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Lawmen ~ Gun Men ~ Outlaws ~ Legends
~<>~
Doc Holliday
Doc Holliday had to be the badest man walking the West. Made even more impressive was the fact that he was dying, and raged at the gods-and made a name that will last to the end of time...
On January 8, 1849, Henry Burroughs Holliday, a future Confederate Major and a druggist by trade, and Alice Jane McKay were married. This union gave rise to two offspring. The first of these offspring was Martha Eleanora Holliday, who died on June 12, 1850, six months after her birth.
Their second offspring, born on August 14, 1851 in Griffin, Georgia, would be given the name John Henry Holliday. He is better known by the nickname he would earn later in life: 'Doc' Holliday. Within the year, this entry was entered into the local church records:
"John Henry, infant son of Henry B. and Alice J. Holliday, received ordinance of baptism on Sunday March 21, 1852, at he First Presbyterian Church in Griffin."
Growing up, Doc Holliday was very close to his mother. Her death in September 16, 1866 was a very traumatic event for him. This experience was made even worse for the younger Holliday when, within three months of his wife's death, the elder Holliday remarried. The Holliday family moved to Valdosta, Georgia (where some believe Doc was born, although this is definitely not the case.) Soon after this marriage.
In 1870, Doc Holliday enrolled in the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery. While there he wrote a thesis on "Disease of the Teeth" and served his required time as an apprentice with Dr. L.F. Frank. Doc graduated with a degree of Doctor
of Dental Surgery on March 1, 1872. After graduation, Doc entered into dental practice in Atlanta with a Dr. Arthur C. Ford as can be seen by this ad from the July 26, 1872 edition of The Atlanta Constitution:"I hereby inform my patients that I have to attend the session of the Southern Dental Association in Richmond Virginia and will be absent until about the middle of August, during which time Dr. John H. Holliday will
fill my place in office. Office: 26 Whitehall Street - Arthur C. Ford, D.D.A."While practicing as a dentist, Doc contracted tuberculosis. The consensus of all the doctors he visited was that he had just a few months to live, but Doc might add some time to his life if he moved to a drier climate. On this advice, Doc headed west to the end of the railroad: Dallas, Texas. Once in town, he became an associate with Dr. John A. Seeger. The time was October 1873. Doc's career as a dentist soon ended since no one wanted a 'lunger' working so closely to their own fragile health.
Since he could no longer support himself through a dental practice, Doc turned to something that he discovered he had a natural affinity for namely, gambling.
Since this was the Old West, and gambling was a dangerous profession, Doc started practicing daily with his pistol and knife. He didn't have long to wait to try out his new skills. While in Dallas, Holliday had his first confrontation. The opponent was a saloonkeeper named Austin and the date was January 2, 1875. Neither man harmed the other and were both released soon after their arrest.
Within a few days, Doc was again involved in a confrontation. This time the result was the death of a local prominent citizen. Holliday fled from Dallas with the local law on his heels. He ended up dealing Faro in Jackson, a town close to the Fort Richardson Army base. This closeness to the fort proved even more trouble for Doc after he killed a solider from there. This time Holliday fled town with both local, federal and military law on his heels. He ended up in Colorado and spent time in the towns of Central City, Leadville, Georgetown, and Pueblo. Doc killed another man in a dispute with a local gambler and was on the run again. This time he went through Wyoming and New Mexico and finally ended up in Fort Griffin, Texas.
"Big Nose" Kate Elder (or Fisher) was a local prostitute and dance hall girl. She was also very independent and somewhat psychotic. She and Doc met while he was dealing cards at John Shanssey's salon. To say their relationship was tense would be putting it mildly. Kate had a hot temper and was prone to overindulging in drink and the results were usually violent arguments. Doc too, was no stranger to tying one on, and had a temper that could level a town, as he eventually proved. However, she and Doc usually ended up together again after their knockdown drag-out fights. Wyatt Earp and Doc met and became friends when Earp came into town searching for a train robber. Their friendship would stand the test of time, and they remained friends until Doc's death. Although there were some that said Wyatt didn't ever see Doc after he went into the hospital.
After Doc ran into some trouble in Fort Griffin (which resulted in the death of Ed Bailey), he and Kate booked it to Dodge City. Kate had helped save Doc from what was sure to be a place on the end of a rope. Doc tried practicing dentistry and Kate gave up being a dance hall lady. That didn't last long. Kate's return to prostitution led to one of their many split-ups. One day, a large group of rowdy Texas cowboys entered Dodge City. After a long time on the trail, they were ready to paint the town red (in a manner of speaking). Unfortunately, some of them wanted to use Wyatt Earp's blood. They had ganged up on Wyatt in the Long Beach saloon. In response to his friend's predicament, "Holliday coolly stepped up to the gun rack, removed his revolver, and broke up the party by shooting one of the rustlers in the shoulder. He then helped herd the outlaws across the street to the jail." This episode only helped to increase the bond between the two friends and Wyatt never forgot that Doc had saved his life that night.
Doc eventually left Dodge City for a while. He first landed in Trinidad, Colorado where he encountered a young gambler (and aspiring gunfighter) named "Kid Colton". When Colton encountered Doc, he riled him into a gunfight. Doc made quick work of the "Kid" and, not wanting to hang around for a probable hangman's noose, hit the trail for New Mexico. Once in Las Vegas, New Mexico, Doc made a half-hearted attempt at dentistry (the year was 1879). He soon rid himself of his practice and bought his own saloon on Center Street. On July 19,1879 Doc got into an argument with a former army scout named Mike Gordon. Gordon tried to persuade one of Holliday's saloon girls to quit her job and run away with him. When she refused, Gordon became infuriated. He went out to the street and began to fire bullets randomly into the saloon. He didn't have a chance to do much damage--after the second shot, Holliday calmly stepped out of the saloon and dropped Gordon with a single bullet. Gordon died the next day. Gordon ended up dead and Doc ended up back on the run. Since he really had no friends elsewhere, Doc headed back for Dodge City and Wyatt Earp.
When Doc arrived in Dodge City, he discovered that Wyatt had left for Tombstone (as all his brothers would soon do), the site of a new silver strike. Without Wyatt, there was no reason for Doc to stick around in Dodge City, so he took off after his friend. Doc first wound up in Prescott, where Wyatt's brother, Virgil, was a newly appointed Deputy Marshall. Virgil left for Tombstone without Doc, who was having fabulous luck at the poker tables. "Big Nose" Kate was also headed for Tombstone through Prescott and found Doc there during his lucky streak. They finally left Prescott with about $40,000 in Doc's pockets and reached Tombstone in early summer of 1880.
When they arrived in Tombstone, Doc and Kate took up residence in a room between a funeral parlor and a winery. Kate soon sets up her own "cat" house, and actually did pretty good for herself. Meanwhile, the local outlaws, or "Cowboys", (consisting of Ike, Phin, Billy, and Newman "Old Man" Clanton, Frank and Tom McLaury, Curly Bill Brocius, Johnny Ringo, and others) were becoming very unhappy with the new arrivals of the Earps (Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan) and Doc.
In early October 1880, Doc had a confrontation with Johnny Tyler while in the Oriental Saloon. Johnny quickly left, but Doc and the saloon owner (Milt Joyce) began to argue. Luckily for Joyce, Doc was drunk and, therefore, his aim was off. Doc fired several shots, all of them missing their mark, and Joyce hit Doc on the head with his pistol. Joyce ended up with a shot through the hand, the saloon's bartender was shot in a toe on his left foot, and Doc was arrested and charged for assault with a deadly weapon. He was found guilty of the charge and fined.
On March 15, 1881 a stagecoach was held up and its driver and a passenger were killed. The "Cowboys" took this opportunity to try to get rid of Doc. They stated that he was one of the four holdup men. The local lawman, Sheriff Behan and Deputy Stilwell, found "Big Nose" Kate in a drunken state after another of her and Doc's breakups. They got her to sign an affidavit stating that Doc was one of the men and was the one who had killed the stage driver. Upon learning of this, the Earps began gathering witnesses who would testify to Doc's innocence. Once Kate had sobered up and realized what she had done, she immediately repudiated her statement. The District Attorney threw out the case against Holliday. Kate left Tombstone after this, but would come back often.
She claimed to witness the famous gunfight and may have, since she and Doc shared a room above a photography studio. This is probably the reason the "Cowboys" were waiting in the vacant lot next door beside the OK Corral, to catch Doc and kill him, since they considered him to be the more dangerous of the Earp associates.
Once the "Cowboys" threatened to kill Doc and the Earps, the outcome was inevitable. Everyone knew that the threat would not make them run. On October 26, 1881, Virgil and his brothers discovered that some "Cowboys" were carrying weapons in Tombstone, which was against city law. The "Cowboys" were holed up at the OK Corral. As the Earps walked down Forth Street toward corral, Doc joined their ranks.
The gunfight did not actually take place within the corral, but at the corner of Third and Fremont Streets, in a sort of alley between the OK Corral and Camillus Fly's Photographic Studio (above which Doc and Kate lived). Finally, at 2:30pm, the tension between these two groups came to a head in what is surely the West's most legendary shoot out. The "Cowboys" at the corral were: Ike Clanton, Billy Clanton, Frank McLaury, and Tom McLaury.
The shooting started when Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury cocked their pistols. After the battle started, Doc shot Billy through the chest and then turned on Tom. Tom was killed with a double charge of buckshot. Wyatt allowed Ike to run, but Doc wasn't going to let him off so easy. He fired twice at Ike and missed both shots .
As Ike ran, his brother Billy tried to fire a last few shots before death took him. His gun was taken away by Mr. Camillus Fly. Frank shot at Doc, but the bullet hit Doc's pistol holster and slightly wounded him in his hip. Doc returned fire with a shot through Frank's head. Within 30 seconds, Billy, Frank, and Tom lay dead. Virgil had a shot through his leg and Morgan had shots through both shoulders. Wyatt was the only uninjured participant. Sheriff Behan arrested the Earps and Doc Holliday for murder. At the trial following the gunfight, it was decided that the Earps acted within the law.
It was a few months before any real after effects of the gunfight were felt. On January 17, 1882, a drunken Johnny Ringo challenged Doc and Wyatt to a gunfight. Doc and Wyatt brushed off Johnny because they knew he was drunk and that it was the whiskey talking. A few months later, on March 18, while Morgan was playing pool in Campbell and Hatch's Saloon, he was shot in the back from outside. This resulted in his death, and his body was sent back home to his parents for burial.
On March 20, Wyatt and Warren Earp, Doc Holliday and a couple of other men met Frank Stilwell and Ike Clanton at a railroad station. Wyatt shot Stilwell and killed him after chasing him down the track. A warrant for the group's arrest was issued. Stilwell's death was the start of a trail of carnage that was laid across the West by the Earps and Holliday on their trail of vengeance.
Upon hearing on March 22 that Pete Spencer was in the Dragoons, the "Earp Posse" rode there. Spencer was not there, but Florentino Cruz was. He told the posse who had murdered Morgan, himself included. He was killed on the spot. The posse then encountered Curly Bill Brocius with eight other men near Iron Springs. Curly Bill was killed on March 24th. After a year of hunting, the Earp Posse had killed the following list of "Cowboys":Billy Clanton
Frank McLaury
Tom McLaury
Frank Stilwell
Indian Charlie
Johnny Barnes
Jim Crane
Harry Head
Bill Leonard
Joe Hill
Luther King
Charley Snow
Billy Lang
Zwing Hunt
Billy Grounds
Hank Swilling
Dixie Gray
Florentino Cruz
Curly Bill BrociusDoc was responsible for killing quite a few of them. If there was one thing Doc hated, it was a bully, and the Cowboys fit the bill-- some even calling them the first gang activity in the West. When he and Wyatt left Tombstone for good, they eventually traveled to Colorado. When Doc arrived in Denver, Perry Mallan arrested him. Some (including Holliday himself) believe that this man was a brother to Johnny Tyler. While in jail, this statement appeared in the local newspaper, the Denver Republican
(May 22, 1882): "Holliday has a big reputation as a fighter, and has probably put more rustlers and cowboys under the sod than any other man in the West. He had been the terror of the lawless element in Arizona, and with the Earps was the only man brave enough to face the bloodthirsty crowd which has made the name of Arizona a stench in the nostrils of decent men."
The Denver Post also vilified Doc, calling for his neck to be strung by the rope.
Due to the efforts of Bat Masterson, Doc was exonerated by the governor of Colorado and was released from jail. After being released, Doc left Denver and traveled to Leadville where he encountered Johnny Tyler and Billy Allen. Word had it that Allen had threatened Doc's life. Doc wasn't going to take any chances over this. On August 19, 1884, Doc entered Hyman's Saloon and waited at the end of the bar for Allen. When Allen entered, Doc shot and creased his head. He shot again and hit Allen's left arm. At this point, Holliday was disarmed. Since Allen had publicly threatened him, Doc was acquitted of charges.
In May of 1887, Doc Holliday went to Glenwood Springs in order to see if the local sulfur vapors would help his TB. However, unknown to him at the time, the sulfur acted badly on his lungs and further progressed his disease. His last fifty-seven days were spent bedridden. On November 8, 1887, he awoke, drank a glass of whiskey, said, "This is funny," and died. He was buried in Linwood Cemetery.
Doc had but one regret in his life, and that was the strong love he held for his cousin back in Georgia, who entered a convent over her affair with him.
Doc had gone West knowing he had a short time to live. For him, the death of a gunman was preferable since it would be quick, in fact he almost begged for someone to put him out of his misery. However, he made it through all sorts of gunfights without ever being seriously wounded. To him it must have been funny to think back over all the battles and that he had made it through, but what finally brought him down was a disease that he contracted before his outlaw days. He had come west after being told it would add mere months to his life. The doctors were so very wrong. Coming west added fifteen years to the life of this legendary man. And then again, he might have thought it was absolutely hysterical that he was dying with his boots off.
