Wyatt Earp
1848 - 1929
Few lawmen have lived the charmed and exciting life, which was lived by
my friend, Wyatt Earp. I worked with Earp in the 1900s when he
was on the way out.
Earp told me he was born in Monmouth, Illinois, in about 1848,
and following the Civil War his pa threw their truck into a big wagon
and headed west to San Berdu, California, where they settled. Wyatt
took a job driving a stage between L. A. and San Berdu, then went on at
the same chore in Arizona and later drove stage in the Salt Lake
Country, too.
Wyatt always was a good businessman and hired out his
own teams to the railroad in Wyoming. This gave him money to
marry, and that he did. She was a child bride, so to speak.
She died of the terrible typhus epidemic, which event just about tore
Wyatt apart. So he went on to Kansas City where he met Wild Bill
Hickok and learned to handle guns from this master killer. He
also hunted buffalo with Bat Masterson.
Wyatt got into Ellsworth, Kansas, just as the famous
gunslinger, Ben Thompson, had the town treed as he waved that
double-barreled shotgun at the mayor and deputies who were hiding
behind doors and in halls. Wyatt opened his mouth and said that
he'd shut the big Texan up if he had the guns and the badge. He
got 'em right now. And out he stepped to tell Thompson to throw
the gun in the road. Thompson later told Bat Masterson that he
had a powerful hunch that Wyatt meant to kill him, and so he did throw
down that shotgun. This made Earp a famous man up and down the
Chisholm Trail. Ben was fined twenty-five dollars and his
brother, Bill, who had killed C. B. Whitney with that shotgun, was
acquitted. Earp tendered the badge in disgust, for his pa had
taught him a different kind of law.
In the spring, Wyatt told me he went on to Wichita, now
a famous man, and was made deputy marshal there. He at once waded
into the big shot, Shanghai Pierce, who owned half the cattle in Texas,
and told him and his retinue of cowboys to toe the mark or he'd give
them hell. Then he went after Mannen Clements, gunfighter that he
was, with his cowboys behind him and read the law aloud to 'em
all. He got away with that, too. His fame spread.
A couple of Texans wanted to do battle with their dukes. Earp squared off and made both of
them look like they had been eating honey while the bees were in the hive.
Wyatt said he pulled out and went on to Dodge and became
chief deputy marshal there, with men like deputies Bat Masterson, Neal
Brown, Joe Mason, Bill Tilghman and Charlie Bassett to give him a hand
some mighty fighting men to give the right kind of confidence.
Well, Earp went after the famed outlaw, Dave Rudabaugh,
into Fort Griffin, Texas, and there he came face to face with Doctor
John H. Holliday. He was a specialist in teeth who had a hobby of
gambling and leaving dead men under tables, a real honest-to-god
killer man who became Earp's lifelong friend. Back in Dodge
again, Wyatt had a showdown with Clay Allison and made the famous
gunslinger from the Washita ride out of town. Then one George
Hoydt took a reach for fame and Wyatt stopped him by unsaddling this
ambitious man with a bullet.
The fall of '79, as Wyatt gave it to me, found him in
Tombstone, Arizona, a newly appointed deputy under Charlie Shibell of
Pima County. He rode shotgun on bullion stages, then acted as
Tombstone District Marshal. He cracked Curly Bill Brocius on the
head for killing Marshal White, and told the Clanton's there would be no
monkey business with them. The Clanton's, as you perhaps know, ran
a rustling empire and hid behind the big desk of Sheriff Johnny Behan.
Wyatt always was a brave man, and he proved it when he
stopped a lynch mob with a shotgun. The Clanton's didn't like
this, however, and robbed stages night and day so that Wyatt had no
rest, and his interest in the Oriental were left almost entirely to Bat
Masterson and Luke Short, who ran his monte and blackjack for him.
Finally, the showdown came in the famed shoot-out at the
OK Corral, in which Frank and Tom McLaury and Billy Clanton were cut
down in 30 seconds of gunfire. Virgil, Morgan Earp and Doc
Holliday were wounded, the latter carrying a sawed-off shotgun no
bigger than a horse pistol in length. Ike Clanton and John Ringo
skeedaddled off into the cactus of Old Mexico, while Wyatt rode down
and gunned to earth several others of the rustling empire. Old
Man Clanton got his when Mexicans caught him stealing their cattle.
Wyatt said he was tired and went on to San Diego,
California, into the real estate business, and then on to Alaska, where
he opened up the Dexter Saloon there. Finally, he came back to do
some mining near Needles and to develop oil lands in Kern County.
I got word of Wyatt's passing in 1929. Although he
had some 100 shoot-outs and trouble, he died with his boots off at the
ripe old age of 81.
Calamity Jane | Clay Allison | Curly Bill | Dave Mather
Doc Holliday | Jesse James | Jim Courtright | Joaquin Murrietta
John Ringo | John Wesley Hardin | King Fisher | Luke Short
Old Man Clanton | Pat Garrett | Wild Bill Hickok | Wyatt Earp
OK Corral | Artist - Lea Franklin McCarty