(no subject)
Ha! I knew that I still had a copy of this around somewhere. Unfortuneatly, this is the unrevised version, but it'll do. Elspethdixon, this ought to be of some interest - I think that there're a few things in here that didn't turn up in our earlier research on Doc.
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Doctor John Henry Holliday:
Doc Holliday was a dentist, educated southern gambler, heavy drinker, fast draw with a gun, and ultimately, a somewhat elusive figure. He was known for having a mercurial temper and a sharp tongue that often got him into trouble. He also used alcohol to help control the consumptive cough and dull the pain of the consumption that plagued him for nearly fifteen years, and had the attitude that a quick death by gun or knife wound was better than the slow death that he was suffering.
Overall, Doc does not seem to have been well liked, with one or two notable exceptions, but he was respected by those who knew him. Perhaps Wyatt Earp, Docs' closest friend, summed him up the best. "Doc was a dentist whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a frontier vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long lean ash-blond fellow nearly dead with consumption, and at the same time the most skillful gambler and the nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a gun that I ever knew."
Family:
John Henry Holliday was born on August 14, 1852 in Griffin, Georgia. His parents were Henry Burroughs and Alice Jane Holliday née McKey. They had had a daughter named Martha Eleanora, however, she died as an infant, on March 12, 1850, a full year before John was born.
Alice Jane Holliday was a true southern Victorian lady. She was in charge of the house, and was primarily responsible for raising her son. John had been born with a cleft palate. It was repaired shortly after his birth, actually by his uncle who was a surgeon, but he required some special care as an infant, and speech therapy as he gerw older, which became his mother's responsibility. She and John were very close, and he was heartbroken when she died of consumption in 1866, when he was only fifteen years old. His mother was not the only family member Doc lost to consumption; both his uncle Robert Holliday and his adopted brother, named Francisco Hidalgo, died in 1873.
Henry Burroughs Holliday was a druggist and planter. He had fought against Indians in Georgia in 1838, Mexicans in 1846, and he fought with the Confederate Army in 1861. He rose to the rank of major during the Civil War, but was forced to resign his commission in 1862, due to sickness. Two years later, in 1864, he moved his family to Valdosta, Georgia, near the Florida line, when he realized that their old home was in the path of Union General William Tecumseh Shermans' 'March to the Sea.' Henry Burroughs was elected mayor of Valdosta in 1876. After his first wifes' death in 1866, he remarried to a much younger woman named Rachel Martin only three months later. Doc never got on very well with his father, in no small part because of his rapid remarriage after the death of Docs' mother, to whom he had been very close. It probably did not help that Henry Burroughs' second wife was only nine years older than Doc.
Education:
Doc had quite a good education. As a boy, he attended the Valdosta Institute, where he studied mathematics, rhetoric, grammar, history and languages - he was apparently fluent in Latin, but also knew some French and ancient Greek. He received his degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in 1872, when he was twenty years old. He opened a practice in Atlanta, with Arthur C. Ford.
Unfortunately, this practice would not last long. At the age of twenty one, shortly after becoming a licensed dentist, Doc was diagnosed with consumption. He was given only a few months to live, and decided to go west, in the hopes that the drier air might help his lungs.
Moving West:
Doc first went to Dallas Texas, in 1873, where he opened a dental practice at 56 Elm Street. It was in Dallas that Doc first began gambling, and soon found it to be a more profitable trade than dental work, particularly considering that most people didn't want a consumptive dentist. He was arrested in Dallas, in 1875, after trading gunfire with a saloon keeper. However, as no one had been injured, he was found not guilty. At this point, Doc decided to leave Dallas, and moved his offices to Denison, Texas.
Doc was often unable to maintain his dental practice very long, and increasingly turned to gambling as his primary form of income. As such, he moved around quite a bit, and spent time in Denver, Cheyenne, and Deadwood (yes, that Deadwood.)
In 1877, Doc was back in Texas, in Fort Griffin. It was here that he met with both Wyatt Earp, who was to be one of the most important people in Doc's life, and Kate Harony (known by many last names, including Elder, but never Holliday). The circumstance of Doc and Kate's first meeting is unknown, but it is known that at the time, Kate was working as a dance hall girl, and sometimes prostitute. Apparently they found their mutual intelligence and stubbornness was appealing, because Kate became Doc's companion, and stayed with him for much of the rest of his life. Doc met Wyatt met in Shanssey's saloon, while he was dealing faro. The roots of their friendship are not entirely clear, but there seems to have been mutual respect right from the beginning, and Wyatt seems to have been one of the few people who wasn't put off by Doc's prickly nature.
It was during this time in Fort Griffin that Doc was supposed to have gotten into his infamous fight with Ed Bailey. They were playing poker, and Ed Bailey kept looking through the discarded cards, which was against the rules of the game, and meant that Bailey had technically forfeited his right to the pot. After warning him several times, Doc began to rake in his winnings, and Bailey pulled his gun. Before he could shoot, Doc stabbed the man, killing him. Doc was locked up, and apparently a lynch mob began to form. This was where Kate is supposed to have come into the picture; she set fire to a barn and in the ensuing confusion, she broke Doc out, and they escaped.
This story is suspect, however. Apparently, Doc was actually locked up for gambling, which was illegal there at the time. He was locked up, but as the town did not have a jail at the time, he had been locked into a hotel room under guard. However, Kate did break Doc out by setting fire to a shed. At this point, Doc decided to go to Dodge City, Kansas, where Wyatt Earp was living and working as a town marshal.
In Dodge City, Doc once again set up a dental practice, putting this ad in the local paper:
DENTISTRY
John H. Holliday, Dentist, very respectfully offers his professional services to the citizens of Dodge City and surrounding county during the Summer. Office at Room No. 24 Dodge House. Where satisfaction is not given, money will be refunded.
Of course, Doc also continued gambling while he was in Dodge, and it may have been during his time there that Doc was finally forced to give up dentistry for good, as his tuberculosis worsened. In September 1878, Doc saved Wyatt from a group of armed men who had him surrounded. Of course, there are multiple, highly dramatic versions of this story, and the record is unclear as to exactly what happened. However, it is likely that Wyatt, who was a city marshal at the time, was attempting to arrest the men, and that when one of them tried to draw a gun on him out of his sight, Doc stepped in. What ever really happened, Wyatt always credited Doc with saving his life, and this seems to have been the moment that cemented their friendship. Wyatt himself was recorded as saying "I am a friend of Doc Holliday because when I was city marshal of Dodge City, Kansas, he came to my rescue and saved my life when I was surrounded by desperadoes."
What ever the basis for their friendship, it would certainly play an important role in both their lives. Doc spent much of the rest of his life following Wyatt, and would eventually help Wyatt with his infamous vendetta.
Tombstone:
Dodge City seems to have rapidly become too respectable for those that were there in the early days, and both Wyatt and Doc left around 1879 or 1880. While Wyatt went straight on to Tombstone, Doc traveled around for a bit, and spent sometime in Las Vegas. It was during time between leaving Dodge City for good, and going to Tombstone, that Doc is supposed to have killed the most people. There are apocryphal stories of him killing at least three people, including Kid Colton, Mike Gordon, and Charley White. However, it is likely that these stories are, if not entirely false, then certainly heavily embellished.
While in Las Vegas, Doc attempted to open a saloon, but apparently did not do very well, and he was ready to move on when Wyatt urged him to come to Tombstone. Doc mostly traveled with the Earps, although he lingered in Prescott, Arizona, probably due to a run of luck at the gambling tables. It was also in Prescott that he was rejoined by Kate, whom he had temporarily split with due to an argument.
Doc and Kate arrived in Tombstone sometime after June 3, 1880, and settled into their old routine. By the time they arrived, trouble had all ready started between the Earps and the Cowboys. The Cowboys were a rough group, consisting of Newman Haynes (Old Man) Clanton, his sons, Ike and Billy Clanton, Frank and Tom McLaury, and Billy Claiborne. They were cattle rustlers and thieves, and often came into conflict with the Earps, who had almost all been involved with law enforcement at some point. What may have brought the things from underlying tensions into out and out conflict was an attempted stagecoach robbery, during which two people were killed in March, 1881. Doc was made a suspect after Kate, whom he was on the outs with at the time, accused him, although she recanted fairly quickly. At the time, Wyatt had been planning to run for sheriff of Cochise County against the incumbent Johnny Behan, and Behan accused Wyatt of attempting to bribe Ike Clanton with Wells Fargo Company reward money in exchange for information concerning the stage-robbers, because he thought that if he could bring them in, it would help him to win the election. Meanwhile, Ike attempted to claim that Doc and Wyatt had both been involved with the stagecoach robbery, although he had no proof, and could give no reason for why they should have done it.
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral:
On October 25, 1881, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury came into Tombstone, apparently to get supplies. They got drunk, and Ike began to tell anyone who would listen to him that he was going to kill Doc, or any of the Earps that he saw. Early in the morning of the 26, Doc and Morgan came into the bar, and Doc attempted to provoke him into a fight. Ike was unarmed at the time, but threatened Doc nonetheless. Ike ran into Wyatt that night, and told him that he'd have him 'man for man the next day.' In an attempt to calm things down, Wyatt's elder brother Virgil, who was city marshal at the time, spent the night of the 26 gambling with Ike Clanton, Tom McLaury, and Johnny Behan, although Ike claimed that he kept a pistol on his lap throughout the entire evening. The game broke up at around dawn, and Virgil and Behan went off to bed, while Ike and Tom McLaury kept on drinking. Ike reclaimed his weapons, and around noon on the 27, he was wandering around, still drinking, and loudly proclaiming that he was looking for either Doc or the Earps. At this point, Virgil and Morgan disarmed Ike, and brought him to court for violating the city ordinance against carrying firearms. Ike and Wyatt traded threats in court, and Ike was fined twenty-five dollars, and his confiscated weapons were taken to the Grand Hotel, where they could be reclaimed later.
Things continued to escalate, and sometime in the early afternoon, Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury arrived in town, both armed with pistols and rifles. They stopped into the Grand Hotel, where they ran into Doc, and heard about what had happened to their brothers. Instead of leaving their weapons at the hotel, as they should have, they went to the hardware store, and bought ammunition, where they were seen by Wyatt. Wyatt believed that all of the Cowboys, including Ike and Tom, were in the store, arming themselves in preparation for coming after the Earps.
At about 2:30 in the afternoon, gathered in the vacant lot next to Fly's boarding house, where Doc was staying, and only two blocks from the Earps' homes on Fremont street. Meanwhile, Frank McLaury was on Fremont, and still armed. Behan found him, and tried to disarm him, but Frank resisted, saying he would only be disarmed by Virgil. Meanwhile, having heard of the activities of the Cowboys, Virgil had gotten a shotgun from the Wells Fargo office. Because he did not want to alarm people, Virgil gave the shotgun to Doc, to hide under his long overcoat, and took Doc's cane. The Earps and Doc came down Fremont Street, where they met with behan, who told them that he had all ready disarmed the Cowboys, and that there was no need for trouble, but they continued on. They found the Cowboys still in the vacant lot next to Fly's, with their horses and at least Frank and Bill were still fully armed, although Tom was probably unarmed.
The entire fight itself took place at around 3:00, and lasted maybe thirty seconds. Virgil told the Cowboys to give up their weapons, but they obviously did not. Accounts of the fight vary greatly, and are all biased in different ways. It is known that Doc had the shotgun, and that he was the one to kill Tom McLaury, while Frank Mclaury and Billy Clanton were also killed. Wyatt came through the fight completely unscathed, but Virgil was shot through the thigh, Morgan was hit in the shoulder, and Doc's hip was grazed by a bullet. Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne ran, and also came through the fight uninjured, as did the horses.
The Earps and Doc were considered heroes for about two days, before public opinion rapidly turned on them. The funeral held for the three dead men was one of the biggest that Tombstone had ever seen, as they had been quite well off, and people were afraid that the surviving Cowboys would seek retribution, and that the town would suffer from bad publicity. Soon, people were saying that the Earps and Doc had committed murder. Doc and Wyatt, who were not officially officers of the law were charged with murder, and were tried by Justice of the Peace Wells Spicer. Spicer decided that there was not enough evidence to indict them, and two weeks later, a jury backed up his decision.
A few weeks after this, Virgil was shot through the shoulder by three hidden assailants. The wound caused him to completely lose the use of his left arm. The men who attacked Virgil were Ike Clanton, John Ringo, Frank Stilwell, Hank Swilling, Pete Spencer and Johnny Barnes, all members of the Cowboys.
Three months after Virgil was attacked, on March 18, 1882, Morgan Earp was shot and killed while playing pool, again by hidden assailants. Frank Stilwell was heard boasting that he had killed Morgan. Wyatt swore vengeance, and along with Doc, his brother Warren Earp, Sherman McMasters, Turkey Creek Jack Johnson and Texas Jack Vermillion, he began to hunt down the Cowboys. The vendetta lasted between March 20 and April 15, 1882, and all of the documented killings happened between March 20 and 24. The vendetta ended on April 15, when the men sold their horses, and took a train out of Arizona Territory, where they were wanted by the law. The entire time that Wyatt's posse was hunting down the Cowboys, they were being hunted by Behan, who had a much later posse of his own. However, Behan never managed to catch them, and only ended up costing the county a great deal of money.
At this point Wyatt and Doc seem to have gone their separate ways, although there are some sources that indicate that this may not have been their final parting.
Death:
In May, 1887, Doc went to Glenwood Springs, Colorado, in the hopes that the sulfur vapors from their hot springs would help his rapidly failing lungs. He stayed at the Hotel Glenwood. He spent the last fifty seven of his days in bed, fourteen of them delirious. On November 8, 1887, Doc woke up clear minded, and asked for a glass of whiskey. He drank it, said, "This is funny, " and died.
Relationships:
While Doc's mother was most certainly the most important influence during his formative years, there were other people that would also be very important to him in later years. The first amongst these was his cousin, Martha Anne "Mattie" Holliday. When they were young, Doc had been in love with her, and they had planned to get married. However, when he got sick, this obviously became impossible, and he left for the west, while Mattie Holliday became a Catholic nun. She and Doc would keep up a correspondence through letters until he died. Mattie Holliday was apparently the perfect Victorian woman. She knew Margaret Mitchell, the author of Gone With the Wind, and was the inspiration for the character of Melanie.
Of course, Kate can not be discounted either. Although they do not seem to have had the most sanguine of relationships, they do seem to have been quite dedicated to each other. After leaving his home and cousin, Kate was the only woman Doc had a relationship, while Kate kept returning to Doc, although she probably could have had her pick of men. While they often fought loudly and viciously, they always got back together, and Kate was literally with Doc to the end.
Then there was Wyatt. During his life, Wyatt and Doc seem to have been best friends, and always had one another's back. What exactly the attraction was between these two very different men on one is quite sure, but nonetheless, they were good friends. As Bat Masterson, who had known both men in Dodge City, and been friends with Wyatt, once said of Doc: "His whole heart and soul were wrapped up in Wyatt Earp and he was always ready to stake his life in defense of any cause in which Wyatt was interested." Strong words, considering that most people only knew Doc as a self-interested, obnoxious gambler with a death wish.
Conclusion:
So in the end, it is hard to say exactly who Doc Holliday was. Educated southern gentleman, and dentist, faithful Methodist and dedicate son and friend, or amoral, misanthropic, sociopathic gambler with a death-wish. All of these things seem to have been true. And perhaps that is how it should be. No person can be summed up in a single word, and they never should be. Trying to pigeon-hole someone as relatively complex as Doc Holliday would be impossible. To get a real feel for who he was, you need to look at the whole picture.
Finally, perhaps the best summation of Doc from someone who knew him comes from Virgil Earp, in an interview taken in May 1882, after the end of the infamous vendetta.
"There was something very peculiar about Doc. He was gentlemanly, a good dentist, a friendly man and yet, outside of us boys, I don't think he had a friend in the Territory. Tales were told that he had murdered men in different parts of the country; that he had robbed and committed all manner of crimes, and yet, when persons were asked how they knew it, they could only admit it was hearsay, and that nothing of the kind could really be traced to Doc's account. He was a slender, sickly fellow, but whenever a stage was robbed or a row started, and help was needed, Doc was one of the first to saddle his horse and report for duty."