The Earp Brothers
We know most of the stories of what happened in Tombstone drivin by the rivalry between the Earp brothers and both the Clanton and the McLaury brothers. The infamous Doc Holiday was a friend of the Earp brothers, particularly Wyatt, and was also included in the hostility between the families.
Then there is the famous gunfight at the OK Corral that brought the rivalry to a heated conclusion. The event only lasted about 30 seconds and 30 shots were fired from everyone, but those 30 seconds would go down in history as one of the most famous fights to come out of the old west.
But what happened next? The Earp's were actually in Tombstone for only two years and then moved on to other places and did other things.
James Earp
James was the first born of Nicholas and his second wife, Virginia in 1841. He too was a veteran of the Civil war and was wounded near Fredericktown, Missouri.
He and his wife Nellie moved to Tombstone which also began the other Earp's eventual migration there too. He was never involved in law enforcement as were his other brothers. He managed a saloon and gambling house. He was not involved in the gunfight at the OK Corral.
Following the murder of his brother, Morgan, he and Virgil returned Morgan's body to California. James and his wife settled there following a short stay in Idaho. He died in 1926 at the age of 84 and is buried in Mountain View Cemetery in San Bernardino, CA.
Virgil Earp
It is ironic that while Virgil spent most of his life in law enforcement, his brother Wyatt, a gambler for most of his, is better known. Virgil was born in 1843. In 1860 he eloped at age 16 and had a daughter in 1862. He left for the Civil war two weeks after her birth and served with the 83rd Illinois Infantry.
It was the last time Virgil would see his former wife and child for 37 years. He was reported killed and his wife and her family left for another state. Following his discharge he felt that it was best he did not follow them and headed west to California to join his family.
Virgil was appointed Deputy U.S. Marshal for the Arizona Territory on November 27, 1879, just before he traveled with his brother Wyatt to Tombstone from Prescott. On October 30, 1880, Virgil became acting town-marshal of Tombstone, after town-marshal Fred White was shot and killed.
As to the events at the OK Corral, Virgil was the more experienced in facing life and death situations. His years of Army service during the Civil War had given him more experience than any of the other participants that took part in the fight that day, especially his two younger brothers. In addition to this, he had served as a lawman off and on since the war. During the gunfight, Virgil Earp was shot in the calf of the leg believed to be by Billy Clanton.
In the late evening of December 28, 1881, as Virgil was walking from the Oriental Saloon to his room, he was ambushed on Allen Street. The assailants were never positively identified, but were usually assumed to be family or friends of the men who died at the O.K. Corral shootout.
About 20 buckshot pellets hit Virgil, though he did not fall and was hit primarily in the back and his left arm. His injured arm would be permanently crippled as a result of the surgery during the immediate treatment of the wound. Virgil had spent January and February in bed, and had just been starting to get out on the street in Tombstone, the week before Morgan's murder.
Virgil accompanied his brother Morgan's body home and spent the next two years recovering at his parent's home in Colton, California. When Colton was incorporated as a city in July 1887, Virgil Earp was elected as Colton's first City Marshal. He reportedly earned a salary of $75 a month, and was re-elected to another term in 1888.
In 1895, Virgil and Allie traveled to Colorado, meeting up with Virgil's brother Wyatt. This was short-lived however, as they soon moved back to Prescott, Arizona, where Virgil became involved in mining.
Later, he moved south and began ranching in the Kirkland Valley. It was at this time, in 1898, that he received a letter from a Mrs. Levi Law. It turned out that this young woman was, in fact, Virgil Earp's daughter from his first marriage. The next year, encouraged by his wife, Virgil traveled to Portland, Oregon where he was reunited with his first wife, Ellen, and Daughter Nellie Jane (Law).
By 1904, Virgil had returned to Colton, where according to city records he unsuccessfully petitioned to repeal a temperance law that thwarted his ambitions of opening a saloon.
Following this setback, he left California for the last time and moved to Nevada, where he became a deputy sheriff. After suffering from pneumonia for six months, Virgil died on October 19, 1905.
At the request of his daughter, who remarried as Nellie Jane Bohn, his remains were sent to Portland, Oregon and buried at River View Cemetery. After the death of her husband, Allie moved back to California to be near Virgil's family, where she died in 1947. She is buried in San Bernardino, California.
Wyatt Earp
He is the best known person of the entire family. Wyatt was born in Illinois in 1813. He was too young for the Civil War, although he made several unsuccessful attempts to run away and join up. He worked the family farm with his two younger brothers until James and Virgil returned from the war.
In 1864 he Family joined a wagon train heading for California. This was his first stay in that state. They later moved back to Missouri. There he married his first wife, Urilla Sutherland in 1870. Urilla died within a year.
Following various jobs and scrapes with the law little is known of Wyatt until 1874 where he arrived in Wichita, Kansas and spent time with Bat Masterson. There is an account where he, along with his brother Morgan and a third man, was arrested in Peoria, Illinois for operating a brothel.
Wyatt became a rather successful law man in Wichita. He later traveled to Dodge City, Kansas and became the Assistant Marshall. From Dodge he temporally went to Texas as a gambler and there met the card playing Doc Holliday. They remained friends for many years.
Returning to Dodge in 1878 as Assistant City Marshall he became involved in several scrapes. He also arrived with "Mattie" Blaylock, a former prostitute. She will remain as his companion until 1882.
They both arrived in Tombstone in 1879 with brothers James and Virgil. Virgil was appointed Deputy US Marshall just before he arrived and James took a job as a bartender. Wyatt worked for Wells Fargo, he rode shotgun when the stagecoaches were carrying strongboxes.
Morgan and Warren also moved to tombstone in 1880 followed by Doc Holliday. Now, all the characters in the historical novels are in place.
Wyatt was appointed Deputy Sherriff during 1880. That year Virgil and an Army representative caught the McLaury brothers with stolen Army mules. This began the animosity between the McLaurys and the Earps.
The Clanton brothers were brought into the hostility when a branded horse belonging to Wyatt was found in the possession of Ike and Billy Clanton. Through 1881 the three families increased tensions due to several other incidents. Finally everything came to a head following Frank McLaury's threat to kill the Earps if they ever arrested them, the Cantons or any of their fellow associates.
Virgil requested Morgan Wyatt and Doc Holliday help him as Ike Clanton, Billy Claiborne, and others had been spoiling for a fight. The Earps and Holliday were determined to give it to them He deputized everyone and headed down Fremont Street looking for them.
The gunfight happened at about 3 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26, 1881. Contrary to its famous name, it did not actually occur at the O.K. Corral, but next to it. It took place at Harwood's lumberyard down the street from the rear entrance to the corral. The gunfight began in the side yard between Harwood's house and Fly's Lodging House, basically an empty lot.
The end of the gunfight took place out in Fremont Street. About 30 shots were fired in 30 seconds and although only three men were killed, it is generally regarded as the most famous gunfight in the history of the Old West.
Both McLaurys and Billy Clanton were killed, All three are buried in Tombstone's Boot Hill. Morgan Earp, Virgil Earp, and Doc Holliday were wounded.
Ike Clanton filed murder charges against all of them and they were eventually arrested. There was conflicting testimony from everyone as to what happened. Finally two witnesses who watched it all from across the street spoke and the judge accepted their story as they had no involvements with either group.
The judge ruled that the Earp's acted within the law and released them. The events, however, tarnished their reputations and many in town believed that they were all murderers.
Following the attempted assassination of Virgil and the murder of Morgan, The "Vendetta Ride" of Wyatt, Warren and Doc Holliday occurred. The facts are not clear but it resulted in the death of most of the suspected assassins.
Wyatt's companion, Mattie, went to Colton, California with the rest of the Earp family when they took Morgan's body there for burial. She was said to have suffered from severe headaches, and while in Tombstone, she became heavily addicted to laudanum, a commonly used opiate and pain killer of the day. There, she waited for Wyatt to let her know when to return to Tombstone, but it the telegram never came.
She left Colton and returned to Arizona, deciding on Pinal City, a town where they had stopped in 1879 on their way to Tombstone. On July 3, 1888, Mattie took a lethal dose of laudanum together with alcohol, the mixture proving fatal. Her death was officially ruled as a suicide. She is buried in the cemetery at Pinal City, now a ghost town.
Wyatt and Doc Holiday split up following their departure from Arizona. Doc went to Denver and the Earp's to Gunnison, Colorado.
Eventually Wyatt went to San Francisco where he reunited with Josie Marcus, the woman he met in Tombstone while still with Mattie. They stayed together for the next 46 years until his death in Los Angeles California on January 13, 1929 of Prostrate Cancer. He died at home in their apartment at 4004 W 17th Street. The building no longer exists. He was 80 years old.
Western actors William S. Hart and Tom Mix were pallbearers at his funeral. Josie had Wyatt's body cremated and buried Wyatt's ashes in the Marcus family plot at the Hills of Eternity, a Jewish cemetery in Colma, California. When she died in 1944, Josie's ashes were buried next to Wyatt's.
Morgan Earp
Morgan was the younger brother of Wyatt, born in 1851. Like Wyatt, he was too young to enlist in the civil war. He stayed home to tend the family farm with Wyatt, which was the basis for their close relationship and hatred for farming.
By 1874, Morgan was a policeman in Butte, Montana. There he was involved in a gunfight where he was wounded and the other man died.
Morgan followed his brothers to Tombstone and was deputized by his brother Virgil in 1881. His first assignment was to travel to Tombstone, about 70 miles away, and find Doc Holiday. He was to bring him back because of trouble between him and Ike Clanton. They hoped to avoid it all but the trouble just followed them back and would lead up to the gunfight at the OK Corral.
He participated in the fight and was slightly wounded, but not enough to quickly recover and continue to shoot. It was either Morgan or Doc Holiday who killed Frank McLaury which ended the battle. It is possible that both ended up shooting Frank.
Two months after the gunfight, Virgil Earp was seriously and permanently wounded in an assassination attempt. By February 1882, Morgan had sent his wife Louisa to his parents in Colton, California for her safety. Morgan remained in Tombstone to guard Virgil, support Wyatt, and continue his job.
Morgan was ambushed about 10 P.M. on March 18 1882. While playing pool, he was hit by a rifle shot to the side of his lower back. Another shot was also made at the same time at Wyatt, who was there, but the bullet missed. Morgan died about an hour later.
His body was dressed in a suit donated by Doc Holliday and sent by rail to the family in Colton. He is buried there in the Hermosa Cemetery.