26. San Franciso Examiner, May 28, 1882.
27. Tucson Weekly Citizen, February 13, 1881.
28. Tucson (Arizona) Weekly Star, February 17, March 10, 1881. This was in response to Governor Frémont’s recommendation to create a volunteer company of one hundred men to patrol the back country; the Star thought this force too small. See George H. Kelly, Legislative History of Arizona, 1864–1912 (Phoenix, AZ: Manufacturing Stationers, 1926), 98–101; see also Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp, 72–75.
29. San Diego Union, August 26, 1881.
30. L. Wollenburg to the editor, Prescott Miner, February 23, 1881.
31. San Francisco Daily Report, November 2, 1881.
32. Tombstone Daily Nugget, June 9, 1881; Tucson Weekly Star, June 16, 23, 1881.
33. Denver Republican, May 22, 1882.
34. Lynn R. Bailey, “Too Tough to Die”: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Silver Camp, 1878 to 1990 (Tucson, AZ: Westernlore, 2004), 126–127.
35. Allen, et al., Owners of the Last Decision Mine v. Intervenor Mining Co., Marcus A. Smith and J. L. Lisle Account Books, 2:89, 98–106.
36. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, August 11, 1881; William B. Shillingberg, Tombstone, A. T.: A History of Early Mining, Milling, and Mayhem (Spokane, WA: Clark, 1999), 226; Ed Bartholomew, Wyatt Earp: The Man and the Myth (Toyahvale, TX: Frontier Book, 1964), 188–189.
37. Silver City Grant County Herald and New Southwest, July 30, 1881.
38. Tucson Daily Star, August 3, 1881; Tombstone Daily Nugget, August 3, 1881; Major General Orlando B. Willcox to U.S. Attorney General, attached to letter from U.S. Attorney General to Dake, August 10, 1881; J. W. Evans to Dake, August 4, 1881; Dake to Attorney General, August 5, 1881, DJ, RG 60, NARA.
39. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, August 5, 1881, reprinting the article from the Tucson Daily Citizen. Jose Otero to Frémont, August 6, 1881, including letters from Pedro Gutierrez to Otero, August 6, 1881, and Luis Torres to Frémont, August 6, 1881, enclosed with Dake to Attorney General, August 16, 1881, DJ, RG 60, NARA.
40. V. Morales to Wilcox, August 12, Records of the Department of the Secretary of the Interior, RG 48, NARA; Tombstone Daily Epitaph, August 13, 1881.
41. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, August 13, 14, 1881. Shillingberg, Tombstone, A. T., 228–229, was the first scholar to use Mexican records, citing the file “Campana contra los Tejanos o Cow-boys,” from the Biblioteca y Museo de Sonoro Archivo Historico, Hermosilla, Sonora, Mexico, which expands knowledge of the Cow-Boy problem from the Mexican perspective.
42. Arizona Weekly Star, August 25, 1881, reprinting the article from the Tombstone Daily Nugget, August 16, 1881.
43. San Diego Union, August 18, 1881, citing the article from the Tombstone Daily Epitaph, August 16, 1881, and the San Diego Union, August 20, 1881; citing an undated article from the Tucson Arizona Weekly Star. See also Greaves to S. M. Ashenfelter, August 17, 1881, Silver City Grant County Herald and New Southwest, August 20, 1881.
44. The critical accounts are the statements of Billy Byers, who survived the affair, published in the Tucson Daily Star, September 1, 1881, and John Plesant Gray, When All Roads Led to Tombstone, edited by W. Lane Rogers (Boise, ID: Tamarack Press, 1998), 54–56.
45. Kelton, AAG, to Adjutant General, August 22, 1881, Records of the Office of the Adjutant General, RG 94, NARA; see also Sacramento Record-Union, August 19, 1881.
46. Tombstone Daily Nugget, August 20, 1881.
47. Ibid.
48. Clara Spalding Brown to the editor, August 23, 1881, San Diego Union, August 28, 1881.
49. George Whitwell Parsons, Private Journal of George W. Parsons (Tombstone, AZ: Tombstone Epitaph, 1972), 170.
50. San Francisco Daily Report, August 23, 1881.
51. San Diego Union, August 20, 1881.
52. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, August 19, 1881.
53. Evans to Dake, August 5, 11, 1881, DJ, RG 60, NARA.
54. Tombstone Daily Nugget, September 7, 1881.
55. Silver City Grant County Herald and New Southwest, September 3, 1881.
56. Alward White to Abner Tibbetts, Collector of Customs, El Paso, Texas, September 28, 1881; White to H. L. Williams, September 28, 1881, USCS, RG 36, NARA.
57. Parsons, Journal, 170.
58. Gray, All Roads, 65. The Tucson Daily Star, September 1, 1881, offered a cogent analysis of what happened: “There is little room to doubt that the Mexicans who assailed the party killed, believed them to be cow-boys, who only a few days previous had made an attack on a small party of Mexicans in Sonora who were en route to Arizona. Be this as it may, the evidence is strong that at least some of the number killed were not to be classed as the best of citizens and were given to pilfering cattle.” If the cattle were being driven east to west on the American side of the line, the twists and turns in the canyons would have brought them to within sight of the Mexican border at the point of the attack, which would have given the Mexicans reason to believe that the herd was being driven south to north.
59. The evidence is overwhelming that the Guadalupe Canyon affair was carried out by Mexican regulars. Byers, Earnshaw, and Gray all said that Mexicans were the attackers. A photograph of Old Man Clanton given to the Byers family bears the inscription on the reverse, “Mr. Clanton killed on Aug 13—81 by Mexicans with 4 other Americans in Guadalupe Canon [sic] New Mexico,” and was signed by Ike and Fin Clanton. Another photograph of Will G. Lang similarly bears the inscription, “Will G. Lang Killed by Mexicans—Animas Valley New Mexico Aug 13, 1881 together with Gray, Cranton, Clanton, and Snow & Byers wounded.” It is unlikely that Ike and Fin Clanton would have so inscribed a photograph of their father had they had any suspicion that the Earps were involved in their father’s death. The first indication that the Earps and Doc were involved in the attack is found in the letter of William R. McLaury to his brother-in-law, David D. Appelgate, November 19, 1881, William R. McLaury Letters, New-York Historical Society, New York City, New York. McLaury told his brother-in-law concerning his brothers’ deaths, “The cause of the murder was this[:] some time ago Holliday one of the murderers attempted to rob the express of Wells Fargo & Co. and in so doing shot and killed a stage driver and a passenger and the other parties engaged in the murder with him the Earp brothers were interested in the attempt at Exp. Robbery and young Clanton who was killed, a boy 18 years old knew the facts about the attempted robbery and had told his brother J. I. Clanton and Thos and Robt and they had got up facts intending to prossecute [sic] Holliday and the Earp Bros … had information of it. It is now known that two other men who knew of the murder in the attempted robbery have since then been killed in Mexico. The report was by ‘Greasers’ but at the time they were killed Holliday was out of town ‘said to be visiting Georgia.’ There will be an indictment agst Holliday and I think two of the Earps and one Williams fore the murders in the attempted robbery.” The context of the letter indicates that McLaury had been given this information by locals. Since Ike Clanton is not known to have ever made any such claim, the most logical clue is provided by Jack Ganzhorn, I’ve Killed Men (New York: Devin, Adair, 1959), 27. Ganzhorn’s book is a curiosity and has been generally discredited because Ganzhorn made claims that the facts of his life show to be false. However, his family was in the area, and he was in the position to have heard family stories. The story he provides concerning the Guadalupe Canyon affair has a coherence that makes it likely that his story came to him from his family. Ganzhorn claimed that Milt Joyce accused the Earps and Doc Holliday of involvement in the Benson stage robbery and that the death of Jim Crane enabled the Earps to “rest easy” because “[t]here was no man left alive to testify to their complicity in the Sandy Bob holdup and murder of Bud Philpot [sic].” Joyce also allegedly said that the Earps were out of town at the time of the Guadalupe Canyon affair hunting outlaws. Ganzhorn added, “Milt Joice’s [sic] talk was made publicly in the barroom of the Oriental and was not challenged by any one of the Earp clan.” Considering Joyce’s troubles with Holliday and t
he Earps and his involvement in Kate’s accusations against Doc in July, the story is not only plausible but probable. The rumors were wrong, as the hard evidence shows, but they fed local suspicions among enemies of the Earps, although curiously none of the later critics of the Earps—Hancock, Gray, Breakenridge—made such claims. Wayne Montgomery, who claimed to have been the grandson of John Montgomery, “I Witnessed the O.K. Corral Fight,” True West 18 (1971): 18–19, 60–64, and “quoting” from his grandfather’s alleged diary, revived the story that the Earps killed Old Man Clanton and the others in Skeleton Canyon. He repeated the claim in Carl W. Breihan and Wayne Montgomery, Forty Years on the Wild Frontier (Greenwich, CT: Devin-Adair, 1985), 68–69. Montgomery was eventually exposed as a fraud, but the story had resurfaced. Glenn G. Boyer later picked up the idea of the Earps killing Old Man Clanton in “Welcome to Earp Country,” Arizona Highways 58 (November 1982): 10, and developed it further in his Wyatt Earp’s Tombstone Vendetta (Honolulu, HI: Talai, 1993), 111–121, in both cases in an abbreviated and limited fashion. Others followed his lead, including Ben T. Traywick, John Henry (The “Doc” Holliday Story) (Tombstone, AZ: Red Marie’s Bookstore, 1996), 107–108, and Karen Holliday Tanner, Doc Holliday: A Family Portrait (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998), 155–157, 282–284n. The most elaborate presentation of the argument, although not necessarily the most convincing, is found in Michael M. Hickey, John Ringo: The Final Hours—A Tale of the Old West (Honolulu, HI: Talai, 1995), 377–452. Tanner presents the most complete summary of the circumstantial case, mentioning the McLaury letter and the claim of Dr. T. H. Smith of Valdosta, Georgia, that Doc returned home and stayed for several days with “the shade drawn and the doors closed.” Quoted in the letter of Vera D. Hagen, President of the Lowndes County Historical Society, to Philip Rasch, January 15, 1972, Philip J. Rasch Collection, Box 2, Arizona Historical Society, Tucson, Arizona. (Smith’s claim does not mention a particular time frame for the visit, and Tanner does note that no family sources indicate that Doc ever returned to Georgia.) Tanner also cites references that suggest Warren Earp was wounded in a fight and returned to his parents’ home in Colton, California, to recover, including a letter said to have been written by Adelia Earp Edwards, the sister of the Earp brothers, that Warren was in California recovering from a gunshot wound received in a fight on the border when the October street fight occurred. This letter, said to have been in the Alford E. Turner Collection, was not found in the collection when it was acquired by C. Lee Simmons. Finally, Tanner cites the telegram of Marshal Dake to the Attorney General, August 5, 1881, DJ, RG 60, NARA, which indicated that a posse was in the field chasing outlaws and asserts that it was known to be “Earp-led,” although that is by no means clear from the documents. In the end, the testimony of eyewitnesses and others close to the victims outweighs the rumors fostered by bitter enemies of the Earps like McLaury and Joyce and the pattern of circumstantial evidence offered by advocates of this conspiracy theory. Gatto, Real Earp, 97n, a writer generally critical of Wyatt Earp, concludes, “In recent years some authors have expressed the bizarre belief that the Guadalupe Canyon massacre was carried out by the Earps and a large posse under their command. The historical record shows beyond doubt that this scenario is without merit [italics added].” See also Casey Tefertiller, “Resolving Earp Myths,” NOLA Quarterly 21 (October–December 1997): 5–8.
60. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, August 19, 1881.
61. Tombstone Daily Epigraph, August 16, 1881.
62. Ibid.
63. Tombstone Daily Nugget, September 10, 1881; Tombstone Daily Epitaph, September 10, 1881; Shillingberg, Tombstone, A. T., 232–234; Peter Brand, “Sherman W. McMaster(s): The El Paso Salt War, Texas Rangers, and Tombstone,” WOLA Journal 8 (Winter 1999): 8–12.
64. Gosper to Attorney General, September 30, 1881, DJ, RG 60, NARA.
65. Tombstone Daily Nugget, September 7, 16, 1881.
66. San Francisco Daily Report, September 20, 1881.
67. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, August 13, 1881.
68. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, September 10, 13, 1881; Tombstone Daily Nugget, September 13, 1881.
69. Tombstone Daily Nugget, October 27, 1881; Tombstone Daily Epitaph, October 27, 1881.
70. Testimony of Virgil Earp, quoted in Alford E. Turner, ed., The O.K. Corral Inquest (College Station, TX: Creative, 1981), 196.
71. Statement of Wyatt Earp, quoted in Turner, O.K. Corral Inquest, 158–159.
72. San Diego Union, August 26, 1881.
73. Ibid. On August 28, the Tucson Daily Citizen identified Morgan Earp as a member of the “top and bottom” gang. Although Morg spent time in Benson, he was not a part of the gang and had served as an officer in Benson. See Las Vegas Daily Optic, May 24, 1882; see also Bartholomew, Man and Myth, 219.
74. San Francisco Daily Report, September 13, 1881.
75. Parsons, Journal, 183–184.
76. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, October 13, 1881; Tombstone Daily Nugget, October 13, 1881.
77. Tucson Weekly Star, October 20, 1881; see also Tombstone Daily Epitaph, October 14, 1881; Tombstone Daily Nugget, October 14, 1884.
78. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, October 14, 1881; Tucson Daily Star, October 19, 1881; Testimony of Virgil Earp, quoted in Turner, O.K. Corral Inquest, 190.
79. Mary Katharine Cummings, typescript of recollections prepared by Anton Mazzanovich, 13–14, Kevin J. Mulkins Collection. On September 1, 1881, a cashier’s check was drawn on the Pima County Bank for $25 made out to Kate Holliday, which is strong evidence that Kate and Doc were together at the time the festival opened. This important document was discovered by Bernice Cosulich, the Tucson historian, among the papers of George Amos of Tucson. A feature article in the Tucson Arizona Daily Star, December 13, 1953, included a reproduction of the check. The Amos Collection is now housed at the Arizona Historical Society at Tucson, but the check was not located by the Society’s staff during the research for this book. The check is also reproduced in Ben T. Traywick, John Henry (the “Doc” Holliday Story) (Tombstone, AZ: Red Marie’s Bookstore, 1996), 140, without attribution or commentary.
80. Tucson Daily Citizen, August 28, 1881.
81. Given the time frame, this would be near the end of the San Augustin festival or after it closed.
82. The Tombstone Daily Nugget, October 2, 1881, indicates that Doc left Tombstone on October 1.
83. Arthur W. Bork, notes of interview with Mary Katharine Cummings, Thanksgiving 1935, copy in author’s files, courtesy Arthur W. Bork.
84. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, October 20, 1881. The article said that the “well known sporting man” returned home to find “the woman he was living with in company with another man, and suspecting improper intimacy between them, at once commenced beating and abusing the woman in a most brutal manner,” after which he left town and had not been heard from at the time the article was printed. Timothy W. Fattig, Wyatt Earp: The Biography (Honolulu, HI: Talei, 2002), 349–350, concludes that the sporting man was Doc. According to Kate’s account this was during the time that she and Doc were in Tucson. Kate told Bork that “she never feared him.” In fact, she told him, “I went in to see once where he was with another woman. I had a big knife with me and said that I’d rip her open.” He came away from her, Kate said, “because I wasn’t afraid of him.”.
85. Cummings, Mazzanovich typescript, 14–15; Tucson Weekly Star, October 20, 1881.
86. Testimony of Virgil Earp, Tombstone Daily Nugget and Tombstone Daily Epitaph, November 20, 1881. Virgil said, “Wyatt Earp had been sworn in to act in my place while I was in Tucson, and on my return his saloon [Oriental] was opened and I appointed him a ‘Special,’ to keep the peace, with power to make arrest.”.
87. Statement of Wyatt Earp, Tombstone Daily Nugget and Tombstone Daily Epitaph, November 17, 1881.
88. Cummings, Bork typescript, 6.
89. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, October 23, 25, 1881; Tombstone Daily Nugget, October 25, 1881.
90. El Paso (
Texas) Lone Star, October 26, 29, 1881; see also Behan Financial Report, February 16, 1882, F.298, Cochise County Records, AHS.
91. Testimony of Ike Clanton, Tombstone Daily Nugget, November 13, 1881; Johnson, “McLaurys,” 8–9; McLaury to Appelwhite, November 9, 1881, McLaury Letters.
92. In his testimony before the coroner’s inquest, Ike said the confrontation took place at the Occidental lunch room; in his testimony at the Spicer hearing, he said that the incident took place at the Eagle Brewery Saloon, as well as at the Alhambra, where the confrontation actually occurred. Tombstone Daily Nugget, November 13, 1881. It is worth noting that Doc worked at the Alhambra, so that it is presumptuous to claim, as some have done, that Doc went into the Alhambra looking for trouble. Indeed, it could be argued that Ike going into a known haunt of Holliday’s was the provocative act. A more likely scenario is that when he came into the saloon and spotted Clanton, Holliday approached him because of the conversation he had had with Wyatt.
93. Dodge, Under Cover, 26.
94. Testimony of Ike Clanton, Tombstone Daily Nugget, November 13, 1881.
95. Statement of Wyatt Earp, Tombstone Daily Nugget and Tombstone Daily Epitaph, November 17, 1881.
96. Testimony of Ike Clanton, Tombstone Daily Nugget, November 13, 1881.
97. Statement of Wyatt Earp, Tombstone Daily Nugget and Tombstone Daily Epitaph, November 17, 1881; Tombstone Daily Epitaph, October 27, 1881.
98. Statement of Wyatt Earp, Tombstone Daily Nugget and Tombstone Daily Epitaph, November 17, 1881.
99. Ibid.
100. Testimony of Virgil Earp, Tombstone Daily Nugget and Tombstone Daily Epitaph, November 20 and 23, 1881.
101. Ibid.
7. The Fremont Street Fiasco
1. Testimony of Ike Clanton and Ned Boyle, Doc. No. 94, the Wells Spicer Hearing, the original transcript of Document No. 94, in Justice’s Court, Township No. 1, Cochise County, A. T., before Wells Spicer, J. P., Territory of Arizona v. Morgan Earp et al., Defendants, has been lost. During the Great Depression, the original document was edited as a Works Progress Administration project by Pat Hayhurst, who appears to have produced a less than accurate transcription of the document. He summarized material rather than presenting a verbatim transcript, and witnesses were not presented in correct order. Two typescripts of the document exist, while the original transcript was lost. Alford E. Turner, ed., The O.K. Corral Inquest (College Station, TX: Creative, 1981) is a published version of Hayhurst, but it contains differences from the Hayhurst typescripts as well as from the newspaper accounts. Both the Tombstone (Arizona) Daily Epitaph and the Tombstone (Arizona) Daily Nugget carried the testimony as well, although there are differences between them. To gain the best understanding of the testimony, it is necessary to compare the Hayhurst, the Epitaph, and the Nugget. For simplicity and ease of reference, I have used the newspaper accounts as the closest to the original documents. In some instances, I have used the Hayhurst because the newspaper sources do not include some of the testimony. Pat Hayhurst, ed., “Transcript of Papers Related to Territory of Arizona vs. Morgan Earp, et al., Defendants,” Arizona W.P.A. Project, copy in author’s files, courtesy Robert N. Mullin.
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