Lady at the O.K. Corral: The True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp

by Ann Kirschner

  49 “the key to the whole yarn of Tombstone”: Stuart Lake to Ira Rich Kent, February 13, 1930, Houghton Mifflin Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

  53 “very grave results will follow”: Quoted in Paula M. Marks, And Die in the West: The Story of the O.K. Corral Gunfight (New York: Morrow, 1989), 174–75.

  55 Who shot first? The arguments rage on. For the best recent comprehensive account, see Jeff Guinn’s The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral and How It Changed the American West (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011).

  59 Spicer issued a strong verdict: The complete inquest records were recently discovered in Cochise County and are online at http://azmemory.lib.az.us/cdm/search/collection/ccolch. For a well-documented summary of some of the key evidence presented at the hearing, see Jeff Morey, “‘Blaze Away!’ Doc Holliday’s Role in the West’s Most Famous Gunfight,” http://home.earthlink.net/~knuthco1/

  Itemsofinterest4/blazeawaysource.htm.

  60 the Grand Hotel across the street: There is some evidence that Mattie stayed behind when the rest of the family moved to the hotel. See Marks, And Die in the West, 241.

  61 a comedy at Schieffelin Hall: It is baffling, but provocative, that in the manuscript of Flood’s biography of Wyatt Earp in the Ford County Historical Society, he has Wyatt accompany Morgan to a Pauline Markham production of Pinafore, not Stolen Kisses. The Markham troupe (including Josephine) had indeed performed Pinafore in Tombstone, but that was in 1879, more than two years before Morgan’s death. “Here was Pauline Markham, and Pinafore,” Flood has Morgan appealing to Wyatt. “There would be nothing like it for another year.” I would suggest that this was an inside joke planted by Josephine, except that nothing about Morgan’s death was funny.

  63 “saves the Earp family from annihilation”: Wyatt later made it clear that he did not believe that Pete Spence was responsible for Morgan’s assassination, though Josephine reiterated this accusation in the Cason manuscript. It is possible that Maria Spence took advantage of the situation to rid herself of her abusive husband. Spence (whose real name was Elliott Larkin Ferguson) eventually divorced Maria and married the widow of Phin Clanton. See Lynn R. Bailey and Donald Chaput, Cochise County Stalwarts: A Who’s Who of the Territorial Years (Tucson, Ariz.: Westernlore Press, 2000).

  63 Josephine’s departure went unnoticed: The exact date of Josephine’s departure and her method of transportation is unknown. One clue is that her friend Annie Lewellen sent a money order to Josephine’s mother in San Francisco on March 22, 1882, presumably on Josephine’s behalf or perhaps in repayment of a debt to Josephine.

  CHAPTER 2: THE FOURTH MRS. EARP

  70 There was money to be divided: Wells Fargo historian Robert Chandler has analyzed Wyatt’s payments during this time. See “Under Cover for Wells Fargo: A Review Essay,” Journal of Arizona History 31 (Spring 2000): 83-96; and “Wells Fargo and the Earp Brothers: The Cash Books Talk,” California Historical Quarterly, no. 78 (Summer 2009): 5-13.

  70 Wyatt stayed with his friend Henry Jaffa: See Mark Dworkin, “Henry Jaffa and Wyatt Earp: Wyatt Earp’s Jewish Connection; A Portrait of Henry Jaffa, Albuquerque’s First Mayor,” New Mexico Jewish Historical Society 19, no. 4 (December 2005): 25-37.

  70 “a damn Jew boy”: This incident was covered in the local newspapers at the time. For a discussion about the so-called Ortero letter, the source of Doc’s “Jew boy” comments, see Chuck Hornung and Dr. Gary L. Roberts, “The Split: Did Doc and Wyatt Split Because of a Racial Slur?” True West, December 2001, 58-61.

  71 George W. Crummy, an influential saloonkeeper: Gary Roberts identified Crummy in Doc Holliday, 308. At the time, Wyatt was vague about this connection, and he later told Flood, “Governor Pitkin was an old man, about 70 years of age. . . . One man only could influence him, a man by the name of Crummy. Now Governor Pitkin was associated with Crummy (owners of a gambling house) in running enterprises in San Juan district in CO.” Flood’s notes, interview with Wyatt Earp, September 15, 1926, Ragsdale Collection.

  72 the luxurious Tabor Hotel: Josephine may have been confusing the Grand Hotel in Leadville with the Windsor Hotel in Denver; both were owned by Tabor. See Duane A. Smith, Horace Tabor: His Life and the Legend (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 1989), 260.

  73 “glowing account”: Alas, this article has not yet come to light.

  74 house on Telegraph Avenue: Glenn Boyer, taped interview with Marjorie Macartney (Josephine’s grandniece), May 27, 1984. As of this writing, the Oakland address at 2703 Telegraph is the forlorn site of an abandoned wig store.

  74 registered at the Washington Hotel in Galveston. In December 1883, Josephine was receiving mail in Galveston as both Mrs. Josephine Earp and Mrs. Sadie Earp. See Galveston Daily News, December 1 and 23, 1883.

  74 had the bad luck to visit Globe: In Suppressed Murder of Wyatt Earp, Glenn Boyer attributes this anecdote to John Gilchriese. In I Married Wyatt Earp: The Recollections of Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1976), 129, Boyer also claims that Wyatt and Johnny Behan had a fistfight in Globe, and that Wyatt “knocked him out cold.”

  77 San Diego native William J. Hunsaker: Hunsaker’s father was sheriff of San Diego County. Hunsaker eventually became district attorney, mayor of San Diego, and president of the Los Angeles Bar Association. He would remain the Earps’ lawyer until his death. See Richard F. Pourade, The History of San Diego (San Diego, Calif.: Union-Tribune, 1960), chapter 13, http://www.sandiegohistory.org/books/

  pourade/glory/glorychapter13.htm.

  82 Josephine returned less often to San Francisco: Garner Palenske and Ben Traywick traced Josephine’s steamship voyages from San Diego to San Francisco in Wyatt Earp in San Diego: Life after Tombstone (Santa Ana, Calif.: Graphic, 2011).

  82 Wyatt’s absences from San Diego grew more frequent: For all of Josephine’s nostalgia for San Diego, there is speculation that Wyatt and Josephine separated briefly during these years. Roger Peterson has pointed out that there is a “Mrs. Earp” listed separately in the city directory, which might lead to the conclusion that Mattie had followed Wyatt there. This would be a remarkable act by the ordinarily passive Mattie. The less dramatic, but more likely, explanation is that Wyatt put the apartment in Josephine’s name, as he once did for Mattie in Tombstone.

  84 the sordid details of Mattie’s death: See Celia Earp Inquest, Arizona Department of Library, Archives Division, Pinal County Inquests,/filmfile 88.6.1. Quoted in Casey Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend (New York: J. Wiley, 1997), 280.

  85 There is no evidence that Baldwin ever owned a yacht, though his daughter did: On July 26, 1916, Clara Baldwin Stocker’s yacht was boarded by English military who were searching for German submarines. On the same journey, Stocker was nearly thrown overboard by the rough seas and lost an expensive diamond. New York Times, July 27, 1916.

  86 “He Is a Dude Now”: Denver Republican, March 14, 1893.

  87 young historian Frederick Jackson Turner: Turner’s thesis has been reviewed, refuted, defended, and revised many times by historians who take him to the woodshed for a myopic view of America, one without women and Native Americans, for instance. That said, the delicious irony of Josephine and Wyatt in close proximity to Turner’s star performance should not be overlooked. See Frederick Jackson Turner, “Social Forces in American History,” presidential address before the American Historical Association, American Historical Review 16 (1910): 217–33; and John Mack Faragher, ed., Rereading Frederick Jackson Turner: The Significance of the Frontier in American History and Other Essays (New York: Holt, 1994).

  CHAPTER 3: THE GREATEST MINING CAMP THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN

  89 the desert outside of Yuma, Arizona: See Mark Dworkin, “Wyatt Earp’s Yuman and Cibola Sojourns,” Western-Outlaw Lawman History Association Journal 14, no. 1 (Spring 2005).

  91 “Fitzsimmons Was Robbed!”: See San Francisco Call, December 3, 1897. The Sharkey-Fitzsimmons fight was held
at the Mechanics’ Pavilion, located at Larkin and Grove Streets, San Francisco, the site of the present Civic Auditorium. The controversy was well covered on the East Coast: see “Sharkey Gets $8500,” New York Times, December 18, 1896. Even now, there is still disagreement among experts as to whether Wyatt made a good call, a bad call, or a corrupt call. For a nuanced reconsideration, see Gary Roberts in The West, November 1971, pp. 10–52.

  94 hunger, fever, dysentery, and scurvy: See E. Hazard Wells and Randall M. Dodd, Magnificence and Misery: A Firsthand Account of the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1984).

  94 Josephine discovered that she was pregnant: Although Josephine was more forthcoming about her wedding on Lucky Baldwin’s yacht than she was about her pregnancies, there is strong evidence for this. The 1897 miscarriage was apparently “family lore,” according to Wyatt’s niece and nephew, Estelle and Bill Miller, and Josephine’s grandniece, Alice Cohen Greenberg, who were interviewed extensively by Glenn Boyer. Jeanne Cason Laing also believed that Josephine had suffered a miscarriage that year, according to Casey Tefertiller.

  94 the stillborn child was a boy: John Flood wrote to Edward Earp on June 10, 1952: “Also, you probably are aware that the children of Wyatt Earp died in infancy; I understood there were two boys.” Assuming that Flood was correct, one likely interpretation would be that one male child died with Aurilla Earp, and the other was Josephine’s stillborn child, although it is possible that both sons could have been Josephine’s lost babies. Ragsdale Collection.

  97 Josephine found a one-room cabin: This may have been the cabin of Rex Beach. His papers are housed in part at his alma mater, Rollins College. Photographs of his cabin at Rampart are in the collection of Candy Waugaman.

  100 1,500 dozen precious eggs: Josephine’s sad story of the Egg Man is verified by a contemporary letter written from Rampart on November 1898: “Last night a man who bought 1500 dozen eggs packed in lard to open a restaurant was found unconscious—a suicide. His eggs were too ancient for use and he could not sell them so he grew despondent.” Herbert Heller Papers, Lynn Smith Correspondence and Letters, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. See also Jack London’s story with a similar plot, “A Thousand Dozen.”

  100 the gateway to the Yukon: The trip was the brainstorm of Erasmus Brainerd, a journalist and later head of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, who believed that Alaska could be critical to the future of Seattle. He brought with him John H. McGraw, the former governor of Washington, and E. M. Carr, a lawyer and brigadier general in the Washington State militia. For histories of the relationship between Seattle and the Klondike gold rush, see Richard C. Berner, Seattle, 1900–1920: From Boom-town Urban Turbulence, to Restoration (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1991); and Paula Mitchell Marks, Precious Dust: The American Gold Rush Era, 1848–1900 (New York: W. Morrow, 1994).

  108 News of the first Nome strikes: See T. H. Carlson, “Discovery of Gold at Nome, Alaska,” Pacific Historical Review 15, no. 3 (September 1946): 163–175.

  109 “from sea-beach to sky-line the landscape was staked”: E. S. Harrison, Nome and Seward Peninsula: A Book of Information about Northwestern Alaska (Seattle: E. S. Harrison, 1905). For a review of the relevant mining laws, see Carl Mayer, “Mining Law: Historical Origins of the Discovery Rule,” University of Chicago Law Review 53, no. 2 (Spring 1986): 624–653.

  112 Nome was struggling to become a habitable city: See L. H. French, “The Beach at Cape Nome,” in Nome Nuggets: Some of the Experiences of a Party of Gold Seekers in Northwestern Alaska in 1900 (New York: Montross, Clarke & Emmons, 1901), 34–44.

  114 Some 1,000 miners were broke and homeless in Nome: There were specific congressional appropriations to subsidize up to $75 for a return ticket home. Samuel C. Dunham, The Yukon and Nome Gold Regions, vol. 5, Bulletin No. 219, July 1900.

  116 Reed’s Blizzard Defier Face Protector: For the comprehensive story of Nome, as well as more on the relationship between Seattle and Nome, see Terrence Cole and Jim Walsh, Nome: City of the Golden Beaches (Anchorage: Alaska Geographic Society, 1984).

  117 Wyatt was “making money”: San Francisco Examiner, November 13, 1899. Gambling was technically illegal in Seattle in 1899, but a more accurate description would be that it was subjectively regulated. For a detailed account of Wyatt’s brief success with the Union Club, see Pamela Potter, “Wyatt Earp in Seattle,” Wild West, October 2007.

  119 Josephine and Wyatt left from Seattle on the Alliance: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer of May 20, 1900, reported, “Wyatt Earp, the well known sporting man of Seattle and San Francisco, took passage on the Alliance for Nome where he operated in business and mining affairs last year. He is accompanied by Mrs. Earp.” The 1900 census was executed aboard the Alliance on June 14. The timing is important, because it establishes the Earps’ whereabouts when Warren Earp was killed.

  119 Josephine entertained herself with gambling: According to Grace Spolidoro, Wyatt complained to his friend Charlie Welsh that Josephine gambled heavily on the boat trips to Alaska.

  120 Alice with her husband Isidore: In the Cason manuscript, Josephine mistakenly recalls her Alaskan guest as her sister Henrietta’s daughter Edna, who was still a child. It was her sister Rebecca’s daughter Alice who came to Nome.

  120 to take stock of dramatic changes: This is a composite description drawn from accounts previously cited from L. H. French, Elizabeth Robbins, George Parsons, and Rex Beach, as well as a contemporary diary by Avaloo Boyd, “Alaska, I Love You,” in Nome’s Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum.

  122 “and you have Nome as it was”: Quoted in Cole and Walsh, Nome, 59.

  124 Fitzsimmons would be fighting in Nome in advance of another bout with Sharkey: Nome Chronicle, September 3, 1900.

  127 ordered Wyatt to get rid of the women: From Roger Peterson’s interview with Alice “Peggy” Greenberg, Josephine’s grandniece, October 13, 1981, Roger S. Peterson Collection.

  128 a second vendetta to avenge Warren: Jeff Morey conclusively demonstrated the impossibility of the Earps being in Arizona in “The Curious Vendetta of Glenn G. Boyer,” Quarterly of the National Association for Outlaw and Lawman History (NOLA) 18, no. 4 (October–December 1994).

  128 Clum quickly revolutionized mail service in Nome: After the personal and often violent attacks he endured in Tombstone, Clum must have treasured the appreciative public in Nome: “General Clum is a man of ripe experience, broad minded and practical,” editorialized the Nome Daily News. “A frontiersman himself, he knows what to do and how to act in meeting emergencies.” See Fred Lockley, History of the First Free Delivery of Mail in Alaska at Nome, Alaska, in 1900 (Seattle: Shorey Book Store, 1966).

  132 Nome accounted for almost half of the total gold output: Alfred H. Brooks, George B. Richardson, and Arthur J. Collier, A Reconnaissance of the Cape Nome and Adjacent Gold Fields of Seward Peninsula, Alaska, in 1900 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1901).

  133 “that I wear as a clip”: Alice “Peggy” Greenberg, interview by Roger S. Peterson, October 13, 1981, Roger S. Peterson Collection.

  133 The mining claims that Wyatt had filed in Josephine’s name: Interestingly, Wyatt was not too famous to have his name misspelled on the documents for the sale of the Dexter or the transfer of the mining claims, which record his name as “Erp.”

  CHAPTER 4: WAITING FOR WYATT

  136 They outfitted themselves for the desert in Los Angeles: See Carl B. Glasscock, Gold in Them Hills: The Story of the West’s Last Wild Mining Days (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1932), one of the best contemporary accounts on life in the boomtowns. Glasscock was subsequently the biographer of Lucky Baldwin. Josephine and Mabel Cason were familiar with his books. See also Jeffrey Kintop and Guy Louis Rocha, The Earps’ Last Frontier: Wyatt and Virgil Earp in the Nevada Mining Camps, 1902–1905 (Reno, Nev.: Great Basin Press, 1989).

  137 “[Wyatt Earp and his wife and A. Martin] are good citizens and we welcome them”: Tonopah Bonanza, February 1, 1902, qu
oted in Chaput, Earp Papers, 189.

  138 Rickard’s reputation soared: See Phillip I. Earl, “Tex Rickard—The Most Dynamic Fight Promoter in History,” Boxing Insider, April 15, 2008, http://www.boxinginsider.com/his tory/tex-rickard-the-most-dynamic-fight-promoter-in-history/.

  139 Halliwell was usually quick to blame Josephine: Halliwell, interview by Bill Oster and Al Turner, Colton, California, September 25, 1971, University of Arizona Special Collections.

  139 noted his obituary in the Goldfield News: Jane was the daughter of Virgil and Jane Sysdam, who were married briefly in 1860 without parental consent. Allie sent Virgil’s body to Jane for burial in Portland, Oregon. See Kintop and Rocha, Earps’ Last Frontier, 40.

  140 only Wyatt was still alive: Both Billy Claiborne and Ike Clanton were killed in shootouts; Claiborne in 1882 and Clanton in 1887.

  142 America’s greatest urban catastrophe: See Philip L. Fradkin, The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906: How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).

  143 “Notorious Marshal Who Disqualified Fitzsimmons Arrested in Raid”: See “Earp’s Faro Plan Fails,” New York Times, July 23, 1911.

  143 John Flood, a young engineering graduate: According to Lynn Bailey, Flood worked in the Los Angeles offices of Seeley Wintersmith Mudd, an eminent geologist and founder of many companies, and father of Seeley G. Mudd, the prolific benefactor of American colleges, libraries, and science buildings.

  146 Wyatt’s earnings declined: One of these checks is in the Ragsdale Collection, drawn on the Central Bank of Oakland. Hildreth Halliwell considered Wyatt a “bitter man” at having to accept these handouts.

  146 Wyatt was paid a management fee: Kirschner interview with Walter Cason, April 10, 2010; Boyer, interview with Louis Siegriest, 1983, Boyer Collection.