G.S. McLelland's "Tombstone; Say it ain't so"

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The following sentence was written by Herbert Cody Blake in 1933:

"Now to make it more aggravating and set these Earp worshippers steaming at the nose".....................................

In 1934, Judge J.C. Hancock wrote:

These modern day writers seem to be in a writing contest about Wyatt Earp, each trying to out do the other in trying to represent Wyatt Earp as an "old lion with the tawny mane" and what he supposed to have done.....

(Things havn't changed much)

Wife of Wyatt Earp stated:

"Most of the tales revolving around Mr. Earp (Wyatt) are romances."

In March of 1926 J.C. Hancock wrote: I never heard of "Boot Hill" in connection with the cemetery until the "tenderfoot" writers began to spread themselves and started to write up the west. I knew most of the old time "rustlers"--Curly Bill, John Ringo, the Hicks boys, Joe Hill, Jim Hughes and many others and I will say that I found many of them were better men than some of the officers that were after them.

In 1933 Hancock also wrote the following about Earp: "I have heard it stated that he would compel her (his wife) to go into places against her will and make money for him to gamble on." The Peoria Bummer

In 1924 L.D Walters wrote : "Grounds, Hunt, the Clantons and the Earps operated mostly around Tombstone and along the line, while Doc Holliday and his gang operated north along the S.P. Lines. Alvord and Stiles operated closer to Tucson."

In 1937 Hal Lamar Hayhurst wrote: "Harry Woods left the sheriff's office somewhat in chargrin, for having allowed Luther King to escape from under his very nose. King had been brought in by the Earps as a suspect in the murder of Bud Philpot and Peter Roehrig in which, as everyone knew, the Earp ally, Doc Holliday was implicated. Partisan politics were violent on that faraway frontier. It was logical that Mr. Clum should ally himself with the Republican faction of the town, which was then being dominated by the Earps. But when the Earps had finally been besmirched with suspicion of stage robbery and even murder, Clum with the sagacity of Nebuchadnezzar, road the handwriting on the wall and decided to get out.

Bob Paul, Earp ally in Tombstone and the one who sitting next to Bud Philpot when he was killed, stated that Doc Holliday was a stage robber and was involved in the attempted stagecoach robbery of March 15, 1881.

Wyatt Earp stated the following: "It happened in 77, when I was City Marshal of Dodge City, Kansas."

Old West writer Richard Erwin wrote: "In Summary, all that we can say with any certainty is that Wyatt was a deputy marshal during the summer and fall of 1876. He was neither marshal or assistant marshal."

In 1933 Herbert Cody Blake wrote the following about Wyatt Earp in Kansas: (Partials) ". ......."Thompsons wanted only one saloon (positively an impossibility) and one gambling crib in the town and jointly run by Wyatt Earp."..........."Earp (Wyatt) was a windjammer and a card shark and so were the Thompsons. The three were partners."

On this page:

(1)---Cowboy Beef Contracts with U.S. Government Old Timer speaks of the Cowboys

(2)---J.C. Hancock Talks Galeyville The Pooh-Bah of Paradise

(3)---He Attends A Necktie Party And Remains One of the most noted Rustlers

(4)---J.C. Hancock "Back Trailed" This Old Timer sure disliked Wyatt Earp

(5)-- Mrs. Wyatt Earp's letter to Arizona Governor in 1929 Courtesy Phoenix Archives

(6)---Tombstone Nugget Newspaper & Human Interest Triangular Love

(7)---Epitaph Only Survivor The Tombstone Epitaph Newspaper

(8)---Bob Paul says Doc Holliday was never arrested for the crime. Paul was an Earp Ally

(9)--- Big Nose Kate writes about Doc Holliday as a Stage Coach robber Suspicious behavior

(10)---Mr. Herbert Cody Blake/Mr. E.L. Stevenson The Thompson brothers & Wyatt Earp were partners?

(11) In 1944 Tom Bailey wrote "Earp told me himself that he killed Curly" True Magazine writer

(12) Tom Bailey also wrote Buckskin Leslie killed John Ringo Ringo's death not a suicide?

Scroll down to read articles

Remember. No matter who wrote/writes it, don't believe everything you read

(1) Melvin Jones of Tucson wrote the following in 1929

Cowboys & Beef Contracts With The U.S. Government

"The cowboys were of all kind and employed by the government contractors who had contract to furnish thousands of head of cattle at San Carlos Indian agency to be fed to the Apache Indians. The contractor, had to have a lot of cowboys to drive cattle from New Mexico, Old Mexico, or wherever they could be got, and keep a herd of several hundred in five or six miles of the agency in small bunches and shot down, one head each for every five or six Indians. The Indians did their own butchering. The cattle were all driven in via San Simon, which was good grass country, where the cowboys would mostly all go for rest for themselves and horses after the hardships of a long drive to get a herd through to San Carlos agency. There were many good, honorable young men that worked with these outfits, though occasionally one chose to follow on the broad and crooked trail, and landed in Tombstone and Boothill Cemetery."

(Previous Post)

Gary S. McLelland OldWestHistory.Net

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(2) Hancock Tells Interesting Story Of Galeyville Country And Early Day Happenings (Late 1920's)

James Hancock, resident of the old town of Paradise in the Chiricahua Mountains and a pioneer in this part of Arizona, might well be termed the Pooh-Bah of Paridise--in fact of all that section of the Chiricahuas. Pooh-Bah, you remember, was everything but the lord high executioner in that lyrically amusing and musically tuneful operetta, "The Mikado." It would no doubt happen if paradise were to return to the state of mind that sometimes pervaded the mining camps of the early days, that the higher rank of Ko-Ko would be draped over Hancock as an official mantle for, as you recall, Ko-Ko was lord high executioner while Pooh-Bah was lord high everything else. But Paradise has settled in a quiet and orderly place, probably a reflection of the influence of the Pooh-Bah's reign.

But whether you remember him as Pooh-Bah or merely as the stable citizen that he is, Hancock at once becomes one of the most interesting and entertaining characters in this part of the state because of the large fund of early lore that he possesses and which he doles out in entertaining conversation and with a modesty that makes you remember the things he tells. He is justice of the peace of Paradise.

The residents thereabouts do him honor by using that more elegant title of judge. He is postmaster and hands out the billet doux to the waiting hand of the love-stricken maiden with a smile and a courteous bow or he delivers the mail to the businessman with a friendly word of conversation that has gained him widespread favor. Whatever it be, the mail that reaches Paradise--the same being a post office--and comes to the hand of Postmaster Hancock, that mail goes to its rightful addresses for he uses the same precision as postmaster that he manifests in making his decisions in trials in his court, apparently believing that both justice and a postmaster should be blind, when it comes to trying court cases or to handling personal mail. While no one claims that he makes the weather for the mountains, he is the government weather observer, also keeping his water gauge, thermometer and barometer for daily observation and record.

Native of Hoosier State

There is a chapter to Hancock's history that adds further interest in him. According to his own statement, he was born in Indiana some years back of the date when he first holds memory of events; and when yet too young either to approve or protest the move, his parents took him with them to Louisiana, thence back to Indiana and to Ohio. he is of English ancestry with a southern extract running through the line. He agrees with George Ade who once wrote, "many great men have gone from Indiana. The greater they were the sooner they went." A part of his childhood career was passed on the banks of the "Wabash river where the novelist laid scenes of that once popular but now almost forgotten novel of "Alice of Old Vincennes," but he says that he was to young then for the scene to have any influence on him.

With his parents, before he had reached his teens, Hancock arrived in California and settled at Santa Barbara, the parents living there most of the remainder of their lives. There ashes now rest in the cemetery there, although they also lived for a time at Monterey. It was from Santa Barbara, however, that Hancock started his trek across the desert sands which brought him in Arizona and eventually landed him in Paradise. That was almost half a century ago--it was in 1880, to be exact, and he first came to Tucson.

Cross Desert a Hard Trip

October 6, 1880, he started with a companion and a pair of mules in a prairie wagon to the Arizona silver and gold mining area. He doesn't recall any experience that even approaches that of the California desert, but he says he looks back upon it with pleasant memory as being merely a day that is gone. "But of all the things I ever endured, that trek was my worst," he says.

Arriving at Tucson on November 6, one month of travel behind, he almost immediately went to work for Push and Terwilliger in a butcher shop and he worked there until the excitement which flared up at the Galeyville camp once more put the incentive to travel into his system and he left Tucson on the move that brought him to the place that was to be his home. He arrived in Galeyville on January 19, 1881, and since that day he has lived and enjoyed the friendship of his neighbors almost within gunshot of there. Even before the old town of Galeyville faded from the scene he had become interested in Paradise where ever since he has been one of the active figures in the town's business and affairs. But it was at Galeyville that Hancock, as only a youth saw one of the most sanguinary events that he has ever witnessed, anywhere. His story runs thus:

"Things had been quiet about the camp for a few days. The boys were working at the diggings and of evenings they would congregate around the stores and bars and talk of the results at the prospect hole or in the mine. Games were a common thing and many indulged in poker or the ivories and everybody went along and had a fairly good time.

"Cherokee Jack" Appears

"In those days, as today, there were all sorts of people. One of the types that often proved a pest in camp was what we called the "tin-horn sport" which like the poor, was always with us. One of that type was "Cherokee Jack." Jack wasn't really a bad fellow but he thought he was and tried to live up to his own picture of himself. When he was in liquor he was really a tough diamond. One morning "Cherokee Jack" appeared with his disposition to be bad away out in front. He was posing at his worst. he came to the post office and called for mail and when the postmaster told him there was none he got boisterous but he soon left, and walked down to where some of the boys were gathered in a hardware store. Pat O'Day was one of the group and with his other ill-tempered "Jack" had it in for the Irish. But he overlooked the fact that Pat O'Day was one of the Celts who long years before had marked the word fear out of his dictionary.

"Cherokee Jack, announced his purpose to run certain persons out of the camp or kill them, including O'Day in that number. O'Day heard his proclamation of proscription unmoved. Jack pulled his revolver from his holster and stepped over to O'Day with a menacing maneuver as if to enforce his order when O'Day grappled with him and knocked the revolver away. The struggle landed both on the floor with O'day on top. They fell against a box of three-pound hammers which O'day saw as his weapon of defense and he grabbed one and started to work upon "Jack." He was doing effective work when C.S. Shotwell stepped up and said, "Wait a minute, pat, if you're going to kill him, take him outside."

Pat takes Him Outside

"Pat obeyed the order. "Jack" was unconscious. O'Day took him by the collar and dragged him out the door and dropped him. It happened that "Jack" fell so that there was a boulder about the size of one's fist at his head, and lacking the hammer, O'Day took this. There had been a number gathered, I among them, to watch the event. Two factions quickly formed, one being in favor of taking Pat off and making him quit and the other including Shotwell and McKounicky insisting that he be allowed to "finish the job." They said that "Cherokee Jack" always was a trouble maker and if it was stopped he would start as he was able. They won the argument.

"Finally, the crowd dispersed after Pat had been told where to find a No. 50 Long-Tom rifle. The spectators drifted down out of sight and waited. Directly they heard a shot and everyone wanted to know what was the trouble so they went back. We found Pat standing close by with the rifle and the body of Cherokee Jack with a large hole in his forehead.

"There were no telephones then and county officials were a long distance away. Some one took charge and organized a coroner's jury. It viewed the body and then went into session to make its verdict. The verdict said that "Cherokee Jack" came to his death as the result of a gunshot wound fired from a gun in the hands of a person to this jury unknown. And that was another day's work. Then those who had such things to look after took up a purse for funds to send Pat out of camp and he went away. The body of Cherokee Jack was consigned to a grave in the mountains here."

Is "Concentrated Inhabitant"

Such was the story of Pooh-Bah of Paradise of the passing of "Cherokee Jack," the one-time bad man of Galeyville. Then he was asked to relate something more, but he said there were so many things that it be as well just to remember them as to relate them. Asked for something personal about himself. Hancock said, "Did you ever read Mark Twain? Yes? Do you remember that character that he made describe himself as the "Concentrated Inhabitant?" well, I suppose that I might claim that distinction here. I have been here a good while and my neighbors have all been friendly toward me. I'm postmaster and peace officer and a few other things and besides that I try to be a peaceful citizen. I like the cerlean of the blue sky, that vari-colored views of these old mountains, the green of the live-oak and the cypress, the grayish white of the sycamore trees, the bronze-tan color which the climate brings to the faces of our people."

Relating something of his personal effort, Hancock at one time was the genial boniface of the hotel in Paridise. It was a two-story building. It was destroyed by fire years ago. That was before the days of the "Dude ranch" popularity.

And so when it had been told, it appeared that Pooh-Bah was, withal, a fairly appropriate title and one in which the other inhabitants found favor for Hancock has been a peacemaker between the factions when arguments arose, or when claimed legal rights were involved. And through it he has come with the flavor of all wearing a smile so that around Paradise none would deny him the right to Twain's sobriquet of the "Concentrated Inhabitant."

G.S. McLelland OldWestHistory.Net 6/9/05

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(3) Tombstone Daily Nugget December 7, 1881

A "Rustler" Comes To Grief. He Attends A Necktie Party And Remains

Deputy Sheriff Lance Perkins came in from Galeyville last evening and gives us the following particulars regarding the lynching of Joe M. Gauze, one of the most noted "Rustlers" in Southern Arizona. It appears that a number of horses and mules have been stolen lately in the vicinity of Galeyville, and last Sunday afternoon, when Gauze was coming down Pine canyon, and about three miles from major Downing's Old Saw Mill, he was stopped by three men, whom it is presumed were heavily armed, and while they prevented him from escaping, the three others pulled him off his horse, disarmed him, laid the cartridge belts beside the road, took him across the creek some 150 yards, and hanged him. His body was found a short time afterwards by some of Contractor Clute's men, who cut it down and sent word to Galeyville for the Justice of the Peace to take possession of it and hold an inquest.

The tracks in the road, where he was taken from the horse, show that there were six persons implicated in the tragedy, and that he resisted as long as possible. one of the bridle reins of the horse was broken, showing that someone had held the animal to prevent his escape. The saddle, although secured with double cinches, was turned on the side of the horse when the animal was found. gauze was of medium height and about thirty-two or thirty-three years of age, and said by some to be a very hard character. It is not known that he had ever killed anyone, nor had he been in many fights or difficulties in this section. But his memory regarding the ownership of horses and mules was peculiar for its brevity. He was known to many of our citizens, as he was at this place much of the time during the late Indian troubles, and carried a number of military dispatches to the troops while in pursuit of the hostiles after their retreat from the Dragoon Mountains.

Let his virtues be remembered-for he'll make no more mistakes about loose cattle.

G.S. McLelland OldWestHistory.Net

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(4) Editors Mail Bag--Tombstone Epitaph Newspaper--November 22, 1934--By J.C. Hancock

"Back Trailed"

I back trailed with my old friend Rob't Bollar, who I read his article a few days ago in the Epitaph, and it sure brought up many memories of those old by-gone days, now gone forever.

Bollar's description of Johnny Behind-the-Deuce affair is correct. There was no threats of violence or any shouting and yelling. None of the crowd was armed and no one had a rope. I do not think there was over seventy-five or a hundred persons in that "frenzied mob of desperados, cowboys and miners" as it described by those modern writers of to-day, and Bollar says, hardly anyone knew what the trouble was about or what happened in Charleston. I have since been reliably informed that there was no trouble in Charleston, either.

These modern day writers seem to be in a writing contest about Wyatt Earp, each trying to out do the other in trying to represent Wyatt Earp as an "old lion with the tawney mane" and what he supposed to have done. They side-step the facts as the testimony of Johnny Behan and other witnesses at the preliminary trial of Wyatt for killing Billy Clanton and two McLowery boys. Also, they do not mention the infamous decision that Wyatt gave in the Sharkey-Fitzsimmons fight that took place in Oakland, California, some years ago.

H.W. Miller, an old boy-hood friend of mine, writes me that H.N. North, who was a collector of customs at San Francisco years ago, writing in the Oakland, Tribune, says "I attended the Sharkey/Fitzsimmons fight and had a seat at the ring-side and remember it very clearly. Before the fight began, with Earp as referee, Fitzsimmons in his fighting cloths with his hands on the ropes, addressed the crowd, saying that the fight was fixed and that the decision was to go to Sharkey regardless of who won. The crowd began to hoot and Fitzsimmons said, "Don't think I am trying to avoid this fight. I am going to be the victor: but nevertheless, I want you to know beforehand how it is going to be decided. " He did enter the ring and thoroughly bested Sharkey and finally knocked him out. While Sharkey was on the floor Earp gave him the decision and immediately left the ring. If he had a revolver on his person, I did not see it. Neither did he fix the crowd with his cold grey eye, as some biographers now claim. The impression remains in my mind that he sneaked from the ring. certainly all the cat-calls and cries from the crowd were directed at him. The next day all the bets were declared off. I am sure the crowd was with Fitzsimmons and that he was entitled to the decision."

Now it appears from reliable sources that Wyatt Earp was never marshal of Dodge City and that he had nothing to do with the capture of young Jim Kennedy who in the attempt to kill "Dog" Kelley killed Dora Hand, a handsome girl who sang in the dance-halls. She had a beautiful voice which had been well trained. It was Bat Masterson, Charley Bassett and Billy Tighlman who arrested hin in Cimmaron crossing. Dora Hand and Fannie Garretson did not room together. Fannie and her husband were both fine singers. They came to Dodge from Deadwood. Fannie got to drinking and when her husband left her she went to bed. Dora Hand did not occupy Jim (Dog) Kelley's shack. He occupied it himself with Fannie Garretson. Dora Hand lived in another shack owned by a merchant of the town. He was with her when she was shot. He said he did not know that she had been shot. She moved her head a little and in putting his arm over her he found her night-gown wet. He struck a light and saw that she was deadshot through the heart, and that her gown was soaked with blood. They were to have been married in a few days.

It is my opinion that Doc Holliday shot Bud Philpot by mistake, thinking he was shooting at Bob Paul. The outfit was afraid Paul would uncover something and they wanted him out of the way and poor Bud was the victim.

Very truly yours,

J.C. Hancock

(Previously Posted)
G.S. McLelland OldWestHistory.Net

(5) Mrs. Josie Earp

Tombstone Epitaph Newspaper Feb 25, 1937

WIDOW OF WYATT EARP VISITS SCENES OF HIS ACTIVITIES

Mrs. Wyatt Earp, widow of that famous peace officer of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, made a trip last week, arriving on Friday and leaving Sunday morning for the return trip to California where she makes her home.

G.S. McLelland OldWestHistory.Net 6/3/05

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Tombstone Epitaph Newspaper July 8, 1937

(6) Tombstone Nugget Story Is full of Human Interest

By Hal Lamar Hayhurst

(Written expressly for the Tombstone Epitaph)

Concerning the Tombstone Nugget, of which the veteran cowboy journalist, Frank M. King, wrote in the Epitaph of June 24, there is much which could be told--about a parent's grief, and gun-fights of blood and bullets, a woman's love, and sorrow, success and failure.

The Nugget was founded as a weekly paper in October, 1879 by A.E. Fay and associates, and after a few experimental weeks it became a daily--a six-day publication--Tombstone's first newspaper.

With all due respect to my fellow-scribe, Mr. King, who says that Harry M. Woods was editor of the Nugget when Johnny Behan was made Sheriff of Cochise County. I am constrained to point out that whereas Behan became sheriff in Feb. of 1881. Woods did not mount the editorial tripod until the following April, after he and his associates had purchased the paper from Fay.

Editor Fay's head was bowed in sorrow over the waywardness of his son, who was known about town as Kid Fay, a swaggering, gun-toting tough. After the sale of the Nugget, the Fays moved to Peach Springs, in Northern Arizona. near where the Atlantic and Pacific railroads was being built, where the father started the Weekly Champion, and may have thought his son might reform in less turbulent surroundings.

But reformation was not in the cards. One night a shot shattered the stillness of the new little town. A burly railroad construction hand lay withering in death throes at the feet of a beautiful young woman. Kid Fay was arrested and charged with murder.

At the trial, the gist of the defense was that the deceased had persisted to making advances toward the girl, young Fay's fiancée; that he was threatening her with violence just as the Kid came into her quarters and Fay fired the shots in the belief that his sweetheart's life was in danger. But the Kid's bad reputation as a brawler and card sharp had followed him from Tombstone, so the trial was not proceeding so well for the defense.

Then unexpectedly, the girl jumped up and said, "Your honor, Mr. Fay is innocent of this charge. He didn't kill Spike, I done it. He was going to hit me because I wouldn't be his girl. I was afraid for my life, so I grabbed the gun and shot."

"How does Mr. Fay come into this, then?" she was asked. "He's just trying to protect me from being on trial." she demurely replied. "But how do you explain the fact that Spike was shot with what has been identified as the defendant's own large caliber Colt's revolver" the prosecutor asked.

Her eyes filled with tears "Sure it's his gun," she replied. Her voice broke and through her sobs she said, "He left it with me for me to protect myself against Spike," She was having a telling effect on the jury. The prosecutor scoffed and protested. "The clever defense attorney no doubt taught this girl to speak this touching little piece of hers, when they saw that a guilty man was about to be convicted of murder," he declared.` "There are those," he went on to say, "who know that Fay never left his gun anywhere; there are some who believe he takes it to bed with him; and there are some who suspect, that he the deceased Spike was murdered for starting a fight over having been trimmed in Fay's card game, where the girl was probably used as a come-on."

A pretty girl's tears were melting the hearts of twelve rugged frontier jurors and diluting their judgement. The prosocutor continued to appeal to what he termed their horse sense. But he saw it was futile for him to compete with lovely feminine wiles.

Young Fay did not deny his fiancée's startling admission. So, even though the jury must have had its tongue in its cheek. It could do little else but free him. At this, the disgruntled prosecutor, with a last ironical fling with the jury, said, "I dare say it would be expecting too much of you gentlemen to believe that a lady can be a liar? Or that she should be charged with this slaying?"

It was expecting too much. The jurors did not wish to believe that such beauty in tears could tell these fibs. And, of course, there was no thought of her being charged with the crime. Frontier chivalry gave ladies all benefits or any doubt. So the case ended there and then. Sometime later, Kid Fay again broke into the newspapers in connection with an extortion and robbery case in the El Paso underworld. But that is another story.

As I show in my forthcoming coming book, "The Tombstone Sheriff," Harry Woods left the sheriff's office somewhat in chagrin, for having allowed Luther King to escape from under his very nose. King had been brought in by the Earps as a suspect in the murder of Bud Philpot and Peter Roehrig, in which, as everyone knew, the Earp ally, Doc Holliday, was implicated.

So Harry Woods became the second editor of the first newspaper. The SECOND paper in the old grand camp was the Daily Tombstone, which was short-lived. The third paper, the Epitaph, which was started as a weekly in May, 1880, by John Clum, Charles D. Reppy and Thomas R. Sorrin, in a tent, on a lot where the two story Epitaph building was subsequently erected. That was at 326 Fremont St., opposite the Nugget, which was housed in a building about where the City Hall has stood the past 55 years.

Mr. Clum, prosperous from his lately terminated job of Indian agent at the San Carlos Apache Reservation expanded the Epitaph to a daily about two months after it was founded and employed a competent editor named O. F. Thornton, while he devoted most of his own time to the post office.

Clum had previously bought the Citizen, at Tucson, moved it to Florence for a short time, then back to Tucson where he sold it and joined the stampede to Tombstone. There he looked around and saw that the place needed a Republican paper and a post office---it was still getting its mail through the Tucson post office, 75 miles away, although the new locality had been growing for nearly two years. So he went East, arranged for the postmastership and bought print shop equipment and returned to Tombstone as postmaster and publisher.

He is reputed even to have gone down into his well-filled purse and paid out one thousand Indian dollars to furnish the post office for which generous, though unauthorized expenditures. Uncle Sam did not reimburse him.

Partisan politics were violent on that faraway frontier. It was logical that Mr. Clum should ally himself with the Republican faction of the town, which was then being dominated by the Earps. But when the Earps had finally been besmirched with suspicion of stage robbery and even murder, Clum with the sagacity of Nebuchadnezzar, road the handwriting on the wall and decided to get out. He sold the Epitaph to a group which included Harry M. Woods, and the tough old town was at the mercy of two democratic newspapers, until a journalist named W.D. Crowe came along and started the Tombstone Republican.

As there was an insufficient field for two Democratic newspapers, the Nugget began began to assay less and less pay dirt and finally quit all together. In the summer of 1882, with Pat Hamilton as editor, the ephemeral Tombstone Independent was started. In the same year, a lawyer named Sam Purdy came up from Yuma to edit the Epitaph. He was succeeded by Dick Rule, formerly of the Nugget, and followed successfully by John O. Dunbar, Charles D. Reppy, George Peck, Stanley Bagg, William (Tarantula Bill) Hattich, and various others of a grand host of other scribes, who ably edited Tombstone's newspapers. Of the group, only the good old Epitaph survives, in the competent hands of Walter H. Cole.

G.S. McLelland OldWestHistory 6/3/05

(7) Epitaph Only Survivor

Tombstone Epitaph Newspaper April 27, 1944

Shooting Up The Epitaph

In the beginning the Epitaph was published in a tent. Everything started in a tents in those border towns. It censured the practice then in vogue of shooting up the town.

Curly Bill, Buckskin Sam, Jack Mitchell and some more of these proud men of the open spaces considered themselves deeply affronted by that unkind comment, and from then on the Epitaph boys were plumb out of luck in that tent when the rustlers would ride up Fremont Street letting daylight through the newspaper plant.

Soon as the blasting began the entire force, editorial and printorial, would dive for the floor, get behind the presses , and and otherwise protect themselves from the bombardment. But as soon as the fireworks were over, the gang would roll another smoke and get back on the job grinding out news and molding public opinion.

G.S. McLelland OldWestHistory.Net (6/3/05)

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(8) Tombstone Epitaph Newspaper June 30, 1932 "Along Memory Lane" (Originally published in 1892)

For the first time he (Bob Paul) makes public the facts connected with the attempted robbery at which time Bud Philpot was killed. The names of the robbers was given by Mr. Paul were Doc Holliday, Bill Leonard, and Harry Head and one other, name unknown. It was known that Holliday had been in the scheme and yet he returned to Tombstone the same night and walked around unmolested and was never arrested for the crime.

G.S. McLelland OldWestHistory.Net

(9) The following article was written by Anton Mazzanovich and published in the early 1930s.
Mazzonovich stated he interviewed Big Nose Kate. (Partial)

She was in Tombstone the time the stage was held up in which Bud Philpot was killed. After that holdup the writer was doing a little detective and pressed Mrs. Holliday for information. In her answer she said:

"I can't write you any blood and thunder stories about Doc Holliday as there is no such things in his past career. All I know is just how Doc acted that afternoon before the stage was held up. Yes I knew Morgan Earp was the messanger on the stage. Now as much as I think of Doc I will tell you what happened. Doc came home in a hurry, changed his cloths. I asked him why he was in such a hurry he said that he had particular work on hand and that he would not be able to take me to supper. About half an hour after he left, Warren Earp came to me with a note from Doc to send him his rifle. I asked Warren why Doc wanted his rifle. He said that he did not know. Doc did not come home until late that night. He did not bring his rifle. It was four or five days after the holdup that he brought the rifle back. I thought that after the holdup, things looked very suspicious about the Earps and Doc. Something tells me that Doc was in with Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan in that affair. But if Doc was in it he did not get any of the spoils. One night after we had retired, Warren Earp came after Doc and said that Wyatt wanted to see him him at his house. He was gone one hour and a half. I could see that he was very much put out about something. He kept saying the damned fool. I did not think that of him. Then he said "I have to get up early in the morning, but I will think about it."
This was after the stage holdup. he did not get up till 9;00 a.m. when we went to breakfast. "Well, I don't know what I'm going to stack up against today. I am getting tired of it all."

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(10) Tombstone Epitaph June 22, 1933 Mr. Herbert Cody Blake & E.L. Stevenson wrote the following:

"Now to make it more aggravating and set these Earp worshippers steaming at the nose, I copy and enclose what an old friend of mine wrote. It will give these gents an opportunity to hear first-handed from a friend who was in Alaska when Earp was a lot of facts, and if the following which my friend Mr. E.L. Stevenson, Box 1271, Brawley, Calif., who has Earp's number wrote isn't sufficient proof, I will add facts.

In reference to subduing the two Thompsons, Bill and Ben, (Lake's Fiction gives it nicely) Ellsworth, Kansas was the location. I take it readers of the Epitaph have read the book by Lake and degress long enough to add that Lake's "Wyatt Earp" like Wilstack's "Wild Bill Hickok" and Walter Burns "Billy the Kid "are fiction. Wilstacks, with whom I have been aquainted forty-five years had Hickok kill nine out of ten in the highest spot in his career and the jackpot of the book reads, "killed all ten." Doubleday Page & Co. the publishers asked me to review the manuscript. Truth is Bill killed no one in that coming out party. "Doc" Brink out of St. Jo, killed the three men and they were all in the McCauless mob. Burn's saga worse than the others. He tells us Billy the Kid was left-handed. This is one of the "182" errors I have found in his saga.

Now let these Earp lovers kill an acre of grass with their language after reading what my friend writes. Says he:

"I knew all mentioned in the Ellsworth affair. Earp was a windjammer and a card sharp and so to were the Thompsons. the three were partners. Erap wanted to be Marshal of Ellsworth, Kansas, but he hollered for $500 a month. Mayor Miller told Wyatt he wasn't worth a thin dime more'n others had been paid and that $125 was the limit. "The Thompsons wanted only one saloon (positively an impossibility) and one gaming crib in town and jointly with Wyatt Earp to run both. To this Miller replied, "Nothing doing." Then Wyatt plans to scare Miller into 4500 a month. Ben and Bill go on a public drunk. Had a few along with them. They killed two dogs, a few hens and burnt a lot of powder, raising hell generally. ben packed a shotgun. the mayor never requested to arrest Ben. All the dope in Lake's book my friend contradicts and, being present, (Lake was not) bears on the matter."

"Earp was Marshal of Dodge for a short time. He killed one of Ellison's (Allison) punchers, shot him in the back. When Ellison heard of it he came into town, alone, and gave it out cold that he'd beef both Earp and Bat Masterson. Its history in Dodge that both Wyatt and Bat hid out the whole week Ellison remained. Ellison was then sixty-eight years old but as quick with a gun as Wild Bill and a very much better shot. He put up an offer of $1000 in twenty dollar gold pieces for anyone who'd get Wyatt or Bat to shot it out with him. Bat isn't running in this tale, but one word regarding is apropos. it's a fact and not disputed that when the mayor told Bat to take the next train and vamoose Dodge, he did it."

The foregoing is half of what I read written by my friend. I would copy what Stevenson wrote but it is mislead. If either Mr. King or Mr. Hancock is interested, he can by writing Mr. Stevenson and get some information not in books. Incidentally they may learn that I am not a bluff in regard to it have no objection to giving anyone interested the name of my friend who was in Ellsworth and backsup the foregoing."

G.S. McLelland OldWestHistory.Net

(11) In 1944 Tom Bailey, True Magazine writer wrote:

(Partial)

Bailey, who was a newspaper man, met Wyatt Earp in Oakland, Calif., in 1926, and became well acquainted with him. From Earp he obtained much of the data for the article he is preparing.

The fight between the Earps and Curly Bill's gang took place at a spring some miles from Tombstone while Earp, Doc Holliday and the remnants of the Earp crowd were making their departure from Tombstone.

There has always been conjecture as to whether or not Wyatt Earp actually killed Curly Bill. Bailey says, he is positive that Earp did kill the outlaw in his last gun fight at the springs.

"Earp told me himself that he killed Curly and described in detail to me the complete fight, how he stood off Curly Bill's gang lone-handed while Doc Holliday and the others ran away on their horses. The gang was well entrenched and the Earps were out in the open. Wyatt leaped off his horse and found cover, but the others didn't and were forced to flee.

"Earp told me he saw Curly Bill fall and that he knew his bullets had found a vital spot."

G.S. McLelland OldWestHistory.Net

(12) Tom Bailey also wrote.......

"It is true, " Bailey said, "that Buckskin Leslie (of Tombstone) killed John Ringo. Leslie told me himself that he did, and he told me why. It was because of Ringo's participation in the slaying of a pretty Mexican girl. In most of the histories I have read about Tombstone, Ringo is held up as an admirer of women-kind, and it was said that he would fight at the drop of a hat if a woman's name was maligned. That might have been, but Ringo was roaring drunk when the Mexican girl was slain, and that of course may have accounted for his actions.

At any rate, he paid for his crime at Leslie's hands. Leslie got him drunk and they were on a wild spree for about two weeks, at the end of which time Ringo was slain and his body left against a tree with his own revolver dangling from a huge gold watch chain. Leslie himself arranged the revolver so it would look like a suicide."

G.S. McLelland OldWestHistory.Net

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