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Notice date "September 26, 1881." Gunfight took place on Oct. 26, 1881. 1940 Lee Russell Image Courtesy Library of Congress
THE SONG OF THE KEEPER OF THE GHOSTS
Where walk my ghost friends there walk I,
Mark their graves and bid them lie,
Under the care of my watchful eye,
And the broad blue sky's wide expanse,
Never again disturbed by strife,
Peaceful here after stormy life, Chinaman, gunman or docile wife,
Undisturbed by tourist's bold glance
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The following article appeared in the TOMBSTONE PROSPECTOR on Aug 29, 1889
Article Courtesy Anne Collier. Thanks for your input Jennifer Lewis.
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Tombstone Epitaph Newspaper...April 4, 1928
News Writer's Elegy in Boot Hill Cemetery
El Paso Herald Man Tells His Impressions of Visit To Famed Ground
By H. S. Hunter
That rocky slope under whose mounds lie the bones of pioneer gun fighters who drew unwisely and not fast enough is to undergo a little retouching. It may be no more desirable than possible to whitewash the picturesque sins of some of the buried on Boot Hill. Haloes and white robes would rest incongruously upon those wide-hatted gentlemen of the flaring mustachios, the fierce eyes and the nervous trigger fingers. But at least the stones that cover them can be whitened. There they are--mound after mound row--the graves of old Tombstone's unknown. Roughly oblong heaps of earth and rocks, scores of them, 150, or 200, or even more of them. On a few, wild thorny shrubs have taken root. Stones litter all. Rocks are banked on the graves. Even the earth is flinty. rough, hard, grim, forbidding is Boot Hill graveyard wherein lie the men who died with their boots on. Not a headboard, not a nameplate, nothing to identify any grave on all Boot Hill. Heavens above, could anything be more horribly symbolic? Here they lie, the bones of the gunman, the stage robbers, the cattle rustlers, the gamblers, painted Jezebels of the "cribs" and the dancehalls. Yes, and among the lot may not lie a few others, people who died forlorn and friendless but were decent and self-respecting. The innocent suffer with the sinful with whom they are linked in life. In death also, at least on Boot Hill. Not a blade of grass in this Boot Hill graveyard. Not a flower nor a tree, nor anything soft, lovely and tender. Nothing but the barren ground rocks, thorny shrubs. Everything hard, flinty, drab, Hard ugly, sinister like the lives of most of those whose bones lie under these stony mounds that almost touch so close are they. There is a saddening appropriateness about it. All those lively, vigorous, brave reckless, hard-hitting, hard-living, hard hating men and women who helped put color and life in the Tombstone of the early 80s have come to this. Nameless skeletons, side by side, row on row, on a stony, desolate hill.
"Live hard and dangerously" said Nietzsche, the German philosopher. These people did, and see what came of it.
Here are the "self-expressionist" of early Tombstone. Here is the "live-your-own-life crowd.
Here is the jazz gang of the 80s who lived by their wits, or their six-shooters or their sex appeal. Here are the men of hot heads and soft hands, who would rather shoot it out than work it out or reason it out.
Here are the boys who would rather take it from the other fellow by force then earn it. Here is the saloon gang and here are the dancehall habitués. Men and women who lived gaudy lives and were snuffed out.
Nameless. More Dust and bones. H.S. Hunter, El Paso Herald Reporter
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Tombstone Epitaph Newspaper... April 6, 1933
Improve Boot Hill
Fifty years ago, Frank Vaughn, who has been a resident of Tombstone at intervals since that time and is again residing here, painted a wooden marker for the plot in Boot Hill cemetery where are buried McLowery and the Clanton brothers. The marker long since crumbled under the rays of the Arizona sun and a cross has been identifying the place during recent years. Now, under the plans of the Chamber of Commerce for improvements at Boot Hill, Mr. Vaughn is to reproduce the marker in form and wording. Other changes are to include a marker of wood for the five Bisbee murderers hanged under the law by Sheriff ward and a clearing of a driveway around the outer edge of the plot outside of the Escapule fence.
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Tombstone Epitaph Newspaper...April 18, 1933
More News From Boot Hill
During the week, Dewey Chadwick, who has been in charge of a crew of workmen engaged in clearing and cleaning Boot Hill graveyard, counted the graves and found there are 259 outside of the drift fence, besides seventeen excavations from which bodies have been removed. This is more than were supposed to be in the old burying ground. There may be seen here a small grave marked by a tumbled-down stone bearing the name "Sam Harris." This is the only remaining grave in what was once the Jewish section of the cemetery, originally surrounded by an adobe wall. The wall long since disappeared without right or authority and the bodies all have been removed to other resting places with this one exception. On Monday, Harry Hughes, at work here, dug up a monkey wrench of antique design. It gives every evidence of having been buried beside one of the graves for approximately fifty years. It has been added to the collection of curios in the Chamber of Commerce Offices.
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Tombstone's Boot Hill Cemetery in 1940. Lee Russell Image Courtesy Library of Congress
Tombstone's Boot Hill Cemetery in 1940. Lee Russell Images Courtesy Library of Congress
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Tombstone Epitaph November 16, 1933
"Tis There They Lie and That's No Lie"
In no other place in this city that provides place after place where ghosts might linger is there such opportunity for their rendezvous as at Boothill graveyard. Why Boothill fascinates the visitor can be explained only by those who understand why Tombstone itself brings a baffled light to the eyes of imaginative tourists, eyes that long to pierce the veil that hides events of other days.
Beginning
this week, a few of the ghosts that return at night to Boothill will know where
to find their resting places, if they happen to have forgotten, at least if they
do not, it will not be the fault of Arlie
Gardner, the official
Keeper of the Ghosts. For many months he has been searching for authentic
evidence to prove the location of the graves of those who, it is certain, are
buried in this famous burying ground: for many years ago, the plat map of the
cemetery was lost and before Tombstone became conscious of its lure, the
headstones were allowed to crumble, Today, therefore, the location of the graves
of only ten pioneers are actually known. These, however, have been
positively identified in the last few months.
Probably the only marble headstone that ever stood in the cemetery marks one of the ten. This is the grave of M.R. Peel who was murdered in old Charleston by a bandit who robbed the safe in the office of the mining company for which Mr. Peel was working.
Marking the other nine resting places, wooden slabs have been erected this week, slabs that reproduce the original markers. A painter is at work inscribing thereon the identity of those sleeping there.
In the most recent grave, in the cemetery lies "China Mary," as Mrs. Ah Lum was affectionately called by all who knew her. She was the only Chinese woman in Tombstone for many years after the Chinese colony broke up here. Death came to her on December 16, 1906 when she was sixty-five years of age.
Another marker will show where lie Tom and Frank McLowery (sic) and Billy Clanton who were murdered on the streets of Tombstone on the day of the Earp-Clanton battle. Frank Vaughn, pioneer of the county, now of Tucson, directed the erection of the original marker fully fifty years ago and has assisted in locating the graves and reproducing the wording of the inscription.
In result of the Shootout Near the OK Corral in 1881, Frank & Tom McLaury and William Clanton lay in their coffins. Photo courtesy of Craig Fouts Collection. Mr. Fouts owns one of the best and most respected Old West collections in the world.
In another plot lie the five men who were legally hanged on March 8, 1884 for their participation in the Bisbee massacre. The headstone will bear the names of Dan Dowd, Red Sample, Tex Howard, Bill Delaney and Dan Kelly.
The other ghosts that return will still search in vain for their name in black and white before a lonely grave. It may be that they will even have to content themselves with the inscription on the white cross now being erected.
"Dedicated to the Memory of All The Unidentified."
Two more names are now being added to the signboard at the entrance to the cemetery those of China Mary and John Hicks. The latter was the first man to be buried in Boothill. He met his death from a bullet aimed at another man which missing its mark, struck Hicks as he entered the door of one of Tombstone's many saloons.
Two-hundred and fifty-nine graves of Tombstone's bear Tombstone's best and Tombstone's worst and may they rest in peace.
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Tombstone's Boothill by someone who later lived a block away from the southeast corner.
Article courtesy TTTom
[by Mrs Mildred
Taitt Milton (Jeff Miltons wife) From the date in the text she wrote this
in 1941. Jeff Milton's house is diagonally across
from St. Pauls Episcopal Church on Third and just south of Safford. This article
is in Ms 500, the Jeff Milton file, at AHS.]
Looking West into Tombstone's residential section from "Tank Hill" in 1884/85. 1-St. Pauls Episcopal Church 2-Original wooden building prior to present building. (Formerly Pricilla's Bed & Breakfast) Take notice that doors and windows were removed. 3- White markers believed to be grave locations. Enlarged section of C.S. Fly image courtesy McLelland Collection
"They Buried Them in Tombstone, The Town too Tough to Die
Tombstone Boot Hill is but a remnant of Tombstone's first cemetery. It is
believed that the name Boothill was not applied to what remains of that early
burying ground until about 1918.
That first cemetery was of considerable size. There are many who remember when
its southeast corner was at what is now Second and Safford streets, the site of
the Harry Kendall home. From there it extended west to the present location of
Highway 80 and northward beyond the present limits of Boothill. James Lamb and
others state that there are graves under the pavement in front of the Lamb
residence.
In the early days of The Old Camp when it was the largest city between El Paso
and San Francisco there was a high mortality. The toll taken by epidemics of
diptheria and other diseases was augmented by accidents and homicides. Good and
bad, young and old were interred within that first burying ground. It chances
that the part which remains holds the bones of some of the better known
desperadoes of this section and of the victims of others. The five Bisbee
outlaws, Dan Dowd, Red Sample, Tex Howard, William Delaney, and York Kelley, who
were legally hanged and their companion, Heath, who was lynched by a crowd of
indignant Bisbee men, were buried there as were Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy
Clanton, slain by Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday at the O. K.
Corral.
Adjoining this cemetery were the Chinese and Jewish cemeteries. Tombstone had
quite a populous Chinatown and there were many funerals with ceremonies which
included the flying of dragon kites and the exploding of firecrackers, so the
children looked forward to each burial as to a circus. Others, than children,
would hide in a nearby gulch until the funeral party had left the cemetery, and
then regale themselves of the delicacies left by the mourners for the departed
spirit.
After a number of years had passed, the bones of most of the Orientals were
collected and shipped to China to be buried in the land of their ancestors. Mrs.
J.H. Macia recalls that at one time when a number of bodies were being returned
to China, Old George Thomas saw her mother ironing and remarked "That is
not a very good ironing board you have, Mrs. Robertson." Not long afterward
he appeared with a fine smooth board for her. Her suspicions were aroused and
she questioned, "George, didn't you get this board from the Chinese
Cemetery? You take it right straight back."
Another look into Tombstone's
main residential section. Enlarged section of C.S. Fly image courtesy McLelland
Collection
The Jewish Cemetery was to the northeast of Boothill, surrounded by a high adobe
wall and was entered by a gateway having a heavy iron gate. There were few
graves in it and in later years it was sometimes used as a corral.
This section of town was abandoned as a place of burial in early spring, 1884,
and not again used except for the burial of a few Chinese, among them China Mary
and old Quong Kee. Many bodies were moved to the new cemetery, but there were
still graves and wooden head boards in the block which now adjoins the highway
for years afterward and it is remembered that the lot made a favorite playground
for children. Gradually the head boards disappeared and the mounds settled to
the level of the surrounding ground.
The present cemetery, on the road to Schieffelins monument, was first used for
the interment of James Lamb, father of the present James Lamb, on June 30th
1884. Insted of the customary wooden headboard, a large bronze monument
simulating stone was placed at the head of the grave. It was made in Chicago by
the American Bronze Company. the placing of it was a matter of community
interest well remembered by those who were children in that day.
Although this cemetery has been in use for 57 years, it is still spoken of as
"the new cemetery." Perhaps the custom might be established of calling
it by the name used in Mexico, "Campo Santo", the Spanish equivalent
of "God's Acre".
About 1900, the time of "the little boom" a Chinaman gave a contract
for the building of a store at the corner of Allen and Third streets, and the
wall of the Jewish cemetery, it is said, was torn down and incorporated in the
store building. This buiding was purchased by the city of Tombstone in 1925 and
has since been used as The Community House. Two past presidents of the Tombstone
Women's Club who grew up in Tombstone during all these changes have pointed out
that the adobe showing in the walls are of two different colors and textures.
The redder ones are said to be those from the old cemetery wall."