Lady Belle Outlaw's Wyatt Earp Page

Lady Belle Outlaw's Hideout

Wyatt Earp

Lawman

by Lady Belle

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In May 1875, Wyatt Earp arrived in Wichita, Kansas -- a rowdy cowtown. He was elected as one of the two police officers in Wichita on April 21, 1875, and served under the marshal and assistant marshal.

In 1876, George Hoover, a saloonkeeper as well as mayor of Dodge City, Kansas, wired Wyatt Earp with a message offering him job as marshal.

After taking the job, Wyatt Earp hired two deputies and was looking for a third when Bat Masterson arrived from Sweetwater, Texas. He made him a deputy. At this time, Dodge was a wild town, and only peace officers were permitted to carry guns, all others were obliged to check their weapons in racks provided in saloons.

As a lawman in Dodge, Wyatt Earp was paid two hundred and fifty dollars a month, plus a fee of two dollars and fifty cents for each arrest. He and his deputies arrested three hundred persons a month. He served two terms ( * town records state that Earp was assistant marshal) from May 17, 1876 to September 8, 1879.

Dodge City, 1878 Bat Masterson & Wyatt Earp

As a professional gambler, Wyatt Earp spent time in the Long Branch Saloon in the company of his loyal friend, gunman and gambler Doc Holliday. In 1878, the town council of Dodge enacted an ordinance

prohibiting gambling; one of the biggest industries in town.

On December 1, 1879, Earp, along with his common-law wife Celia Ann (Mattie) Blaylock, Bat Masterson,

Doc Holliday and his wife "Big Nose" Kate Elder, arrived in Tombstone, Arizona where Wyatt's brothers and their wifes were living.

John Henry (Doc) Holliday, 1881 Celia Ann (Mattie) Blaylock

Taken at Fort Scott, Kansas, 1872,

about the time she met Wyatt Earp

Tombstone was unlike the rowdy Dodge City, and Wyatt Earp's first job there was a shotgun guard for Wells Fargo, and shortly after, he was a civil deputy sheriff of Pima County as well as saloonkeeper.

On the night of March 15, 1881, a stagecoach left Tombstone carrying eight passengers and eighty thousand dollars worth of bullion. Bandits attempted to hold up the stage, and failed, but in the process they killed the driver and one passenger. According to a statement by Big Nose Kate, the killer was her husband Doc Holliday; and the buzz around town was that the mastermind behind the hold-up was Wyatt Earp. Quickly, the Earp brothers persuaded Mrs. Holliday to retract her statement and they sent her out of town. There remained the task of silencing forever Holliday's accomplices.

Wyatt Earp went to one of their friends, Ike Clanton, and offered a deal. If Clanton would arrange to have those accomplices hold up another stage so that Earp and Holliday could ambush them, he, Earp, would guarantee that Clanton would be paid the reward for their capture. Clanton considered, but refused. This soon proved to be a mistake, as Ike did not keep the offer quiet.

In mid-October 1991, Clanton was in a saloon when Holliday confronted him. Clanton denied everything about the said offer.

On October 26, Ike Clanton was in Tombstone with his 19-year-old brother Billy. With them were cattle rustlers Frank and Tom McLowery (Note: also spelled McLowry or McLaury) and Billy Claiborne. That morning, Virgil Earp, as town marshal, deputized his brothers Wyatt and Morgan.

Photo courtesy of Randy Henson Morgon Earp (top) & Virgil Earp

That afternoon Wyatt Earp spotted the Clanton brothers, the McLowery brothers, and Claiborne at the gunshop. Later, they went to the O.K. Corral to pick up their horses and ride out of town. Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan Earp, together with Doc Holliday, went after them. The town sheriff tried to interfere, but was brushed aside. The Earp brothers and Holliday headed into the corral (the actual gunfight was in a vacant lot behind the O.K. Corral) and Virgil yelled to them, "Throw up your hands. I have come to disarm you." The Earp brothers and Holliday were older than these other men, with much more expertise with their guns. (* Let the record show, Wyatt stated the following in court documents: ) Billy Clanton and Frank McLowery were the first to draw their pistols, followed by Wyatt. The first shots - almost systematically - were fired by Billy Clanton and Wyatt; Billy aiming at Wyatt, as the latter aimed for Frank McLowery. The gunfight had begun. Billy Claiborne high-tailed it, running away. Ike, unarmed, ran up to Wyatt and grabbed his arm. Wyatt yelled, "The fight has now commenced. Go to fighting or get away." With his left arm, Wyatt pushed him. Ike ran away, and then disappeared into Fly's Photograph Gallery. The gunfight at the O.K. Corral lasted only thirty seconds, and Wyatt Earp's courage under fire was evident in the now most famous gunfight in history; each party defending their lives.

During the gunfight, supposedly Tom McLowery was not packin' a gun, wearing no gunbelt. Seeing his brother Frank fall to the ground after being shot, Tom took matters into his own hands. According to legend, he went for his rifle holstered in his horse's saddle, and spewed in the direction of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, "I've got you now." To this, Holliday answered in cocky assurance, while nearly tearing the man in half with the blast from his rifle, "I don't believe you have!"

In the end, Billy Clanton and Frank and Tom McLowery were dead. Ike Clanton Billy Claiborne were alive. Morgan Earp was hit in the left shoulder; Virgil in the leg. Those dead were later buried in Boot Hill.

Tom McLowery Newman Hayes "Old Man" Clanton

Father of Billy and Ike Clanton

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Though many folks stood by the Earp brothers, the reaction to the gunfight varied by citizens. Three men were appointed by the Citizen's Safety Committee to inform the Earp's that there should be no more killing inside the town's limit, and that, if there were, the Committee would act without regard to the law. Virgil Earp was fired as town marshal on October 29.

With a vendetta, friends of those slain took matters into their own hands. Virgil Earp was ambushed and wounded on December 28. On March 18, 1882, Morgan Earp was picked off as he play pool in Bob Hatch's billiard parlor on Allen street, by a sharpshooter who fired through a window from an alley in back. By this time, Wyatt had been long deputized as Federal Marshal. He then deputized such gunmen as Doc Holliday, Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, and Texas Jack Vermillion, and left Tombstone, going after his brother's killers. [1] Also left behind was his common-law wife, Mattie who later died of an overdose of laudanum, a suicide.

Legend has it that it may have been Wyatt who killed Johnny Ringo ( Note: Also spelled Ringgold ) in the summer of 1882 outside of Tombstone and near Turkey Creek, where his body was found slumped against a tree. Ringo supposedly took part in ambushing Virgil and Morgan Earp. Legend also has it Holliday could have been the one to get the drop on Ringo.

Wyatt and Doc Holliday remained pals until tuberculosis claimed Doc's life on

November 8, 1887 at the age of 35. Doc died in a sanitarium in Glenwood Springs,

Colorado. In his later years, Doc relied on alcohol and laudanum. Wyatt Earp was not

present when his friend died, and did not knowof it until months later. Also not presnt

when Doc died was Big Nose Kate. Later in life, it is reported Kate said of Doc

when he came back to their hotel room after the shoot-out at the OK Corral, sat on

the bed, wept and said, "That was awful - awful."

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Wyatt Earp's Final Years

Wyatt Earp later married the beautiful young actress Josephine "Josie"

Sarah Marcus in 1882, whom he first met in Tombstone, and in 1898,

they traveled to Alaska during the Klondike gold rush. While there,

they spent time in Nome where he ran the Dexter Saloon. After returning

to the States, he and Josephine journeyed to the Southwest and opened

another saloon in Tonopah, Nevada. Later, they moved to Los Angeles,

California where he spent the rest of his years in real estate. Before his

death, Wyatt held a position as a technical advisor for Hollywood films;

and worked on the set for a movie based on his life. He and Josephine

lived happily ever after in a marriage that lasted 47 years. They had no

children.

Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp

Wyatt Earp died in California on January 13, 1929 at the age of 80. Although Tombstone requested the cremated ashes for burial in Boot Hill, Josephine saw to it that he was put to rest at the hills of Eternity Memorial Park in Colma. Josephine is now buried beside her beloved. In earlier years, she penned her biography I Married Wyatt Earp, which was published in 1976, many years after she died.

Virgil Earp's Final years

Virgil died of natural causes on October 20, 1905 and was at Riverview Cemetery in Portland, Oregon. His tie to Portland was his daughter Nellie. Virgil was a teenager when he married. Soon, the Civil War broke out and he fought on the Union side. It was reported he was killed. His wife, who had recently given birth to their baby daughter Nellie, thought she was a widow and moved on to Oregon. Obviously, Virgil was not killed, rather seriously injured, as he later took part in the most famous gunfight in history at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. After being shot in the arm on October 28, 1882, he hung up his lawman badge. He retired in California and went into the real estate business. He later headed north to Oregon to visit his daughter Nellie. While there, a Portland reporter for The Oregonian interviewed him. Years later, when Virgil died, a message was sent to his daughter asking if she wanted the body of her father. She claimed it.

"...The most important lesson I learned...was that the winner

of gunplay usually was the one who took his time. The second

was that, if I hoped to live on the frontier, I would shun flashy

trick-shooting --grandstand play-- as I would poison...In all my

life as a frontier peace officer, I did not know a really proficient

gunfighter who had anything but contempt for the gun-fanner, or the

man who literally shot from the hip."

- Wyatt Earp

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Bat Masterson - Lawman and pal of Wyatt Earp

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Butch Cassidy - An outlaw who needs no introduction

Harry Tracy - The most notorious outlaw of the 20th century

Jesse James - Bank and Train robber of the Wild West

Wild Bill Hickok - Gather facts about James Butler Hickok

Wyatt Earp - Lawman and shot it out at the infamous O.K. Corral

Women of the West - Women who lived by their own codes

Magnificent Seven Fan Fiction - Penned by yours truly

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Source for some material:

[1] Wild West Characters

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This Web-site is owned, designed and maintained by Lady Belle Outlaw

Out of a labor of love of my favorite era -- the Wild West. No pages within my

Web site may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior permission from me

Born in Monmouth, Illinois, on March 19, 1848, Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp, one of

the most famous lawmen of the Wild West, only spent a half dozen years wearing a star, but during his years serving and protecting, he earned himself a reputation of having raw courage and fast draw. It was in Tombstone he stepped into legend.

Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson - his pard til the end - first met in 1872 when both were hunting buffalo on the Salt Fork of the Arkansas. Earp was about 24, Masterson about 19. Shortly after, they went their separate ways, not to come together again until the summer of 1876, in Dodge City.

Wyatt Earp, age 39, 1887

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