Doc Holliday

by Gary L Roberts

  Local authorities wasted little time. On March 4, the Optic reported, “The boys are skipping out. The Grand Jury is in session, you know.” And on March 5, the Gazette announced, “Justice of the Peace, H. G. Neill, commonly known as Hoodoo Brown, quietly stepped aboard yesterday morning’s east bound train and left for parts unknown. A boy known by the name of Dutchy went with him.”96 That left Webb to face the music alone. On March 10, he was convicted of murder and, two days later, sentenced to hang. News of Webb’s conviction created a storm in Dodge City and set in motion efforts to help him. Michael Sutton, the county attorney, left immediately for Las Vegas to aid in an appeal of the verdict.97

  Dodge City residents could not believe that Webb was guilty of murder, and they may well have been right. Webb may have been set up by Hoodoo Brown and Dutchy, motivated both by their greed and by their desire to get “payback” for Webb’s undercover activities. Webb insisted that he was told by Hoodoo Brown’s associates that Kelliher was planning to kill him and that he believed he had to kill Kelliher or be killed by him. Moreover, Hoodoo Brown misrepresented the amount of money Kelliher had on his person and kept the larger portion for himself. Even the local press seemed to think murder was out of character for Webb, but the verdict was guilty nonetheless. In April, there was an inept attempt by Jack Allen and Dave Rudabaugh to free Webb. After that, he languished in jail while the appeals process unfolded. The courts affirmed his conviction, but Governor Lew Wallace commuted his sentence to life in prison, citing “extenuating circumstances.” Eventually, Webb escaped with Dave Rudabaugh (who had been jailed on charges relating to the earlier robberies), only to die two years later of smallpox.98

  Curiously, especially in light of the crackdown on criminal activity, the same day that Webb was sentenced to hang, John Henry Holliday appeared in the San Miguel County District Court, where the old charge against him for gambling was dismissed and refunds ordered. Because of the heavy calendar, the charge for carrying a deadly weapon was continued, but it, too, would eventually be dismissed and his bail of $300 refunded in August 1880. This was orchestrated by Sydney A. Hubble, the acting district attorney and longtime New Mexico officeholder who had no part in Hoodoo Brown’s misdeeds.99

  Apparently, given the events happening at the time, Doc had escaped being linked with Hoodoo Brown and the Dodge City Gang, in spite of his friendship with Josh Webb and his former partnership with Jordan Webb. Doc remained in Las Vegas for a time, and in mid-April paid off his outstanding debt to the carpenter Ward. During this period, Doc became acquainted with Miguel Antonio “Gillie” Otero Jr., the son of the prominent New Mexico entrepreneur who was a mover and shaker in the Santa Fe railroad organization. Gillie supervised many of his father’s operations, including his mercantile business in Dodge City. He saw Doc often and “found him to be a very likeable fellow.”100

  Doc and Kate remained separated through the summer, and Gillie’s recollections offer an interesting observation on Doc’s love life. He wrote that Doc had told him that March when he was in Las Vegas that he had originally gone west because he had been “jilted” by a young woman back home. That event “became the turning point in his life.”101 Gillie’s comment was made long before information about John Henry and Mattie Holliday ever came to light or anyone publicly suggested that his feelings for Mattie might have been a factor in Doc’s decision to go west. Perhaps the memories were crowding in, especially since Kate was not there, and the youthful Gillie became his confidant. Despite inaccuracies of detail, Doc must have shared something.

  How long Doc remained in Las Vegas escaped the record, but he apparently was involved in another shooting incident before he left. Gillie recalled that Doc had had “some serious difficulty” with a man named “Charlie White” in Dodge City. While in town, Doc learned that White was working as a bartender in an Old Town saloon. After having dinner in New Town, Doc went to the saloon on the Plaza. Gillie described what happened:

  Doc entered the saloon with a cocked revolver in his hand and began hostilities at once, without previously making his presence known. White was in the act of serving some thirsty customers, but recognizing his old enemy from Dodge City, he ducked behind the bar just in time, while the customers ducked to the floor. White quickly emerged with a six-shooter, and [a] duel began in dead earnest, many shots being exchanged at short distance without effect.

  The meeting was so sudden that both participants were evidently somewhat off their accustomed good marksmanship, but finally White dropped to the floor. At first it was thought that the shot had killed him, and Holliday feeling that he had fulfilled his mission in Las Vegas, departed for the New Town, to mingle with his old friends of Dodge City. A doctor was called at once for White, and it was found that while the bullet only grazed the skin, it had been so near the spine as to stun him temporarily. He was up and around in a couple of hours as good as ever.102

  Gillie reported that no arrests were made: “It was simply allowed to pass, as no one was interested in either Holliday or White, and the peace officers in Las Vegas were much too busy looking after their own games.” Gillie claimed that White left Las Vegas on the next train heading east.

  Actually, White was Charles Wright, not Charlie White, the self-same Charles Wright who had caused Doc trouble in Dodge. He apparently followed the railroad to Las Vegas and was still working as a “saloonkeeper” when the census taker arrived that year. Wright’s Place, a keno parlor and club advertised as “A quiet place for gentlemen to congregate,” was still operating in June.103 Wright did leave Las Vegas that summer, though, moving to several locations before eventually landing in Fort Worth, Texas. There, in December 1890, he ran afoul of another former Dodge City resident, Luke Short. From a hiding place he shotgunned Short, but he bungled the job and left town to avoid facing the consequences against a recovered Luke Short.104

  Doc left Las Vegas after settling his affairs and most likely returned to Prescott, although there are tales that he visited Albuquerque. The Santa Fe tracks reached Albuquerque on April 10, and shortly thereafter the Palace Saloon was opened, owned by “Holliday and Sanguinette.” William S. Sanguinette was a thirty-three-year-old clerk, described as “one of the most popular and influential citizens of New Mexico’s metropolis.” The Palace Saloon did not last long, but Sanguinette continued a career as an Albuquerque bartender into the twentieth century, and Doc, if he was indeed Sanguinette’s partner, moved on.105

  Holliday did return to Prescott, Arizona, in time for the census taker in June, and moved into a boardinghouse on Montezuma Street without Kate. On the census record, he was listed as “single.” John Henry’s bachelor summer was an interesting departure from his recent past. Back in Prescott, he shared quarters with Richard E. Elliott, a miner and temperance advocate, and John J. Gosper, the secretary of Arizona Territory.106 He gambled, of course, but he also had opportunity to debate temperance issues and to hear Gosper talk politics and complain about the absences of Arizona’s governor, John Charles Frémont, which made him the acting governor. John Henry was associating with potentially influential people. He may even have met other men who would play roles in his future: John P. Clum, an ex–Indian agent and newspaperman, Thomas J. Fitch, one of the territory’s leading attorneys, and John H. Behan, a politician and office seeker, all of whom were in Prescott that summer.

  And, like all of them, he was listening to tales of Tombstone.

  Chapter 5

  THE PRICE OF A REPUTATION

  And the Behan side whenever they got a chance to hurt me over Holli- day’s shoulders they would do it. They would make a lot of talk about Doc Holliday.

  —Wyatt Earp (1926) during the Lotta Crabtree case

  Prescott did not hold John Henry Holliday’s attention for long. It was a busy town, with its own kind of excitement as the capital of Arizona Territory. It even had a raw edge unlike the political centers of most other states and territories. Its sporting community was still active and profitable. Yet Doc w
as only one gambler in a town full of gamblers, even if he was rooming with the acting governor of the territory. It was not the anonymity that Doc minded. The truth of things was that he needed the reckless excitement and less careful clientele of the boom camps, and ultimately, he could not resist the reports of Tombstone. Late that summer of 1880, he left Prescott, most likely in August, then paused at Tucson before moving on to Tombstone in September.

  Doubtless, he was attracted to the San Augustin Festival that ran from August 27 to September 16 in Tucson. Gamblers from all over the region poured in to the “Old Pueblo,” including faces Doc certainly recognized, such as John Shaughnessy, his old friend from Fort Griffin. John H. Behan, the erstwhile lawman and politician from Prescott, was in town and, like Holliday, en route to Tombstone.1

  The gambling competition was fierce, and Doc may well have seen either Virgil Earp or Wyatt or both, since they were in town during the festival at least briefly. Perhaps it was then that he finally decided to accept Wyatt’s invitation, catching the train to Benson and making the rest of the journey on Kinnear & Company’s stageline to Tombstone. He may even have ridden on the same coach with John Behan and his son, Albert, who arrived on September 14. He must have been there by then, because on September 17, 1879, the day after the San Augustin Festival closed in Tucson, John Henry Holliday registered to vote in Tombstone.2

  If the crowded, dirty, uncomfortable ride to Tombstone did not discourage Holliday, first impressions of the town itself could hardly have given him much reason for optimism, except that Doc had long since learned what to expect of new camps in his path. It was true, as Clara Brown, a recent arrival, reported, that Tombstone was still “an embryo city of canvas, frame, and adobe, scattered over a slope.” She accurately added, however, that “[t]he only attractive places visible are the liquor and gambling houses, which are everywhere present and are carpeted and comfortably furnished.” On the whole, she thought Tombstone was still “one of the dirtiest places in the world.” The town sprawled over the flats and boasted dirty streets that were “simply disgraceful, lined from one end to the other with refuse of all kinds, from waste paper to rotten fruit.”3

  Of course, “the liquor and gambling houses” were Holliday’s primary interest anyway, but he soon sensed that Tombstone, Arizona, was more than a typical boom camp. The clapboard shanties and tents were giving way to a growing community with a sophistication rare in mining camps. Once Doc settled in at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, Brown’s, or one of a few other rooming places, he quickly realized that this was not Fort Griffin or even Las Vegas. Something was afoot here already that those places never had, and he knew, at once, that he wanted to be part of it.

  Though it still had the look and feel of a newly born mining camp, Tombstone boasted a more urbane and stable business community than most boomtowns. There were not only plush saloons but also fine hotels, a public library at J. Goldtree & Company’s cigar store, complete with a carpeted and well-decorated reading room, and a school under construction. There were also Masons, a brass band, a miner’s union, a miner’s hospital, the Home Dramatic Association, the Tombstone Social Club, a fire department, two daily newspapers, and a variety of other social and political clubs. Waterworks, large-scale mining operations, investment companies, freighting operations, and an assortment of professional offices and mercantile stores testified to the diversity of the community. Not long after Holliday settled in, the San Francisco Exchange predicted that Tombstone was “destined within a year or two to be as important a place as Leadville or Virginia City.”4

  Yet Tombstone was still a town “with the bark on.” Besides the miners and freighters regularly employed, Tombstone had a large floating population of young, rootless ne’er-do-wells. Unemployed miners, drifters, cowboys in from surrounding ranges, tin-horn gamblers, and adventurers crowded its streets. It was also a culturally diverse population that included Hispanics, Chinese, Irish, and other immigrants. It was a volatile mix, with real potential for trouble. In the beginning the absence of law enforcement was notable, and the prospects of wealth attracted many who plainly intended to make their fortunes thieving, pilfering, and conning. In that respect, at least, Tombstone was no different from other boom camps.5

  Fred White, the thirty-two-year-old town marshal, had his hands full. Fights, shootings, and killings gave the town, what George W. Parsons called “a hard reputation.” Not even the passage of Ordinance No. 9, forbidding the carrying of weapons in town, solved the problems. Still, Clara Brown noted early in July 1880, “The camp is considered a remarkably quiet one—only one murder since my arrival.” But on August 3, she modified her appraisal, noting, “The boasted quietude of the camp has been disturbed of late, and fears are entertained that the end is not yet. Two murders have been committed within the last ten days, both the result of drinking and gambling. When saloons are thronged all night with excited and armed men, bloodshed must needs ensue occasionally.”6

  It was a hard truth, and local authorities were taking steps to tighten controls. On July 27, Wyatt Earp was appointed deputy sheriff of Pima County. The Tombstone Epitaph called the appointment “an eminently proper one” and announced to the local population that “Wyatt has filled various positions in which bravery and determination were requisites, and in every instance proved himself the right man in the right place.”7 By the time Holliday arrived, Earp had established a credible record as an effective officer that convinced most Tombstoners that the Epitaph was right.

  Wyatt and his brothers had come to Tombstone hoping to move up the social ladder by way of economic success in more respectable pursuits. They had planned to establish a stageline but found two operations already in place. Wyatt sold his equipment to Kinnear & Company when he saw that door closed. Virgil had taken a post as a deputy U.S. marshal en route to Tombstone, and Wyatt had become a shotgun guard for Wells, Fargo & Company, as they slipped back into economic pursuits more suited to their experience and social position.8

  Nevertheless, they continued to look for openings for economic success and social progress. They invested in mining properties and tried to broaden their base at least. By the spring of 1880, reports had reached Dodge City of their success:

  We understand that our fellow townsman Mr. Harry Finaty is contemplating a trip to the Tombstone district of Arizona to look after his interest in a mine which was recently sold by his partner Mr. Wyatt Earp for thirty thousand dollars. The mine is called the “Cooper Lode” and is not worked at present owing to the quantity of foul air that has accumulated in the shaft.9

  The Earps continued to dabble in mining properties, but the Dodge City report was far more optimistic than their real success, which forced them, again, to fall back on their experiences as lawmen and gamblers.

  In July 1880, at the request of the army, Virgil Earp, as a deputy U.S. marshal, joined the pursuit of six stolen army mules with a detachment of soldiers under Lieutenant Joseph H. Hurst. This would be the first encounter between the Earps and men who would come to play fateful roles in their lives, including Frank and Tom McLaury, Pony Deal, Sherman McMaster, and A. T. Hasbrough.10 The episode soured the taste of both the Earps and the McLaurys for one another. By the time Doc Holliday reached Tombstone, Virgil and Wyatt were both officers of the law, and Morgan had taken Wyatt’s place as a shotgun guard for Wells, Fargo.

  Saloons, gambling halls, and brothels flourished—and openly—but the saloonkeepers, gamblers, and whores who made most boomtowns primarily purveyors of vice for the exploitation of workers were balanced by businessmen and entrepreneurs who were able to quickly establish Tombstone as a solid business community. For those arriving from more conventionally Victorian communities, there was certainly shock at the coexistence of saloons, gambling halls, and whorehouses with the more respectable business community. It was not that such establishments did not exist in other places, but that Tombstone had not yet swept its vice into a corner. The town had grown fast, and it was too fresh to have installed the mor
al niceties demanded by Victorianism, even to the extent of having a separate redlight district or saloon row. That would come later. Moreover, some of Tombstone’s gambling fraternity and saloonmen played prominent roles in local economic and political decisions.11

  Virgil Earp, Wyatt Earp, and Morgan Earp, the “fighting Earps,” who were friends of Doc Holliday in Tombstone and whom Doc supported whenever the need arose.

  By the timing of Holliday’s arrival in Tombstone, he may have been recruited rather than enticed by Wyatt’s general invitation, which, after all, he had resisted for more than a year. Doc moved to Tombstone at the onset of a conflict between rival gambling factions, later identified as the Easterners and the Slopers. Both terms were somewhat misleading. Easterners referred generally to gamblers who came from east of the Pacific Slope, while Slopers were mostly California based. Still, the Easterners included some West Coast gamblers, and the Slopers counted Texans and Montanans in their numbers. It was never clear how organized the gamblers’ war was, but it was real enough.12

  At the center of the conflict was the Oriental Saloon on the northwest corner of Fifth and Allen streets. Opening in July 1880, the Oriental was lauded as “the most elegantly furnished saloon this side of the favored city at the Golden Gate.” Actually owned by Jim Vizina and Benjamin Cook, the bar and restaurant were leased to Milton E. Joyce, a former blacksmith who dabbled in mining in California and Nevada before settling in Tombstone, and Joyce’s young protégé, William Crownover Parker, a well-heeled youth from a prominent San Francisco family, while the gambling concession was run by a consortium of gamblers headed by Lou Rickabaugh of San Francisco. Richard Clark, a well-known sporting man with years of experience in Colorado, Kansas, and California, and William H. Harris, Chalkney Beeson’s old partner at the Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City, completed the partnership. The Oriental was a lavish, profitable operation, which created considerable envy among other saloonkeepers and sporting men.13