him and seemed to recognize his
superiority and authority at such times as he had to use it."
In late 1875
the local paper (Witchia Beacon) carried this item: "On
last Wednesday (December 8), policeman Earp found a stranger lying
near the bridge in a drunken stupor. He took him to the "cooler" and on searching him
found in the neighborhood of $500 on his person.
He was taken next morning, before his honor, the police
judge, paid his fine for his fun like a little man and went on his
way rejoicing. He may
congratulate himself that his lines, while he was drunk, were cast
in such a pleasant place as Wichita as there are but a few other
places where that $500 bank roll would have been heard from.
The integrity of our police force has never been seriously
questioned."
Wyatt's stint
as Wichita deputy came to a sudden end on April 2, 1876, when
Wyatt took too active an interest in the city marshal's election.
According to news accounts, former marshal Bill Smith
accused Wyatt of wanting to use his office to help hire his
brothers as lawmen. (Another
story without historical substantiation is that Smith accused the
Earp family of running a brothel, but if so this would be a
strange insult for the frontier, since Wichita had two licensed
brothels and many more in the honky-tonk district of Delano across
the river). Wyatt responded to the insult, whatever it was, by getting
into a fist fight with Smith and beating him.
Meagher was forced to fire and arrest Wyatt for disturbing
the peace, the end of a tour of duty, which the papers called
otherwise "unexceptionable." When Meagher eventually won
the election, the city council was split evenly on re-hiring
Wyatt. With the
cattle trade diminishing in Wichita, however, Wyatt solved the
problem by moving on to the next booming cow-town, Dodge City,
Kansas.
Dodge City,
Kansas
Dodge City,
Kansas became a major terminal for cattle driven from Texas along
the Chisholm Trail from Texas after 1875.
Wyatt was appointed assistant marshal in Dodge City, under
Marshal Larry Deger, in 1876. There is some indication that Wyatt traveled to Deadwood,
South Dakota Territory, during the winter of 1876-7.
Wyatt was not on the police force in Dodge City in the
later part of 1877, although he is listed as being on the force in
the spring. His
presence in Dodge as a private citizen is substantiated by a July
notice in the newspaper that he was fined $1.00 for slapping a
muscular prostitute named Frankie Bell, who (according to the
papers) "...heaped epithets upon the unoffending head of
Mr. Earp to such an extent as to provide a slap from the
ex-officer..". Apportionment of the blame for this
disturbance of the peace by those of the time is found in the fact
that Bell spent the night in jail and was fined costs of $20.00,
while Wyatt's fine was the legal minimum.
In October
1877, Wyatt left Dodge City for a short while to try his luck on
the gambling circuit in Texas.
During this time, he stopped at Fort Griffin, Texas, where
(according to Wyatt's recollection in the Stuart Lake biography)
he met a young, card-playing dentist known as Doc Holliday.
Wyatt returned
to Dodge City in 1878 to become the assistant city-marshal under
Charlie Bassett. Holliday
moved to Dodge City in June 1878, and saved Wyatt's life in August
of the same year. While
Wyatt was trying to break up a bar-room brawl, a cowboy drew a gun
and pointed it at Wyatt's back.
Holliday yelled, "Look out, Wyatt," then drew his
gun, scaring the cowboy enough to make him back off.
This would mark the beginning of Wyatt's and Holliday's
friendship.
In the summer
of 1878, Texas cowboy George Hoy, after an altercation with Wyatt,
returned with friends and fired into the Comique variety
hall, outside of which stood police officers Wyatt Earp and Jim
Masterson. Inside the
theater, a great number of .45 bullets penetrated the plank
building easily, sending Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, comedian
Eddie Foy and many others instantly to the floor.
Masterson, Foy, and the National Police Gazette
later all gave accounts of the damage to the building and danger
to those inside. No
one was hurt, but this was by pure luck (Foy would note that a new
suit of his, which remained hanging up, was holed three times by
bullets). The lawmen
both inside and outside the building returned fire, and Hoy was
shot from his horse as he rode away, with a severe wound to the
arm. A month later,
he died of the wound. Whose
bullet struck Hoy is unknown, but Wyatt would always claim the
shot.
Wyatt, many
years later, claimed Hoy was attempting to assassinate him at the
behest of Robert Wright, with whom he claimed an ongoing feud.
Wyatt said the feud between himself and Wright started when
he arrested Bob Rachals, a prominent trail leader who had shot a
German fiddler. According
to Wyatt, Wright tried to block the arrest because Rachals was one
of the largest financial contributors to the Dodge City economy.
Wyatt claimed that Wright then hired Clay Allison to kill
him, but Allison backed down when confronted by Wyatt and Bat
Masterson.
Clay Allison
was also a moderately famous character of the Old West, but
current research cannot confirm the tale of Wyatt and Masterson
ever confronting him. Bat
Masterson was out of town when Allison tried to "tree"
(scare) Dodge City on September 19, 1878, and witnesses, cowboy
Charles Siringo and Chalkley M. Beeson, proprietor of the famous
Long Branch saloon, left written recollections of the incident.
They said it was actually Texas cattleman Richard McNulty
who faced down Allison. Siringo
said Wyatt was nowhere to be found while Beeson said Wyatt was
working behind the lines. A distant cousin of Wyatt's has speculated it may be that the
incident both Siringo and Beeson remembered happened at another
time, but no account of another incident has yet come to light.
Arriving in
Dodge with Wyatt was Celia "Mattie" Blaylock, a former
prostitute, who would continue with him until 1882.
Wyatt resigned
from the Dodge City police force on September 9, 1878, and headed
to Las Vegas, New Mexico.
The “Buntline
Special”
Deputy Earp was
known for pistol-whipping armed cowboys before they could dispute
town ordinances against carrying of firearms. What kind of pistol
Wyatt used for the job has been a mystery.
The existence
of Wyatt’s long-barreled pistol, for many years doubted, may
have been a reality. The
Lake biography, in describing its origin is probably incorrect,
however. The story of
the Buntline begins with the murder of actress Dora Hand in 1878. Dora was shot by a gentleman attempting to kill Dodge City
mayor, James H. “Dog” Kelly.
Dora was a guest in Kelly’s house and sleeping in his bed
at the time while Kelly and wife were out of town.
Dora was a celebrity in 1878 and her murder was a national
story. Wyatt was in the posse which brought down the murderer.
The story of the capture was reported in newspapers as far
as New York and California.
Five men were
dispatched as a posse to capture the assassin: Wyatt Earp, Bat
Masterson, a very young Bill Tilghman, Charlie Bassett and William
Duffy. Wyatt shot the
man’s horse and Masterson wounded the assassin, James
"Spike" Kennedy, son of Texas cattleman Miflin Kenedy.
The Dodge City Times called them “as intrepid a posse as
ever pulled a trigger”.
It is very
likely that Dora’s murder and the tracking down of her assassin
were the events which caused Ned Buntline to bestow the gift of
the “Buntline Specials”.
Wyatt’s biography claimed the Specials were given to
“famous lawmen” Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Bill Tilghman,
Charlie Bassett and Neal Brown in 1876 by author Ned Buntline in
return for “local color” for his western yarns.
The historical problem, of course, is that neither Tilghman
nor Brown was a lawman then.
Further, Buntline wrote only four western yarns, all about
Buffalo Bill. So, if
Buntline got any “local color”, he never used it.
His stock in trade was sea yarns (a buntline is a knot).
If Lake made up
the Buntline Special, he even fooled himself because he spent an
extraordinary amount of time trying to track it down through the
Colt Company and Masterson and contacts in Alaska.
In all probability, it was a 10 inch barreled Colt Single
Action Army model with standard sights and wooden grips into which
the name, “Ned”, was carved.
(And, sorry, no shoulder stock).
This gibes with both Lake’s original description and the
description of one eyewitness to the gunfight at the O.K. corral
shooting. The
butcher, Bauer, saw a “pistol 14 or 16 inches long." A Colt
SAA with a 10 inch barrel is exactly 15 inches overall.
It is known that Wyatt was carrying his side-arm in the
pocket of his pea-coat. Many people would believe that this is not the place for a
pistol with a 10-inch barrel, but Wyatt's coat pockets were
specially made. They
were 1 1/2' deep, coated with rubber inside, making it like a
holster.
Wyatt and his older brothers
James (Jim) and Virgil moved to silver-mining boomtown Tombstone,
Arizona Territory, in December 1879.
Wyatt brought a wagon with him that he planned to convert
into a stagecoach, but on arrival he found two established stage
lines already running. Good-natured Jim worked as a barkeep.
Virgil was appointed deputy U.S. marshal, just prior to
arriving in Tombstone. [The
U.S. marshal for the Arizona Territory, C.P. Dake, was based in
Prescott 280 miles away, so the deputy U.S. marshal job in
Tombstone represented federal authority in the southwest area of
the territory.] In
Tombstone, the Earp’s staked mining claims.
Wyatt also went to work for Wells Fargo, riding shotgun for
their stagecoaches when they held strongboxes, a position usually
called "messenger". Eventually, in the summer of 1880, younger brothers Morgan
and Warren Earp moved to Tombstone, as well.
On July 25, 1880, U.S. deputy
marshal Virgil Earp accused Frank McLaury, a "Cowboy,"
(often capitalized in papers as a local term for a cattle-dealer
that often was synonymous with rustler) of taking part in the
stealing of six Army mules from Camp Rucker. This was a federal matter, because the animals were federal
property. The
McLaurys were caught red-handed by the army representative and
Earp, changing the "U.S." brand to "D.8."
However, to avoid a fight the posse withdrew on the
understanding that the mules would be returned.
They were not. In response, the Army's representative
published an account in the papers, damaging Frank McLaury's
reputation. This
incident would mark the beginning of animosity between the
McLaurys and the Earps.
About the same time, Wyatt was
appointed deputy sheriff for the southern part of Pima County,
which was at that time the surrounding country containing
Tombstone. The office
of sheriff was, of course, a county position.
Wyatt would serve in office only three months. In September 1880, Doc Holliday
moved to Tombstone.
On October 28, 1880, as Tombstone
town-marshal (police chief) Fred White was trying to break up a
group of late revelers shooting at the moon on Allen Street in
Tombstone, he was shot in the groin as he attempted to confiscate
the pistol of "Curly Bill" William Brocius, who was
apparently one of the group.
The pistol was later found to be fully-loaded except for
one expended cartridge, implying that Brocius had not been
shooting. Morgan and
Wyatt Earp, along with Wells Fargo agent Fred Dodge came to
White's aid. Wyatt hit Brocius over the head with a pistol
borrowed from Dodge and disarmed Brocius, arresting him on the
deadly weapon assault charge (Virgil Earp would replace White as
town marshal, but Virgil was not present at White's shooting or
Brocius' arrest). Wyatt
and a deputy took Brocius in a wagon the next day to Tucson to
stand trial, possibly saving him from being lynched (Brocius
waived preliminary hearing to get out of town faster, probably
believing the same). White, age 31, died of his wound two days after his shooting,
changing the charge to murder.
On December 27, 1880, Wyatt
testified in Tucson court regarding the Brocius-White shooting.
Partly because of Wyatt ’s testimony (and also a
statement given by White himself, before he died, that he thought
the shooting had not been intentional), the judge ruled the
shooting accidental, and set Brocius free. Brocius, however, would
remain a friend of the McLaurys and (after the O.K. Corral fight)
a deadly Earp enemy. He
would later become one of the principal targets in what became
known as the Earp Vendetta Ride.
Wyatt Earp resigned as deputy
sheriff of Pima County on November 9, 1880 (just 12 days after the
White shooting), because of an election vote-counting dispute.
Wyatt favored the Republican challenger Bob Paul, rather
than his current boss, Pima Sheriff Charlie Shibell.
Democrat Shibell was re-elected after what was later found
to be ballot-box stuffing by area Cowboys.
He appointed Democrat Johnny Behan as the new deputy
undersheriff for the south Pima area, to replace Wyatt.
Several months later, when the
southern portion of Pima County was split off into Cochise
County,
both Wyatt and Behan were applicants to be appointed to fill the
new position. Wyatt,
as former undersheriff and a Republican in the same party as
Territorial governor Fremont, assumed he had a good chance at
appointment, but also knew current undersheriff Behan had
political influence in Prescott.
Wyatt would later testify that he made a deal with Behan
that if he (Wyatt) withdrew his application, that Behan would name
Earp as undersheriff if he won.
Behan would testify there was never any such deal, but that
he had indeed promised Wyatt the job if Behan won, no strings
attached. However, after Behan gained appointment as sheriff of
the new Cochise County in February 1881, he in fact chose Harry
Woods (a prominent Democrat) to be the undersheriff.
This left Wyatt Earp without a job in Tombstone, even after
Wyatt's friend Bob Paul later won the disputed Pima sheriff
election. Fortunately
for Wyatt, about this time all the Earps were beginning to make
some money on their mining claims in the Tombstone area.
Wyatt had had one of his branded
horses stolen in late 1879, shortly after he arrived in Tombstone.
More than a year later, after the election dispute court
hearings began (probably in December, 1880 or early January 1881),
Wyatt heard that the horse was in the possession of Ike Clanton
and Billy Clanton, who had a ranch near Charleston. Wyatt (now
again a private citizen) and Holliday rode to Charleston (passing
on their way deputy sheriff Behan in a wagon with two other men,
heading to serve an election-hearing subpoena on Ike Clanton) and
recovered the horse. Wyatt
would testify in disgust at the Spicer Hearing that Billy Clanton
had given up the horse even before being presented with ownership
papers, showing that he knew it was stolen.
The incident, while nonviolent, damaged the Clantons'
reputations and convinced the Earps that the Clantons were horse
thieves.
This incident also began the
Earps' public difficulties with Behan (at least according to Behan),
who later testified that Wyatt and Holliday had put a scare into
the Clantons by telling them that Behan was on his way with an
armed posse to arrest them for horse theft. Such a mission would
have had the effect of turning the Clantons against Behan, who
badly needed the Clantons' political support since they certainly
weren't afraid of him (according to Behan's testimony, Ike swore
at the time that he'd never stand for being arrested by Behan). In
any case, an embarrassed Behan would give this incident as his
reason for not naming Earp as his undersheriff.
If Behan ever served his subpoena on Ike Clanton, Ike never
responded to it, and Behan never tried to enforce the summons.
In January 1881, Wyatt Earp
became part owner, with Lou Rickabaugh and others, in the gambling
concession at the Oriental Saloon.
Shortly thereafter, in Wyatt 's story, John Tyler was hired
by a rival gambling operator to cause trouble at the Oriental to
keep patrons away. After losing a bet, Tyler became belligerent
and Wyatt took him by the ear and threw him out of the saloon. This episode is seen in the film Tombstone.
Tensions between the Earps and
both the Clantons and McLaurys increased through 1881.
In March, 1881, three Cowboys attempted an unsuccessful
stagecoach holdup near Benson, during which the driver and
passenger were murdered in the gunfire.
There were rumors that Doc Holliday (who was a known friend
of one of the suspects) had been involved, though the formal
accusation of Doc's involvement was started by Doc's drunken
companion Big Nose Kate after a quarrel, and later recanted after
she sobered. Wyatt
later testified that in order to help clear Doc's name and to help
himself win the next sheriff's election, he went to Ike Clanton
and Frank McLaury and offered to give him all the reward money for
information leading to capture of robbers.
According to Wyatt, both Frank McLaury and Ike Clanton
agreed to provide information for the capture, knowing that if
word got out to the Cowboys that he had double-crossed them, that
the lives of Frank and Ike would be worth little.
Later, after all three Cowboy
suspects in the stage robbery were killed in unrelated violent
incidents, and there was no reward to be made from them, Clanton
accused Wyatt of leaking their deal to either his brother Morgan,
or to Holliday. Clanton especially blamed Holliday.
Meanwhile, tensions between the
Earps and the McLaurys increased with the holdup of yet another
stage in the Tombstone area (September 8), this one a passenger
stage in the Sandy Bob line, bound for nearby Bisbee.
The masked robbers shook down the passengers (the stage had
no strongbox) and in the process were recognized from their voices
and language as Pete Spence (an alias) and Frank Stilwell, a
business partner of Spence who was also at the time a deputy of
Sheriff Behan's. Wyatt
and Virgil Earp rode in the posse attempting to track the Bisbee
stage robbers, and during the tracking, Wyatt discovered the
unusual print of a custom repaired boot heel.
Checking a shoe repair shop in Bisbee known to provide
widened boot heels led to identification of Stilwell as a recent
customer, and a check of a Bisbee corral (Silwell and Spence were
business partners with interests in Bisbee) turned up both Spence
and Stilwell, Stilwell being found with a new set of wide custom
boot heels matching the prints of the robber. Stilwell and Spence
were arrested by the sheriff's posse under sheriff's deputies
Breakenridge and Nagel for the stage robbery, and later by U.S.
deputy marshal Virgil Earp on the federal offense of mail robbery.
However, despite the evidence, both Stilwell and Spence
were released on bail.
A month later (October 8) came
yet another stage robbery, this one near Contention City.
Though five robbers were seen involved, again Spence and
Stilwell were arrested October 13, and taken by Virgil and Wyatt
Earp to jail and arraignment in Tucson.
The papers of the time reported that they had been arrested
for the Contention robbery, but they had actually been re-arrested
by Virgil for the (new) federal charge of interfering with a mail
carrier for the earlier Bisbee robbery.
This final incident may have caused a misunderstanding
among Spence and Stilwell's friends, making them look like
scapegoats. Occurring less than two weeks before the O.K. Corral
shootout, it had the immediate effect of causing Frank McLaury,
who was a friend of Spence and Stilwell, to confront Morgan Earp,
while Wyatt and Virgil were still out of town for the Spence and
Stilwell hearing. Frank
reportedly told Morgan that the McLaurys would kill the Earps if
they tried to arrest either man again, or the McLaurys.
These personalized threats by McLaury against the lives of
the Earps for performing their official duty would rankle the
Earps, very shortly before Ike Clanton caused the situation to
turn violent.
The
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was an event of legendary
proportion in the Wild West. 'Bat' Masterson visited Wyatt Earp in
Tombstone, Arizona, leaving shortly before the famous event.
The gunfight occurred on Wednesday afternoon, October 26,
1881, in a vacant lot, known as lot 2, in block 17, behind the
corral, in Tombstone, Arizona. Thirty shots were fired in thirty seconds. Wyatt Earp, Doc
Holliday, Virgil Earp, and Morgan Earp fought against Billy
Claiborne, Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, Billy Clanton, and Ike
Clanton. Both McLaurys were killed, as was Billy Clanton.
On October 30, Ike Clanton filed
murder charges against the Earps and Holliday.
Wyatt and Holliday were arrested and brought before the
Justice of the Peace, Wells Spicer, while Morgan and Virgil were
still recovering. Bail was set at $10,000 apiece.
The hearing to determine if there was enough evidence to go
to trial started November 1.
The first witnesses were Billy Allen and Behan.
Allen testified that Holliday fired the first shot and that
the second one also came from the Earp party, while Billy Clanton
had his hands in the air. Then
Behan testified that he heard Billy Clanton say, "Don't shoot
me. I don't want to
fight." He also
testified that Tom McLaury threw open his coat to show that he
wasn't armed and that the first two shots were fired by the Earp
party. Behan also
said that he thought the next three shots also came from the Earp
party. Behan's views
turned public opinion against the Earps.
His testimony portrayed a far different gunfight than had
been first reported in the local papers.
Because of Allen's and Behan's
testimony and the testimony of several other prosecution
witnesses, Wyatt and Holliday's lawyers were presented with a writ
of habeas corpus from the probate court and appeared before Judge
John Henry Lucas. After
arguments were given, the Judge ordered them to be put in jail. By
the time Ike Clanton took the stand on November 9, the prosecution
had built an impressive case. Several
prosecution witnesses had testified that Tom McLaury was unarmed,
that Billy Clanton had his hands in the air and that neither of
the McLaurys were troublemakers. They portrayed Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury as being unjustly
bullied and beaten by the vengeful Earps on the day of the
gunfight. The Earps
and Holliday looked certain to be convicted until Ike Clanton
inadvertently came to their rescue.
Clanton's testimony repeated the
story of abuse that he had suffered at the hands of the Earps and
Holliday the night before the gunfight. He
reiterated that Holliday and Morgan Earp had fired the first two
shots and that the next several shots also came from the Earp
party. Then under
cross-examination, Clanton told a story of the lead-up to the
gunfight which did not make sense. It
told of the Benson stage robbery conducted to cover up stolen
money that was actually not missing. Ike
also claimed that Doc Holliday and Morgan, Wyatt, and Virgil Earp
had all separately confessed to him their role in either the
pre-robbery of Benson stage money, the Benson stage holdup, or
else the cover-up of the robbery by allowing the robbers' escape. By
the time, Ike finished his testimony, the entire prosecution case
had become suspect.
The first witness for the defense
was Wyatt Earp. He
read a prepared statement detailing the Earps previous troubles
with the Clantons and McLaurys, and explaining why they were going
to disarm the Cowboys, and claiming that they fired on them in
self defense. Because
of Arizona's territorial laws allowing a defendant in a
preliminary hearing to make a statement in his behalf without
facing cross-examination, the prosecution never got a chance to
question Wyatt. After
the defense had clearly established serious doubts about the
prosecution's case, the judge allowed Holliday and Earp to return
to their homes in time for Thanksgiving.
Justice Spicer eventually ruled
that the evidence indicated that the Earps and Holliday acted
within the law (with Holliday and Wyatt effectively having been
deputized temporarily by Virgil) and he invited the Cochise County
grand jury to reevaluate his decision. Spicer
did not condone all of the Earps' actions and he criticized Virgil
Earp's choice of deputies Wyatt and Holliday, but he concluded
that no laws were broken. He made special point of the fact that
Ike Clanton, known to be unarmed, had been allowed to pass through
the center of the fight without being shot.
Even though the Earps and
Holliday were free, their reputation was tarnished. Supporters
of the Cowboys (a very small minority) in Tombstone looked upon
the Earps as robbers and murderers. However,
on December 16, the grand jury decided not to reverse Spicer's
decision.
Cowboy revenge
In December, Clanton went before
the Justice of the Peace J. B. Smith in Contention and again filed
charges against the Earps and Holliday for the murder of Billy
Clanton and the McLaurys. A large posse escorted the Earps to
Contention, fearing that the cowboys would try to ambush the Earps
on the unprotected roadway, with just Behan serving as guard. The
charges were dismissed by Judge Lucas because of Smith's judicial
ineptness. The prosecution immediately filed a new warrant for
murder charges, issued by Justice Smith, but Judge Lucas quickly
dismissed it writing in his decision that new evidence would have
to be submitted before a second hearing would be called.
Because the November hearing
before Spicer was not a trial, Clanton had the right to continue
pushing for prosecution, but the prosecution would have to come up
with new evidence of murder before the case could be considered.
At this point the Clantons and McLaurys were out of legal options.
Very shortly, illegal options would be tried.
On December 28, while walking
between saloons on Allen Street in Tombstone, Virgil was shot by
three men using double-barreled shotguns. His left arm and
shoulder took the brunt of the damage. Ike Clanton's hat was found
in the back of the building across Allen street, from where the
shots were fired. Wyatt wired U.S. Marshal Crawley Dake asking to
be appointed deputy U.S. Marshal with authority to select his own
deputies. Dake responded by granting the request.
In mid-January, Wyatt sold his
gambling concessions at the Oriental when Rickabaugh sold the
saloon to Milt Joyce, an Earp adversary. On February 2, 1882,
Wyatt and Virgil, tired of the criticism leveled against them,
submitted their resignations to Dake, who refused to accept them.
On the same day, Wyatt sent a message to Ike Clanton that said he
wanted to reconcile their differences. Clanton refused. Also on
the same day, Clanton was acquitted of the charges against him in
the shooting of Virgil Earp, when the defense brought in seven
witnesses that testified that Clanton was in Charleston at the
time of the shooting.
Wyatt's Vendetta Ride
Detailed: Earp
Vendetta Ride
After attending a theater show on
March 18, Morgan Earp was assassinated by gunmen firing from a
dark alley, through the door window into the lighted pool hall. Morgan was hit in the lower back
while a second shot hit the wall just over Wyatt's head. The
assassins escaped in the dark and Morgan died less than an hour
later.
Based on the testimony of Pete
Spence's wife, Marietta, at the coroner’s inquest on the killing
of Morgan, the coroners jury concluded that Spence, Stilwell,
Frederick Bode, and Florentino "Indian Charlie" Cruz
were the prime suspects in the assassination of Morgan Earp.
Spence immediately turned himself in so that he would be protected
in Behan's jail.
Meanwhile, Wyatt had a brother to
bury, and another to protect. On Sunday, March 19, the day after
Morgan's murder, Wyatt, his brother James, and a group of friends
took Morgan's body to the railhead in Benson. There, they put
Morgan's body on the train with James, to accompany it to the
family home in Colton, California. There, Morgan's wife waited to
bury him.
The next day (Monday), it was
Virgil and his wife Allie's turn to be escorted safely out of Tombstone. Wyatt had gotten word that trains leaving from Benson
were being watched in Tucson, and getting the still-invalid Virgil
through Tucson to safety would be more difficult. Wyatt, Warren
Earp, Holliday, Turkey Creek Jack Johnson and Sherman McMasters
took Virgil and Allie in a wagon to the train in Benson, leaving
their own horses this time in Contention City, and boarding the
train with Virgil. As the train pulled away from the Tucson
station in the dark, gunfire was heard. Frank Stilwell's body was
found on the tracks the next morning.
What Stilwell was doing on the
tracks near the Earps' train, if not ill-intended, has never been
explained. Ike Clanton made his case worse by giving a newspaper
interview claiming that he and Stilwell had been in Tucson for
Stilwell's legal problems, and heard that the Earps were coming in
on a train to kill Stilwell. According to Ike, Stilwell then
disappeared from the hotel and was found later, blocks away, on
the tracks. Wyatt, many years later, in the Flood biography, said
that he and his party had seen Ike and Stilwell on the tracks with
weapons, and had shot Stilwell.
After killing Stilwell in Tucson
and sending their train on its way to California with Virgil, the
Earp party was afoot. They hopped a freight train back to Benson
and hired a wagon back to Contention, riding back into Tombstone
by the middle of the next day (Tues, March 21). They were now
wanted men, for once Stilwell's killing had been connected to the
Earp party on the train, warrants had been issued for five of the
Earp party. Ignoring Johnny Behan and now joined by Texas Jack
Vermillion, the Earp posse road out of town the same evening.
The next morning, on Wednesday
March 22, the Earps rode to the woodcamp of Pete Spence at South
Pass in the Dragoon Mountains, looking for Spence. By now, they
knew of the Morgan Earp inquest testimony. Spence was in jail, but
at the woodcamp, the Earp posse found Florentino "Indian
Charlie" Cruz. Earp said to his biographer Lake that he got
Cruz to confess to being the lookout, while Stilwell, Hank
Swilling, Curly Bill and Ringo killed Morgan. After the
"confession," Wyatt and the others shot Cruz dead.
Two days later, in Iron Springs,
Arizona, the Earp party, seeking a rendezvous with a messenger for
them, instead stumbled upon a group of cowboys led by "Curley
Bill" William B. Brocious. In Wyatt's account, he had jumped
from his horse to fight, when he noticed the rest of his posse
retreating, leaving him alone. Curley Bill was surprised in the
act of cooking dinner at the edge of the spring, and he and Wyatt
now traded shotgun blasts. Curley Bill was hit in the chest by
Wyatt's shotgun fire, and died. Wyatt survived several near misses
from Curley Bill's companions before he could remount his horse,
but was not hit. During the fight, another Cowboy named Johnny
Barnes received wounds which would ultimately be fatal. The Earp
party survived unharmed and spent the next several weeks riding
though the rough country near Tombstone. Ultimately, when it
became clear to the Earps that Behan's posse would not fight them,
nor could they return to town, they decided to ride out of the
territory for good.
Life after Tombstone
After the killing of Curley Bill,
the Earps left Arizona and headed to Colorado. In a stop over in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, Wyatt and Holliday had a falling out but
remained on fairly good terms. The group split up after that with
Holliday heading to Pueblo and then Denver. The Earps and Texas
Jack set up camp on the outskirts of Gunnison, Colorado, where
they remained quiet at first, rarely going into town for supplies.
Eventually, Wyatt took over a faro game at a local saloon.
Slowly all of the Earp assets in
Tombstone were sold to pay for taxes, and the stake the family had
amassed eroded. Wyatt and Warren joined Virgil in San Francisco in
late 1882. While there, Wyatt rekindled a romance with Josie
Marcus, Behan's one-time fiancée. His common-law wife, Mattie
waited for him in Colton but eventually realized Wyatt was not
coming back (Wyatt had left Mattie the house when he left
Tombstone). Earp left San Francisco with Josie in 1883 and she
became his companion for the next forty-six years (no marriage
certificate has been found). Earp and Marcus returned to Gunnison
where they settled down and Earp continued to run a faro bank.
In 1883, Earp returned, along
with Bat Masterson, to Dodge City to help a friend deal with the
corrupt mayor. What became known as the Dodge City War was started
with the mayor of Dodge City tried to run Luke Short first out of
business and then out of town. Short appealed to Masterson who
contacted Earp. While Short was discussing the matter with
Governor George Washington Glick in Kansas City, Earp showed up
with Johnny Millsap, Shotgun Collins, Texas Jack Vermillion, and
Johnny Green. They marched up Front Street into Short's saloon
where they were sworn in as deputies by constable "Prairie
Dog" Dave Marrow. The town council offered a compromise to
allow Short to return for ten days to get his affairs in order,
but Earp refused compromise. When Short returned, there was no
force ready to turn him away. Short's Saloon reopened and The
Dodge City War ended without a shot being fired.
Earp spent the next decade
running saloons and gambling concessions and investing in mines in
Colorado and Idaho, with stops in various boom towns. In 1886 Earp
and Josie moved to San Diego and stayed there about four years.
On July 3, 1888, Mattie Earp
committed suicide in Pinal, Arizona Territory by taking an
overdose of laudanum.
The Earps moved back to San
Francisco during the 1890s so Josie could be closer to her family
and Wyatt closer to his new job, managing a horse stable in Santa
Rosa. During the summer of 1896, Earp wrote his memoirs with the
help of a ghost writer (Flood). On December 3, 1896, Earp was the
referee for the boxing match to determine the heavyweight
championship of the world. During the fight Bob Fitzsimmons,
clearly in control, landed a low blow against Tom Sharkey. Earp
awarded the victory to Sharkey and was accused of committing
fraud. Fitzsimmons had an injunction put on the prize money until
the courts could determine who the rightful winner was. The judge
in the case decided that because fighting, and therefore prize
fighting, was illegal in San Francisco, that the courts wouldn't
determine who the real winner was. The decision provided no
vindication for Earp.
In the fall of 1897, Earp and
Josie chased another gold rush, this time to Alaska. Earp ran
several saloons and gambling concessions in Nome.
While living in Alaska, Earp met
and became friends with Jack London. Controversy continued to
follow Earp and he was arrested several times for different minor
offenses.
Earp eventually moved to
Hollywood, where he met several famous and soon to be famous
actors on the sets of various movies.
On the set of one movie, he met a young extra and prop man
who would eventually become John Wayne.
Wayne would later tell Hugh O'Brian that he based his image
of the Western lawman on his conversations with Earp.
And one of Earp's friends in Hollywood was William S. Hart,
a well-known cowboy star of his time.
In the early 1920s, Earp served as deputy sheriff in a
mostly ceremonial position in San Bernardino County.
When Wyatt died of chronic
cystitis in 1929 at age 80 [4], William S. Hart and Tom Mix were
pallbearers at his funeral. Tom Mix wept. Josie had Wyatt's body
cremated and buried Wyatt's ashes in the Marcus family plot at the
Hills of Eternity, a Jewish cemetery (Josie was Jewish) in Colma,
California. When she
died in 1944, Josie's ashes were buried next to Wyatt's.
The original grave marker was stolen in 1957, but has since
been replaced by a flat marker.
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