4. Chris Penn, “Gunfire in Dodge City: The Night Ed Masterson Was Killed,” Wild West (December 2004), 48–53; Roger Myers, “The Death of Edward John Masterson,” NOLA Journal (April–June 2005): 36–47; Robert Palmquist, “Who Killed Jack Wagner?” True West (October 1993): 14–19.
5. Robert DeArment, Bat Masterson (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1979), 86–140.
6. Dodge City (Kansas) Times, May 18, 1878.
7. Dodge City Times, May 4, 1878.
8. “Atrym” to the editor, June 2, 1878, Rice County Gazette, June 6, 1878.
9. “Atrym” to the editor, June 9, 1878, Rice County Gazette, June 13, 1878; Dodge City Ford County Globe, May 20, 1878.
10. Stanton D. Harn and Gary K. Helin, “Doc Holliday’s Dental Chair,” Journal of the History of Dentistry 47 (March 1999): 7–9; Dodge City Times, June 8, 1878. John Henry’s connection to the Dodge House is also interesting because its owner, George B. Cox, was originally from Butts County, Georgia, the county next to Spalding County, where Doc spent his early years. Cox served in the Fourth Georgia Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War and traveled west afterward, settling in Dodge City in the fall of 1872. A. T. Andreas, History of Kansas (Chicago: A. T. Andreas, 1883), 2: 1561.
11. Robert M. Wright, Dodge City: The Cowboy Capital (Wichita, KS: Wichita Eagle Press, 1913), 249–251. Of course, the story is just a tale, although Wright said only “[o]ne we will call Doc Holliday, the other Creek,” but it is interesting that Holliday was later associated with a man called Turkey Creek Jack Johnson at Tombstone.
12. Ibid.
13. Frank A. Dunn, “Celebrating a Holliday,” Oral Hygiene (September 1933): 1338–1344.
14. Charles C. Lowther, Dodge City, Kansas (Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1940), 26–27.
15. William Barclay Masterson, “Famous Gunfighters of the Western Frontier: Doc Holliday,” Human Life (May 1907): 5–6.
16. Masterson, “Doc Holliday,” 6. Bat claimed that Kansas “was the only state in which he has lived in which he failed to either slay or bodily wound some person.”.
17. Dodge City Times, June 22, 1878.
18. Dodge City Times, June 22, 1878; “Atrym” to the editor, June 24, 1878; Rice County Gazette, June 27, 1878.
19. Ford County Globe, June 26, 1878.
20. Ford County Globe, June 18, 1878.
21. “Atrym” to the editor, July 14, 1878, Rice County Gazette, July 18, 1878, provides the most enlightening account of the killing. See Nyle H. Miller and Joseph W. Snell, Why the West Was Wild: A Contemporary Look at Some Highly Publicized Kansas Cowtown Personalities (Topeka: Kansas State Historical Society, 1963), 273–276, for the Dodge City accounts.
22. City of Dodge City v. C. C. Peppard, Pled Guilty, July 16, 1878, Notes from Docket, Police Judge, City of Dodge City, Kansas, July 5, 1878, to October 5, 1882, William S. Campbell (Stanley Vestal) Collection, Box 96, Western History Collection, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma; C. Robert Haywood, “Comanche County Cowboy: A Case Study of a Kansas Rancher,” Kansas History 4 (Autumn 1981): 166–190; Roger Myers to the author, July 25, 2002.
23. City v. K. M. May, City v. Charles Reed, Police Docket Notes. Reed was a fugitive from Texas wanted for murder, although Earp and other Dodge City authorities apparently did not know it. See List of Fugitives from Justice for the State of Texas and a Descriptive List of Escaped Convicts (Austin, TX: State Printing Office, 1878), 167.
24. Dodge City Times, July 27, 1878; Eddie Foy and Alvin F. Harlow, Clowning through Life (New York: Dutton, 1928), 112–114. The National Police Gazette, August 10, 1878, reported that “Wyatt Erpe [sic], a good fellow and brave officer,” had an altercation with one of the drovers before the incident, but the local papers make no mention of it. Jesse Lincoln Driskill and his brother-in-law, William H. Day, were partners. His son, William Walter Driskill, and his grandsons, J. W. and W. W. (Tobe), would be active in the cattle industry for decades after the Civil War. Tobe would eventually be a cattleman in Wyoming, but in 1878 J. W. and Tobe managed a ranch near Dodge City. Jesse’s in-laws, the Days, were involved as well. Hoy was from Illano County, Texas, and apparently was a drover with a small herd owned by William Day, a partner of the Driskills. The herd was driven north by Charles C. French and his brother, Harrison, connecting to the Driskill operation near Dodge before sale. The Driskill Family Papers, Texas State Archives, Austin, Texas; C. C. French, “When the Temperature Was 72 Degrees below Zero,” in The Trail Drivers of Texas, edited by J. Marvin Hunter and George W. Saunders (San Antonio, TX: Jackson, 1920), 741–743; Frank C. Rigler, “The Joel D. Hoy Story,” The Highlander (January 25, 1973).
25. Dodge City Times, July 27, August 24, 1878; Ford County Globe, July 30, August 27, 1878. The Globe noted, on August 27, that “Messrs. Joe Day, Harrison and Charles French departed on Thursday night for their home in August in Texas. These gentlemen were companions of G. R. Hoy, who died on Wednesday last…. They returned to their homes feeling severely the absence of their companion whom they had just laid away.” See also Casey Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp: The Life behind the Legend (New York: Wiley, 1997), 24–25.
26. “Dr. J. H. Holliday of Dodge City,” Holliday House Gazette 2 (Fall 1997): 6–7; Victoria Wilcox, “A Pocket Dentist Office,” True West 48 (November–December 2001): 45. In a telephone conversation with Dr. David O. Moline in August 2001, Dr. Moline advised the author that the kit was not a gold foil kit as originally reported, but an emergency kit containing a variety of tools.
27. Statement of Wyatt Earp, November 16, 1881, Tombstone Daily Nugget and Tombstone Daily Epitaph, November 17, 1881, San Francisco Examiner, August 2, 1896.
28. Stuart N. Lake, Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931), 213–215.
29. John Flood’s notes of interview with Wyatt Earp, John D. Gilchreise Collection, undated typescript in author’s files. Interestingly—and perhaps significantly—in this simple version, Doc Holliday shot no one. See also John H. Flood Jr., “Wyatt Earp, a Peace-officer of Tombstone,” unpublished manuscript, 1927, 59–62, C. Lee Simmons Collection.
30. Ford County Globe, August 20, 1878. The drover involved was apparently James Kenedy, son of Texas rancher Mifflin Kenedy, and he was arrested by Marshal Charles Bassett. City v. James Kennedy [sic], Police Docket Notes. In October 1878, Kenedy would later be pursued for the murder of Dora Hand. See Chuck Parsons, James W. Kenedy, “Fiend in Human Form” (London: English Westerners Society, 2000), passim. The connection to Kenedy virtually eliminates the August incident as the episode involving Doc saving the life of Earp.
31. Dodge City Times, September 21, 1878; Ford County Globe, September 17, 24, 1878. For background, see Vernon R. Maddux, In Dull Knife’s Wake: The True Story of the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878 (Norman, OK: Horse Creek, 2003), 19–18, and John H. Monnett, Tell Them We Are Going Home: The Odyssey of the Northern Cheyennes (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004), 44–103.
32. Dodge City Times, September 21, 1878.
33. Lake, Frontier Marshal, 209.
34. The Ford County Globe was not happy with local law enforcement and published several articles criticizing the officers’ failure to control confidence men and pick pockets. See Ford County Globe, September 10, 14, 17, 1878. News that the Cheyennes were pushing through Ford County followed close by. The Dodge City Times, September 14, 1878, initially called the raid a hoax, but when the Cheyennes raided the Driskill camp at the mouth of Bluff Creek on September 16, the Driskill riders and other cattlemen in Dodge went after them early on the morning of September 17. Ford County Globe, September 17, 1878. They linked forces with Captain William C. Hemphill’s company of cavalry and later engaged the Cheyennes in a sharp fight. Afterward, the officer chose not to pursue the Cheyennes further, believing their numbers to be too great, which generated some complaints from the cowboys. On Wednesday evening, September 18, the Driskill riders returned to Dodge. That was the day when the excitement over the raid reached fever pitch in Dodge, t
hrowing “the people of Dodge into the wildest tremor.” Dodge City Times, September 21, 1878. In the afternoon, the report of a fire west of Dodge sent a trainload of armed men to the rescue. They reached the scene, the farm of Harrison Beery, and managed to save some of the haystacks and animals from the fire. Wyatt Earp was one of the principals in the effort. Dodge City Times, September 21. That evening, there was a quarrel between Al Manning, a bartender, and Jack Brown, a former policeman, in which a bystander was wounded by a gunshot. Dodge City Times, September 21, 1878; Ford County Globe, September 24, 1878. On September 19, 1878, Hemphill’s troops arrived in Dodge. The incident described as a “disgraceful row” occurred that afternoon. Some believe that this was the occasion of Clay Allison’s second visit to Dodge. See Roger Myers, “Western Lore: When Shootist Clay Allison Came to Dodge Hunting Trouble, He Found Wyatt Earp … Sort of,” Wild West (December 2000): 60–64. Later in the evening the incident occurred that appears to have been the one in which Doc saved Wyatt Earp’s life. It may have been a dispute between the drovers and the soldiers. The Las Animas (Colorado) Leader, September 20, made the incident seem a bit bloodier than the Dodge City papers, recording, “A shooting affray occurred here [Dodge City] last night between saloon keepers and cowboys in which one man was shot in the back, which is believed will prove fatal, another man came out with three fingers shot off, and the third man, a soldier, was rewarded for participation in the trouble by receiving a 36 calibre in the leg.” Nothing of the sort was reported in the Dodge City papers. Ed Morrison, mentioned by Earp in his accounts, was in the area riding with the Days. See Ed Bartholomew, Wyatt Earp: The Untold Story (Toyahvale, TX: Frontier Book, 1963), 264–278. Near midnight, the same night, a bullwhacker named H. Gould, but called Skunk Curley, shot another man named Cogan and skipped town before he could be arrested. Dodge City Times, September 21, 1878. It was all of this activity that prompted the Globe’s observation on September 24, 1878, which was critical of the officers.
35. Dodge City Times, August 10, 1878.
36. New York Sun, June 3, 1886. This article was widely reprinted. For example, see Denver Times, June 15, 1886, Valdosta Daily Times, June 19, 1886, and San Francisco Call, June 20, 1886. Substantiation of the claim is far from definitive. Roger Myers to the author, July 14, 2002, and William R. Cox, Luke Short and His Era (New York: Doubleday, 1961), 63, prove helpful. Charles Wright was a common name. A Charles Wright was with the defenders of Adobe Walls in 1874 (most of whom were from Dodge City). Miller and Snell, Why the West Was Wild, 316. David Cruikshanks to Susan McKey Thomas, March 2, 1976, Susan McKey Thomas Collection, provided more detail, although documentation is sparse.
37. Arthur W. Bork and Glenn G. Boyer, “The O.K. Corral Fight at Tombstone: A Footnote by Kate Elder,” Arizona and the West 19 (Spring 1977): 76; Masterson, “Doc Holliday,” 5; Sheila M. Rothman, Living in the Shadow of Death: Tuberculosis and the Social Experience of Illness in American History (New York: Basic, 1994), 16.
38. Masterson, “Doc Holliday,” 5; Flood notes of interview with Wyatt Earp, September 5, 1926, Wyatt Earp, Tombstone and the West, from the Collection of John D. Gilchriese, part 1 (San Francisco: Johns’ Western Gallery, 2005), 71.
39. Bork and Boyer, “O.K. Corral Fight,” 76; Chuck Hornung, interview by Mary Lail, Chuck Hornung Collection, copy in author’s files.
40. Milton W. Callon, Las Vegas: The Town That Wouldn’t Gamble (Las Vegas, NM: Las Vegas Daily Optic, 1962), 126–131.
41. Las Vegas (New Mexico) Gazette, September 14, 1878; Territory of New Mexico v. W. S. Leonard, Case No. 962, Assault with Intent to Murder, March 14, 1879, San Miguel County District Court Records, Las Vegas, New Mexico. New Mexico v. W. S. Leonard, Case No. 973, Carrying Deadly Weapons, March 15, 1879, SMCDCR, Las Vegas, New Mexico, New Mexico State Records Center and Archives, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Most accounts state that Doc’s office and Leonard’s store were in a two-story building on Bridge Street near the plaza. However, during the time that Leonard was in Las Vegas, there were no two-story buildings on the National Road, and Bridge Street did not yet exist. Marcus Gottschalk to the author, October 2, 2004.
42. New Mexico v. John H. Holliday, Case No. 931, Keeping Gaming Table, March 8, 1879, SMCDCR, Las Vegas, New Mexico, NMSRCA.
43. Kate is quiet in her recollections about this separation, but there were contemporary accounts placing her in Santa Fe for a time. See Las Vegas (New Mexico) Daily Optic, July 20, 1881.
44. DeArment, Masterson, 148–154, and Floyd Benjamin Streeter, Ben Thompson: Man with a Gun (New York: Frederick Fell, 1957), 129–140, provide accounts of the “war” from the perspectives of two principals. For a more detailed account, see Robert G. Athearn, Rebel of the Rockies: A History of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1962), 49–90.
45. Wright, Cowboy Capitol, 175.
46. Foy and Harlow, Clowning through Life, 102–104.
47. DeArment, Masterson, 149–150.
48. Ibid.
49. Otero (New Mexico) Optic, June 5, 1879.
50. Precinct 6, Colfax County Tax Assessment Rolls, 1891, quoted in Chuck Hornung, “Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday: Their New Mexico Adventures,” draft copy, 2005, with permission of the author.
51. Otero Optic, June 5, 1879; Bartholomew, Untold Story, 294–295; Ed Bartholomew, Wyatt Earp: The Man and the Myth (Toyahvale, TX: Frontier Book, 1964), 24–25.
52. Otero Optic, June 5, 1879.
53. Bartholomew, Man and Myth, 25; James E. Sherman and Barbara H. Sherman, Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of New Mexico (Norman: University of New Mexico Press, 1975), 166. Sam Baldwin provided an interesting description of Hurricane Bill. He said that Bill’s sponsor in Otero was Ed Withers, a former Texas badman who ran a livery stable in Otero. Withers was killed, and Bill took off. Baldwin said that Bill later became marshal at Alamosa and died there. Hervey E. Chesley, Adventuring with the Old Timers: Trails Travelled—Tales Told (Midland, TX: Nita Stewart Haley Memorial Library, 1979), 93–94.
54. Tom Hilton, Nevermore, Cimarron, Nevermore (Fort Worth, TX: Western Heritage, 1970), 80.
55. Ford County Globe, June 10, 1878; DeArment, Masterson, 151–152. The night the Dodge City fighters left for Canon City another incident occurred that matched the description of the episode in which Doc saved Wyatt’s life: “Last night the police undertook to disarm a squad of cow boys who had neglected to lay aside their six-shooters upon arriving in the city. The cow boys protested and war was declared. Several shots were fired, and one of the cow boys was wounded in the leg. The balance of the cow boys made their escape.” Ford County Globe, June 10, 1879. Of course, Doc had left earlier in the day with the Santa Fe fighters, and the surrounding circumstances do not fit Earp’s recollections.
56. Robert DeArment, “Tough Irish Lawman,” True West 39 (June 1992): 26–33; Gary L. Roberts, “Thomas James Smith,” in The New Encyclopedia of the American West, edited by Howard R. Lamar (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 1060–1061.
57. Dodge City Times, June 14, 1879; Ford County Globe, June 10, 1878; Victoria Wilcox to the author, August 28, 2001.
58. Dodge City Times, June 14, 1879; Ford County Globe, June 24, July 8, 1879; see also Roger Myers, “John Joshua Webb: From Lawman to Death Row,” Old West 36 (Winter 1999): 21–22.
59. George D. Bolds, Across the Cimarron (New York: Crown, 1956), 71.
60. Transcript of Recollections of Mary Katharine Cummings as Given to Anton Mazzanovich, 5, Kevin J. Mulkins Collection.
61. John Myers Myers, Doc Holliday (Boston: Little, Brown, 1955), 112.
62. Las Vegas Daily Optic, June 19, 1879. For a brief survey of Otero’s fate, see F. Stanley, The Otero, New Mexico, Story (Pantex, TX: N.p., 1962).
63. Las Vegas Daily Optic, August 7, 1908.
64. Howard Bryan, Wildest of the West: True Tales of a Frontier Town on the Sante Fe Trail (Sante Fe, NM: Clear Light, 1988), 98–101.
65. After returning from Dodge, Doc
purchased property on Center Street from Thomas L. Preston and contracted with W. G. Ward, a track follower and builder, to construct a saloon. Jordan Webb, quite possibly another Santa Fe Railroad mercenary enlisted by John Joshua Webb, Doc’s Dodge City acquaintance, apparently bought into the operation as well. The original purchase appears to have escaped documentation, but on October 8, 1879, Ward filed a claim of his contract in an effort to collect $137.50 outstanding on the debt. Such a contract is rare in the deed books and was occasioned by legal action against “Mr Hollyday commonlay called Doc Holyday [sic].” Because the contract shows the first payment of $45.00 on July 20, 1879, some researchers have assumed that July 20 was the date authorizing construction yet to be done and that the saloon was not operational on that date. See especially Karen Holliday Tanner, Doc Holliday: A Family Portrait (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998), 133. However, the contract explicitly states that the payment is for “work done,” which means that the Center Street saloon was already open on July 20. Deed Record Book 11, San Miguel County, 449–450, Las Vegas, New Mexico. The author is indebted to Marcus C. Gottschalk, the leading authority on Las Vegas businesses, for helping to unravel this mystery. Gottschalk to the author, October 16, 2004. See especially, Marcus C. Gottschalk, Pioneer Merchants of Las Vegas, 2nd ed. (Las Vegas, NM: M. C. Gottschalk, 2004), 88.
66. Bartholomew, Man and Myth, 9–10; Las Vegas Daily Gazette, July 26, 1879; Santa Fe New Mexican, August 2, 1879.
67. Las Cruces Thirty-Four, July 30, 1879; Las Vegas Daily Optic, July 20, 1881.
68. Las Vegas Daily Optic, May 18, 1882.
69. Las Vegas Daily Optic, August 4, 1886, reprinted in the Tucson Weekly Arizona Citizen, August 14, 1886.
70. Bryan, Wildest of West, 108–113; Bartholomew, Man and Myth, 8–36; Las Vegas Daily Optic, July 20, 1881. Brown had earlier plied his trade as a gambler in Wichita and Dodge City, even then viewed as “one of the worst class of gamblers,” said a Las Vegas correspondent to the Chicago Times in March 1880, quoted in Bryan, Wildest of West, 109.
Doc Holliday Page 56
