3. Tombstone (Arizona) Daily Nugget, December 3, 1881.
4. William R. McLaury to D. D. Appelgate, November 9, 1881; McLaury to Mrs. M. F. Appelgate, November 17, December 9, 1881, William R. McLaury Papers, New-York Historical Society, New York, New York; Tombstone Daily Nugget, December 1, 1881. The Nugget had a point. W. A. Harwood, Marshall Williams, Sylvester B. Comstock, John D. Kinnear, Oscar F. Thornton, Dave Calisher, Thomas R. Sorin, and Lewis W. Blinn were all identified with the pro-Earp business faction in Tombstone.
5. McLaury to Appelgate, December 9, 1881, McLaury Papers.
6. McLaury to Appelgate, November 17, 1881, McLaury Letters.
7. Mrs. J. C. Collier to editor, Kansas City Star, reprinted in the Tombstone Epitaph, December 30, 1881. “Millie” Collier was the sister-in-law of John Collier, who was superintendent of the Boston Mill in 1881. According to the Tombstone Daily Epitaph, January 21, 1937, Joseph C. Collier, his wife, and his two daughters came to Tombstone in 1881 because of Joseph Collier’s health and the desire to be closer to his brother. Millie Collier and her daughter Josie were at the scene of the street fight. The author is indebted to Lynn Bailey and Woody Campbell for providing information about the Collier family.
8. William B. Shillingberg, Tombstone, A. T.: A History of Early Mining, Milling, and Mayhem (Spokane, WA: Clark, 1999), 283–284.
9. John J. Gosper to Crawley P. Dake, November 28, 1881, General Records of the Department of Justice, Record Group 60, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC.
10. Dake to S. F. Phillips, Acting Attorney General, December 3, 1881, RG 60, NARA.
11. Gosper to President Chester A. Arthur, December 12, 1881, Department of Justice, Chronological President Files, RG 60, NARA; Larry D. Ball, The United States Marshals of New Mexico and Arizona Territories, 1846–1912 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1978), 121–126; John P. Clum, Apache Days and Tombstone Nights: John Clum’s Autobiography, 1877–1887. Edited by Neal B. Carmony (Silver City, NM: High-Lonesome, 1997), 62–64; Casey Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp: The Life behind the Legend (New York: Wiley, 1997), 163–164.
12. John P. Clum, “It All Happened at Tombstone,” Arizona Historical Review 2 (October 1929): 55–62.
13. Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp, 165–166, provides a convenient and balanced summary of the sources.
14. Clum, “It All Happened at Tombstone,” 56.
15. Tombstone Daily Nugget, as reprinted in the Tucson (Arizona) Weekly Star, December 22, 1881.
16. William M. Breakenridge, Helldorado: Bringing the Law to the Mesquite (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1928), 154–155.
17. Tombstone Daily Nugget, December 16, 1881.
18. Breakenridge, Helldorado, 155; see also Joe Chisholm, “Tombstone’s Tale (the Truth of Helldorado,” 98–99, unpublished manuscript, circa 1938, Jack Burrows Collection. Chisholm confused the chronology, but he made the interesting observation that “the Earps, cold-blooded Wyatt especially, had incited Holliday to kill a man (Joyce) they were afraid to go up against themselves. The manner in which Wyatt in his so-called autobiography (Frontier Marshal) sneers at the memory of Holliday would seem to lend credence to that surmise.”
19. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, December 18, 1881.
20. Tombstone Daily Nugget, December 15, 1881.
21. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, December 18, 1881; see also Lynn R. Bailey, A Tale of the “Unkilled”: The Life, Times, and Writings of Wells W. Spicer (Tucson, AZ: Westernlore, 1999), 127–130.
22. James Reilly to the editor, December 20, 1881, Tombstone Daily Nugget, December 21, 1881.
23. Ibid. Reilly’s history of trouble with the Earps doubtlessly affected the public response to his comments.
24. “A Card” from E. F. Boyle, Tombstone Weekly Epitaph, December 26, 1881; see also Shillingberg, Tombstone, A. T., 289, and Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp, 167–173.
25. San Francisco Daily Exchange, December 20, 1881.
26. Clara Spalding Brown to the editor, December 7, 1881, San Diego Union, December 13, 1881.
27. Shillingberg, Tombstone, A.T., 290–291.
28. Breakenridge, Helldorado, 155–156.
29. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, December 30, 1881.
30. Forrestine C. Hooker, “An Arizona Vendetta (the Truth about Wyatt Earp—and Some Others),” 46, unpublished manuscript, circa 1920, Southwest Museum, Los Angeles, California.
31. Tombstone Daily Nugget, November 4, 1881; Tombstone Daily Nugget, reprinted in Los Angeles Daily Herald, November 16, 1881.
32. Dake to Phillips, December 3, 1881, Department of Justice, RG 60, NARA.
33. James D. Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789–1908, X (New York: Bureau of National Literature, 1897–1915): 4688–9.
34. Entry for December 28, 1881, Parsons, Journal, 202.
35. Ibid., 202–203.
36. Ibid; see also Frank Waters, “Tombstone Travesty,” unpublished manuscript, 1934, Frank Waters Collection, University of New Mexico Library, Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Allie Earp repeats this statement.
37. Entry for December 29, 1881, Parsons, Journal, 203.
38. Phoenix (Arizona) Herald, December 30, 1881; Weekly Arizona Miner, December 30, 1881.
39. Phoenix Arizona Gazette, December 30, 1881.
40. The full story of Wyatt Earp’s posse has yet to be written. Important insights are provided in Peter Brand, “Sherman W. McMaster(s), the El Paso Salt War, Texas Rangers, and Tombstone,” WOLA Journal 8 (Winter 1999): 2–191; Peter Brand, “Dan G. Tipton and the Earp Vendetta Posse,” Quarterly of the National Association for Outlaw and Lawman History 24 (October–December 2000): 17–27; Peter Brand, “Wyatt Earp, Jack Johnson, and the Notorious Blunt Brothers,” Quarterly of the National Association for Outlaw and Lawman History, 27 (October–December 2003): 36–47; Paul Cool, “The World of Sherman McMaster(s),” WOLA Journal 7 (Autumn 1998): 10– 22; Paul Cool, “Escape of a Highwayman: The Riddle of Sherman McMaster,” WOLA Journal 9 (Summer 2000): 2–13; Robert F. Palmquist, “Mining, Keno, and the Law: The Tombstone Careers of Bob Winders, Charley Smith, and Fred Dodge, 1879–1888,” Journal of Arizona History 38 (Summer 1997): 138–148; Robert F. Palmquist, “He Was about Half Way Right: Territory v. Blount, 1881,” Journal of Arizona History 40 (Winter 1999): 377–390; Fred Dodge, Under Cover for Wells Fargo: The Unvarnished Recollections of Fred Dodge, edited by Carolyn Lake (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), passim; Roy B. Young, Cochise County Cowboy War: “A Cast of Characters” (Apache, OK: Young, 1999), 128. At least three of the riders, McMaster, Johnson, and Vermillion, appear to have had some association with the Cow-Boys. They were all known as tough men who could be counted on in a fight. The Tombstone Daily Nugget, January 24, 1881, said of them: “[t]he Earp party is composed of desperate men who will each fight to the death, and it is stated that they have all been sworn in as Deputy United States Marshals, in which case they will have the color of law under which to act.”
41. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, December 29, 1881.
42. San Francisco Stock Report, reprinted in Arizona Sentinel (Yuma), January 14, 1882.
43. Tombstone Daily Nugget, January 1, 1882.
44. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, December 25, 1881; Tombstone Daily Nugget, January 1, 1882; see Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp, 176–179, and Shillingberg, Tombstone, A. T., 290–296.
45. Shillingberg, Tombstone, A. T., 295–296.
46. Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp, 179–182.
47. Leigh Chalmers, Examiner, Department of Justice, to A. H. Garland, Attorney General, September 3, 1885, Department of Justice, RG 60, NARA.
48. Tombstone Daily Nugget, January 7, 8, 1882; Tombstone Daily Epitaph, January 10, 11, 1882. The Nugget reported on February 8, 1882, that “Mr. L. Rickabaugh, late proprietor of the Oriental saloon, left by yesterday’s coach for San Francisco.” He traveled in Texas and Arizona, dabbling in various enterprises before returning to Tombstone in the autumn of 1884. In 1885, at Tucson, he was ca
lled out by a gambler named William H. Bennett. Rickabaugh shot Bennett in the leg. Bennett lost his leg, but Rickabaugh was discharged on grounds that he had shot in self-defense. Tombstone Daily Record-Epitaph, September 15, 16, 20, 23, 1885. He eventually returned to California, where he died in 1920. See Lynn R. Bailey and Don Chaput, Cochise County Stalwarts: A Who’s Who of the Territorial Years (Tucson, AZ: Westernlore, 2000), 2:81.
49. Entry for January 17, 1882, Parsons, Journal, 206.
50. Walter Noble Burns, Tombstone: The Iliad of the Southwest (New York: Doubleday, 1927), 137–139, provides the most detailed account, having Ringo first challenge Wyatt Earp, who refused with the comment, “I’d be a fine simpleton—a peace officer and candidate for sheriff—to fight a duel with you in the street. Go and sleep it off.” Earp then went into Bob Hatch’s saloon, leaving Doc standing at the door, “a cold little smile on his cadaverous face,” as “Ringo drew a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his coat and flipped a corner of it toward Holliday,” eliciting the comment, “I’m your huckleberry, Ringo…. That’s just my game,” as Doc took the corner of the handkerchief. Burns said that Mayor Thomas intervened to prevent the fight. Of course, John Carr was mayor, not Thomas. Sarah Grace Bakarich, Gunsmoke: The True Story of Old Tombstone (Tombstone, AZ: Tombstone, 1954), 14, repeats essentially the same story, including Doc’s signature line, “I’m your huckleberry.” Breakenridge, Helldorado, 157–158. In Breakenridge’s handwritten statement, circa 1910, in the Special Collections, University of Arizona, Tucson, 9, he has Ringo approach Holliday rather than Earp, “but his kind offer was not accepted and he turned his back on them and went back to his own side of the street while they all hurried into the nearest saloon and closed the door.” John H. Flood Jr., “Wyatt Earp, a Peace-officer of Tombstone,” 257–259, unpublished manuscript, 1927, C. Lee Simmons Collection, has Wyatt intervening with the comment, “Come on, enough of this!” as he grasps Doc by the elbow and leads him away. John Plesant Gray, When All Roads Led to Tombstone: A Memoir, edited by W. Lane Rogers (Boise, ID: Tamarack, 1998), 34, has Ringo challenge Wyatt, but notes, “Of course, Wyatt Earp was too wise to be caught in such a trap, but to the few scattering onlookers, it seemed a critical moment. Both men were of undoubted courage but the Earps knew it would not do to take up the challenge at that time.” Gray mistakenly places the confrontation only days before Ringo’s body was found and implies a connection.
51. George Parsons to Stuart N. Lake, October 25, 1928, Stuart N. Lake Collection, Letter Box 10, Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
52. Tombstone Daily Nugget, January 18, 1882, reprinted in Tucson (Arizona) Weekly Citizen, January 22, 1882. The Tombstone Daily Epitaph, January 18, 1882, noted that Chief of Police Flynn, “by his prompt action, gave unmistaken proof that he thoroughly understands his business and is fearless in its execution.”
53. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, January 18, 1882. For further analysis, see Jack Burrows, John Ringo: The Gunfighter Who Never Was (Tucson: University of Arizona, 1987), 25–34, 62–65. Burrows notes, “No near-gunfight in the history of the Old West (not a single shot was fired) has been burdened with so many grossly inaccurate and personally intrusive accounts and interpretations of what happened or might have happened, or which reflect so much wishful thinking, as that storied encounter.” Burrows concludes, “No hanky fluttered between Johnny Ringo and Johnny Holliday and no one backed down.” See also, Steve Gatto, Johnny Ringo (Lansing, MI: Protar House, 2002), 108–113; David Johnson, John Ringo (Stillwater, OK: Barbed Wire, 1996), 181–182. Gatto underscores the Nugget’s emphasis that Ringo and Holliday “had been on bad terms for some time past” to make the confrontation more personal, and Timothy W. Fattig, Wyatt Earp: The Biography (Honolulu, HI: Talei, 2002), 472–474, argues that the quarrel concerned “Ringo’s dalliances with Holliday mistress, Kate Elder.”
54. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, November 16, 1881, and January 18, 1882.
55. Gatto, Johnny Ringo, 115–121. Note especially the endnotes, 218–219.
56. Chalmers to Garland, September 3, 1885, Department of Justice, RG 60, NARA.
57. Shillingberg, Tombstone, A. T., 298–299.
58. Tombstone Daily Nugget, January 26, 1882.
59. Tombstone Daily Nugget, January 24, 26, 27, 1882.
60. Affidavit of James Earp, January 23, 1882, James Earp File, Arizona Historical Society, Tucson, Arizona.
61. Gatto, Johnny Ringo, 118–120.
62. Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp, 185–186.
63. Tombstone Daily Nugget, January 27, 1882.
64. Tombstone Daily Nugget, January 31, 1882; Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp, 187–189; Fattig, The Biography, 480–483.
65. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, February 3, 1882.
66. Lake to Stilwell, September 10, 1928, Lake Collection; Earp, “Wyatt Earp,” 265. The frustration of the Earps and their allies was thus underscored by yet another failure of the court system to deal with the problems. One local wrote to the Tucson Weekly Citizen, “If by chance one or more of these robbers are arrested they have innumerable friends through whom they always do prove an alibi. Hence they obtain their liberty regardless of what may be the evidence against them. I venture to assert that a conviction of one of these festive cowboys will never be obtained in Cochise county as long as the present state of affairs exists.”
67. Sheriff Behan’s troubles are reviewed in Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp, 186–193. A more positive analysis of Behan is found in Bob Alexander, John H. Behan: Sacrificed Sheriff (Silver City, NM: High-Lonesome, 2002), 185–187. The most interesting commentaries, however, are the contemporary criticisms, including the editorials of Charles Reppy in the Epitaph, the letters of Clara Spalding Brown to the editor, January 29, March 10, 1882, San Diego Union, February 4, March 13, 1882, and the interview with James B. Hume published in the National Police Gazette, March 11, 1882. Hume said that Behan “is in with the cowboys and has got to be or his life would not be worth a farthing.” Parsons, Journal, 211.
68. Arizona Daily Star, February 9, 1882.
69. Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp, 193.
70. Jay J. Wagoner, Arizona Territory, 1863–1912: A Political History (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1970), 194–198; Bailey and Chaput, Cochise County Stalwarts, 2:159–160; Tombstone Daily Nugget, February 8, 1882.
71. Tombstone Daily Nugget and Tombstone Daily Epitaph, February 2, 1882. The Epitaph called the gesture “a manly and generous one,” while the Nugget predicted that it would “be hailed with satisfaction by a great majority of our law-abiding and order-loving citizens” and predicted “the inauguration of an era of confidence in the impartial enforcement of the laws, and consequent freedom from that feeling of disquietude and distrust which has of late prevailed throughout our county.”
72. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, February 3, 1882; Bailey and Chaput, Cochise County Stalwarts, 1:197–199; see also Tombstone Daily Nugget, January 28, February 2, 1882.
73. Tombstone Daily Nugget, February 2, 1882.
74. Ike Clanton to Billy Byers, February 14, 1882, William Byers File, AHS.
75. Territory of Arizona v. J. H. Holliday, Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp, and Virgil Earp, Defendants, Arrest Warrant, J. B. Smith, Justice of the Peace, Cochise County, February 9, 1882; Petition of Writ of Habeas Corpus, Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp, and J. H. Holliday to J. H. Lucas, February 11, 15, 1882, reprinted in Alford E. Turner, ed., The O.K. Corral Inquest (College Station, TX: Creative, 1981), 230–245; Tombstone Daily Epitaph, February 11, 13, 15, 17, 1882; Tombstone Daily Nugget, February 9, 16, 19, 1882; Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp, 194–196; Hooker, “Arizona Vendetta,” 42–46.
76. Entry for February 15, 1882, Parsons, Journal, 213.
77. Ex Parte J. H. Holliday, Wyatt Earp, and Morgan Earp, Habeas Corpus, to J. H. Lucas, reprinted in Turner, Corral Inquest, 238–239, 242–245.
78. Tombstone Daily Nugget and Tombstone Daily Epitaph, February 16, 1882; Tucson Arizona Citizen, February 19, 1882; entry for February 15, Parsons, Journa
l, 213; see also Brand, “Tipton and the Earp Vendetta Posse,” 18–19.
79. Tombstone Daily Nugget, February 18, 1882. On February 28, the Nugget reprinted from the Prescott (Arizona) Daily Democrat an explanation of why: “We are informed by Marshal Dake that the resignations of the Earps, as United States Marshals, have not yet been accepted, owing to the fact that their accounts have not yet been straightened up. As soon as that is done they will step down and out.” This explanation appears insufficient in light of the volume of correspondence and other documentation demonstrating Dake’s active support of the Earps. See also Steve Gatto, The Real Wyatt Earp: A Documentary Biography (Silver City, NM: High-Lonesome, 2000), 163–164.
80. Tombstone Daily Nugget, February 14, 16, 1882.
81. Clara Spalding Brown to the editor, March 10, 1882; San Diego Union, March 13, 1882.
82. Deposition of Briggs Goodrich, Doc. No. 68, Coroner’s Inquest, Morgan Earp, March 22, 1882, District Court of the First Judicial District, Cochise County, Arizona Historical Foundation, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.
83. Ibid.
84. Waters, “Tombstone Travesty,” 250–252.
85. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, March 20, 1881; testimony of Robert Hatch, D. G. Tipton, Dr. George E. Goodfellow, Sherman McMaster, Marietta Duarte Spence, Doc. No. 68, Coroner’s Inquest, Morgan Earp; Tombstone Daily Epitaph and Tombstone Daily Nugget, March 23, 1882; Hooker, “Arizona Vendetta,” 48–52; Earp, “Wyatt Earp,” 270–276; Brown to the editor, March 26, San Diego Union, March 31, 1882.
86. This story appears to have originated with Glenn G. Boyer’s I Married Wyatt Earp: The Recollections of Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1976), 103, which purported to be the memoir of Josephine Earp. According to the account, when Doc learned of Morgan’s death, “he went beserk.” In actuality, this story appears to have been simply one more manufactured tale made up by Boyer. See Gary L. Roberts, “Trailing an American Mythmaker: History and Glenn G. Boyer’s Tombstone Vendetta,” WOLA Journal 6 (Spring 1998): 8–22, 49–53.
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