Doc Holliday

by Gary L Roberts

  87. Entry for March 19, 1882, Parsons, Journal, 220.

  88. Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp, 226–227; Shillingberg, Tombstone, A. T., 311–312; Waters, “Tombstone Travesty,” 253–260. Hooker, “Arizona Vendetta,” 52a–53, has Wyatt telling the Cochise County grand jury that he knew who killed Morgan but refusing to give their names, with the comment, “No! I am going after them.” He then told Virgil that he had to go home to Colton so that Wyatt would be free for the work he had to do.

  89. Denver Republican, May 14, 1893.

  90. Waters, “Tombstone Travesty,” 257–258; Hooker, “Arizona Vendetta,” 58.

  91. George Hand, Whiskey, Six-Gun, and Red-Light Ladies, edited by Neal Carmony (Silver City, NM: High-Lonesome, 1994), 228.

  92. The Tucson Weekly Citizen, April 12, 1882, printed the coroner’s report on the death of Frank Stilwell. The True Bill in the case of The Territory v. Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, Warren Earp, Sherman McMaster, and John Johnson is found in the records of the Arizona Historical Foundation, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. Fattig, The Biography, 859n, notes that Virgil later told a reporter (San Francisco Examiner, May 22, 1882) that Stilwell confessed to killing Morgan and named his partners in the crime, which prompted the Tombstone Daily Epitaph, June 3, 1882, to observe: “[W]e nevertheless cannot help expressing astonishment that a man with two pounds of buckshot in his stomach, four bullets in his heart, and his head mutilated by lead beyond recognition, could have had either time or inclination to make any statement whatever.”

  93. Wyatt Earp to Walter Noble Burns, March 15, 1927, Walter Noble Burns Collection, Special Collections, University of Arizona Library, Tucson, Arizona. Hooker, “Arizona Vendetta,” 53–58, also suggests that only Doc was with him at Tucson. Hooker has “Deputy United States Marshal Ivans [sic]” meet Wyatt at “a watering hole east of Tucson” and warn him that Stilwell and “a half-breed” were in the area, noting, 54–55, “Tjis [sic] is the bunch that killed your brother. They rode across country from Tombstone and believe that you are leaving the Territory with Virgil. They plan to ‘get’ you both before you escape them. Look out when you reach Tucson.” Fattig, The Biography, 512–517, follows this view. However, Earp, “Wyatt Earp,” 278–279, has McMaster and Johnson accompanying Wyatt and Doc in escort of Virgil and meeting Evans when the party reached Tucson. Flood has Wyatt confront Stilwell alone. Nathan W. Waite, a passenger who joined the Earp party at Contention, testified at the hearing, “McMasters [sic] said that they would leave the train but afterwards changed their minds and came to Tucson to see Virgil and his wife on their way to California.” Deputy Evans testified that Doc was the first person off the train, carrying two shotguns. He also testified that he warned Earp of Stilwell’s presence. Ike Clanton testified that he saw McMaster, Johnson, and Warren with Wyatt and Doc outside the hotel where the Earp party had gone to eat. Details of the shooting were not provided in the testimony, so it is not clear how many of the Earp group were present. James Miller, a fireman on the westbound train, provided the most detail, reporting that he “saw a man running down the track on the east side of the engine and cross the track in front of it. Eight or ten minutes afterwards [I] saw four armed men pass on the west side of the engine and down to the left of the coaches standing on the side track. In about five minutes afterwards heard five or six shots fired in rapid succession. Saw but one man while they were shooting, but saw four men standing there when the train pulled out.” On the strength of the wounds on Stilwell’s body and the presence of Wyatt, Warren, Doc, McMaster, and Johnson at the depot, those men were identified as Stilwell’s killers by the coroner’s jury. Most likely, one of the Earp group remained with Virgil and Allie as guard while the shooting occurred, which would explain why Miller saw four men rather than five. Tucson Weekly Citizen, April 12, 1882; see also Los Angeles Daily Herald, March 22, 1882.

  94. Tucson (Arizona) Daily Star, March 21, 22, 24, 1882.

  95. Testimony of Marietta Duarte Spence, Doc. No. 68, Coroner’s Inquest, Morgan Earp; see also the testimony as published in the Tombstone Daily Nugget and Tombstone Daily Epitaph, March 23, 1882.

  96. Deposition of Briggs Goodrich, Doc. No. 68, Coroner’s Inquest, Morgan Earp.

  97. Entry for March 20, 1882, Parsons, Journal, 220–221. The Los Angeles Daily Herald, March 24, 1882, noted, “There is a very uneasy feeling among the cowboy element, as the Earps are rendered desperate by the attempted assassination of Virgil Earp and the cold-blooded murder of Morgan Earp.”

  98. Tucson Weekly Citizen, March 26, 1882. The Tombstone Weekly Epitaph, March 27, 1881, added “that there is positive evidence Stilwell was in Tombstone Saturday night at the time Morgan Earp was murdered and that he rode into Tucson on horseback on Sunday.” His fate, the Epitaph concluded, “verifies the saying that ‘the way of the transgressor is hard.’” Clara Brown added, “Although only twenty-seven years of age, his career was not a beneficial one to his country, and his removal is no loss, however unlawful.” Brown to the editor, March 26, 1882, San Diego Union, March 31, 1882; see also, Gray, All Roads, 41, who said that Behan refused to hold Stilwell because it was impossible for him to travel from Tombstone to Tucson in the time available, then added, “A long time afterward it came out that an old roan saddle horse could have told a different story had he the power of speech.”

  99. Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp, 231. Wyatt always insisted that Chris Bilicke greeted him with a handshake, a smile, and the comment, “Wyatt, Stillwell won’t rob any more coaches now.” See Hooker, “Arizona Vendetta,” 61; Earp, “Wyatt Earp,” 286; Stuart N. Lake notes in the Stuart N. Lake Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

  100. Breakenridge, Helldorado, 174. The Tombstone Daily Nugget, March 22, 1882, generally supports Breakenridge’s version, in having the members of the Earp party point their weapons at Sheriff Behan, although even it criticized Behan’s delay in taking action. The Tucson Daily Star, March 22, 1882, offered similar criticism. A telegram from the Star on the evening of March 22 reported, “Tonight Sheriff Behan telegraphed Paul that he had attempted to make the arrest and was forcibly resisted by the party and a posse of their friends, and asked for assistance, and the Earp party had fled to the hills. Sheriff Paul left to-night on a special train for Tombstone to make the arrests. There is no doubt but that he will take them, but bloodshed is expected.” Los Angeles Daily Herald, March 23, 1882.

  101. Hooker, “Arizona Vendetta,” 63; Lake notes. The Tombstone Daily Epitaph, March 22, 1882, presented the view that Wyatt brushed Behan aside without a confrontation, and Clara Brown added, “The party then went to a stable, mounted their horses, and left town. Behan claims that they resisted an arrest, but the bystanders claim that this was all that passed, and nothing was said about an arrest. He also asserts that every one of the party drew their guns on him, which is denied by the spectators. All were heavily armed, but no motion was made.” Brown to the editor, March 26, 1882, San Diego Union, March 31, 1881.

  102. Brown to the editor, March 26, 1882, San Diego Union, March 31, 1882.

  103. Entry for March 21, 1882, Parsons, Journal, 221.

  104. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, Tombstone Daily Nugget, Tucson Daily Star, Tucson Daily Citizen, March 22, 23, 1882. Parsons, Journal, 221, wrote on March 22, 1882, “Excitement again this morning. Sheriff went out with a posse supposably to arrest the Earp party, but they will never do it. The Cow-boy element is backing him strongly. John Ringo being one of the party. There is a prospect of a bad time and there are about three men who deserve to get it in the back of the neck. Terrible thing, this, for our town, but the sooner it is all over with the better. Went to church tonight. Took home Miss S.” The Epitaph, March 23, confirmed that Ringo, Fin Clanton, and several other Cow-Boys were with Behan’s posse. Clara Brown noted that “only a very daring man would be willing to face the Earps in their present mood, and it is reported that it was difficult to raise a posse.” Brown to the editor, March 26, 1882, San Diego Union, March 31, 1
882.

  105. Proceedings of the Inquest upon the Body of Florentino Cruz appeared in the Tombstone Daily Nugget, March 25, 26, 1882. Useful secondary accounts appear in Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp, 234–235; Shillingberg, Tombstone, A. T., 315–316; and Fattig, The Biography, 530–533.

  106. Stuart N. Lake, Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931), 336; this comment also appears in the Lake notes concerning the episode. See also, Hooker, “Arizona Vendetta,” 64–66; Earp, “Wyatt Earp,” 290–294.

  107. Entry for March 23, 1882, Parsons, Journal, 221. The Tucson Weekly Star, March 30, 1882, reported the arrest of Hank Swilling. The Tombstone Daily Epitaph, March 22, 1882, noted that Deputy Sheriff Frank Hereford had arrested “John Doe Freeze” (actually Frederick Bode) in connection with Morgan’s murder, and the same issue carried a notice that W. A. Freeze, “a quiet, nice gentleman, with hosts of friends and no eninies [sic] in Tombstone,” was not the man implicated in the death of Morgan Earp.

  108. J. A. Browder to the editor, March 29, 1882, Tucson Daily Star, March 31, 1882.

  109. Brown to the editor, March 26, 1882, San Diego Union, March 31, 1882.

  110. Breakenridge, Helldorado, 178.

  111. Tucson Daily Star, March 28, 1882. A telegram from Tombstone confirmed the essence of these reports: “Sheriff Paul has returned from Tombstone. He says that he did not go in pursuit of the Earps because the posse selected by Sheriff Behan of Tombstone, were mostly hostile to the Earps and that a meeting meant bloodshed without any probability of arrest. Sheriff Paul says the Earps will come to Tucson and surrender to the authorities.” Los Angeles Daily Herald, March 28, 1882; see also Tombstone (Arizona) Commercial Advertiser, March 25, 1882.

  112. Brown to the editor, March 26, 1882, San Diego Union, March 31, 1882. The same view was expressed in an article from the Tombstone Commercial Advertiser, March 25, 1882, reprinted from the Nugget.

  113. Entry for March 23, 1882, Parsons, Journal, 221.

  114. Tucson Daily Citizen, March 25, 1882; Tombstone Daily Epitaph, March 24, 1882; Tombstone Daily Nugget, March 26, 1882; see also Brand, “Tipton and the Earp Vendetta Posse,” 20.

  115. Tucson Daily Citizen, March 25, 1882; Phoenix Arizona Gazette, March 24, 1882.

  116. Entry for March 25, 1882, Parsons, Journal, 222. Dispatches from Tombstone indicated that Behan and a posse of twenty-four, including twelve “Charleston cowboys,” left Contention on March 22 and that the group divided into two groups, one of which included Curly Bill. The dispatches correctly reported that the Earps were in the Whetstones pursued by the two groups. “We are expecting news of a fight any hour,” was the report. Tucson Weekly Citizen, March 26, 1882. Gatto, Real Wyatt Earp, 179, argues that Curly Bill was not in Arizona based on Behan’s bill for mileage for his deputies to El Paso (in search of defendants), dated February 17, 1882, in the case of The Territory v. Curly Bill-Hicks et al., Financial Reports, Sheriff’s Department, January–April 1882, Cochise County Records, MS 180, Box 8, f83, AHS. This expense was for the earlier trip to El Paso in December 1881 and is not a good indicator of Curly Bill’s presence in 1882. Bill’s name does not appear in Behan’s report of expenses in his pursuit of the Earps, dated April 4, 1882, FRSD, January– April 1882, CCR, MS 180, Box 8, f83, AHS, where the names of the possemen appear, indicating the number of days served at the rate of $5 per day. Steve Gatto, Curly Bill: Tombstone’s Most Famous Outlaw (Lansing, MI: Protar House, 2003), 160n, argues that since Brocius’s name did not appear on the list, he did not serve. This is possible, of course, but even if he did serve, it is unlikely that his name would appear on the list simply because he was killed and there was no one to receive the funds. Furthermore, Behan disassociated himself from the party at the springs, saying it had “no connection with his posse.” Tombstone Daily Nugget, March 26, 1882.

  117. Hand, Whiskey, 9.

  118. Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp, 238.

  119. This account is distilled from contemporary newspaper coverage from the Tombstone Daily Epitaph, March 25, 27, 1882; Tombstone Daily Nugget, March 26, 1882; Tucson Daily Star, April 6, 1882; Hooker, “Arizona Vendetta,” 67–70; Earp, “Wyatt Earp,” 295–306; the Lake notes; Wyatt’s account in the Denver Republican, May 14, 1893; the article ghostwritten for Wyatt, “How Wyatt Earp Routed a Gang of Arizona Outlaws,” San Francisco Examiner, August 2, 1896, as well as miscellaneous other contemporary sources and reminiscences. Also useful were secondary analyses, including Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp, 237–239, Fattig, The Biography, 535–546, and Gatto, Real Wyatt Earp, 177–192.

  120. Hooker, “Arizona Vendetta,” 68; Earp, “Wyatt Earp,” 303–304; Denver Republican, May 14, 1893.

  121. Ibid.

  122. Denver Republican, May 22, 1882.

  123. Tombstone Daily Epitaph, March 25, 27, 1882; Tombstone Daily Nugget, March 26, 1882; Hooker, “Arizona Vendetta,” 66–67.

  124. Burns, Tombstone, 249; Tombstone Daily Nugget, March 31, April 1, 1882. The Tucson Daily Star, April 4, 1882, reported that the fight actually involved a group of prospectors who “repulsed” the Earp party. A dispatch published in the Tucson Daily Star, March 26, 1882, said, “There was a fight in the mountains between the Earps and some of the Sheriff’s posse. Texas Jack’s horse was killed and Wyatt Earp wounded. Nothing of Curly Bill being killed. Don’t think it is so.” In the same issue, another dispatch sent to Ike Clanton by John Chenowith advised Ike that one report said that four of the Earp party had been killed while another said that “one of the Earp party and Curly Bill are killed.” Other reports were circulating as well. What does seem clear is that Behan had two groups in the field after the Earps, and the group encountered at Iron Springs was likely one of them.

  125. An unidentified informant for the Nugget who claimed to have been en route to meet the Earps (doubtlessly either Kraker or Wright) told the journal that after the brief fight, “The Earp party retired behind an adjacent hill and halted. They were in a position commanding a view of the spring, and shortly after the fight saw a wagon come to the place and, as Wyatt believes, carry away the dead body of CurlyBill.” Tombstone Daily Nugget, March 26, 1882. Hooker, “Arizona Vendetta” (on a page marked “Important” as an extra page inserted into the manuscript), 70 1/2, related that “Thacker, himself, went to the place where he had been told Curly Bill had been buried and had the body dug up. Thacker identified Curly Bill’s body, and then saw it reinterred. This was done by a Wells-Fargo [sic] detective to settle all doubts regarding paying reward offered for death of Curly Bill.” Wyatt told essentially the same story to Frederick R. Bechdolt in 1927. See Bechdolt to William M. Breakenridge, December 23, 1927, William M. Breakenridge Letters, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Fred Dodge to Stuart N. Lake, October 8, 1928; Dodge to Lake, September 15, 1929, Dodge, Under Cover, 234–235, 239. Dodge told Lake he was sure that Thacker did not have the body dug up. He seems to assume, however, that Thacker could not have investigated before body decomposition occurred. Thacker checked into the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Tombstone on March 21 (Tombstone Daily Epitaph, March 22, 1882) and was still in town a week later (Tombstone Weekly Epitaph, March 27, 1882), which means that he was in Tombstone at the time the fight occurred and could have visited the burial site within a matter of days after the killing and before decomposition would have made identification impossible. The Tombstone Daily Epitaph, March 8, 1951, published an article by Lillian M. S. McCoy in which she claimed to have a photograph of the dead Curly Bill. She said that she had been given the photo by James Wilkins, a traveling salesman for Folgers coffee. He claimed to have been present when the photo was made of the dead man sitting upright in a chair. The photo was not published with the article, and the story does not appear to have been pursued further. Curiously, she noted that the photo had been taken to provide “proof of his death.”

  126. Both quoted in Silver City’s Grant County Herald and New Southwest, April 8, 1882. The literature arguing that Curly Bill was not killed
at Iron Springs is extensive and based largely on reminiscences of old-timers. The best summary of the arguments and evidence that Curly Bill was not killed is found in Gatto, Curly Bill, 109–134.

  127. San Francisco Daily Exchange, March 27, 1882.

  128. Tombstone Daily Nugget, March 25, 31, April 4, 1882; Tombstone Weekly Epitaph, April 10, 1882; see also Fattig, The Biography, 546–547.

  129. Judge Bryant L. Peel to the People of Tombstone, Tombstone Daily Epitaph, March 29, 1882, reprinted in Los Angeles Daily Herald, March 31, 1882; see also Tombstone Daily Nugget, March 26, 29, 1882; Tombstone Daily Epitaph, March 28, 1882; Tucson Daily Star, March 31, 1882.

  130. Entry for March 26, 1882, Parsons, Journal, 222.

  131. Tucson Weekly Citizen, March 26, 1882.

  132. Tombstone Daily Nugget, March 29, 1882; Tucson Weekly Citizen, April 9, 1882; Los Angeles Daily Herald, April 4, 1882; F. A. Tritle to President Chester A. Arthur, March 31, 1882, Department of Justice, Chronological President Files, RG 60, NARA; Tombstone Daily Epitaph, April 4, 1882; Bailey and Chaput, Cochise County Stalwarts, 1:198.

  133. San Diego Union, April 30, 1882; Tombstone Daily Epitaph, March 29, April 1, 1882; Tombstone Daily Nugget, March 29, 30, 31, April 1, 1882; Los Angeles Daily Times, March 30, 1882; Breakenridge, Helldorado, 181–187.

  134. Entry for March 30, 1882, Parsons, Journal, 223.

  9. The Out Trail

  1. Apart from the broader history of national development during the late nineteenth century, what happened in Arizona in 1880–1882 is difficult to understand. General works that provide the background include Rebecca Edwards, New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age, 1865–1905 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Ray Ginger, Age of Excess: The United States from 1877 to 1914 (New York: Macmillan, 1965); Mark Wahlgren Summers, Party Games: Getting, Keeping, and Using Power in Gilded Age Politics (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004); Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982); Robert H. Weibe, The Search for Order (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967); and Richard White, “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own”: A New History of the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). Richard Slotkin, The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800–1890 (New York: Atheneum, 1985), is especially helpful for understanding the mind-set of the times. The relationship of violence to the changes taking place in the American West during the time are explored in Richard Maxwell Brown, No Duty to Retreat: Violence and Values in American History and Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); David T. Courtwright, Violent Land: Single Men and Social Disorder from the Frontier to the Inner City (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996); Roger D. McGrath, Gunfighters, Highwaymen, and Vigilantes: Violence on the Frontier (Berkleley: University of California Press, 1984); and Clare V. McKanna Jr., Homicide, Race, and Justice in the American West, 1880–1920 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1996). I have provided my own perspective on the relationship of violence and frontier development in “Violence and the Frontier Tradition,” in Kansas and the West: Bicentennial Essays in Honor of Nyle H. Miller, edited by Forrest R. Blackburn et al. (Topeka: Kansas State Historical Society, 1976), 96–111, and in the final chapter of Death Comes for the Chief Justice: The Slough-Rynerson Quarrel and Political Violence in New Mexico (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1990), 127–157. This brief bibliography is far from comprehensive. The works of Robert R. Dykstra, Joe B. Frantz, Patricia Nelson Limerick, Paula Mitchell Marks, Joseph G. Rosa, and Robert M. Utley, all of whom have addressed the broad issues of the nature of Western violence, should also be consulted.