Background
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was born on 10 March 1848 on his father's farm near Monmouth, Illinois, United States. He was the fourth of seven children.
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Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was born on 10 March 1848 on his father's farm near Monmouth, Illinois, United States. He was the fourth of seven children.
Earp's contemporaries included Bat Masterson, Doc Holliday, Geronimo, Sitting Bull, Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok, Annie Oakley, Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Matt Dillon. His name is associated with fabled places: Dodge City, Boot Hill, the O. K. Corral, and Tombstone.
Confrontations between cowboys and Indians in the American "wild West" have long fascinated foreign audiences. British writers accompanied William F. ("Buffalo Bill") Cody on his expeditions, for example, producing "penny dreadfuls, " cheap, paperbound books that sensationalized the wanton killing of Indians and of buffalo.
Clint Eastwood's celebrated "anti-western, " Unforgiven, includes a writer who takes notes throughout on the mayhem. The raw, physical energies that supposedly characterized western pioneers fascinate French intellectuals.
Nevertheless, the mere facts about the Earp family offer an unchallenged, epical account of the turbulent, confused, sometimes noble, sometimes less than savory or honorable development and exploitation of America's western frontiers in the decades after the Civil War.
To establish their hold on the variegated landscape, settlers had to contend with extravagantly hard seasons and the hostility of natives who were being callously displaced. Gunfight at the O. K. Corral Wyatt Earp's most well-known exploit was his killing in 1881, at the O. K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, of outlaws Billy Clanton and the McLowery brothers. Wyatt was aided by two of his brothers and by Doc Holliday.
The event crystallized many of the mythical details about gunslinging bad guys and good guys.
In 1957 Hollywood issued the critically acclaimed Gunfight at the O. K. Corral, the script of which was written by Leon Uris, starring Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, and Jo Ann Fleet. It provides a reasonably authentic representation of the event.
The Earp Brothers of Tombstone: The Story of Mrs. Virgil Earp by Frank Waters (1960, 1976) disputes many conclusions in Lake's work, depending largely on examination of documents throughout the territory visited by the Earps.
Its accumulation of data itself offers a fascinating narrative of Wyatt's checkered and far from inconsiderable career, which made him widely known in his time. For example, a number of ocean-going vessels were named after him. Rich background on the complex world in which the Earps moved can be found in a range of creative efforts. Perhaps most illuminating are two theatrical works.
Quotations:
"For my handling of the situation at Tombstone, I have no regrets.
Were it to be done over again, I would do exactly as I did at that time.
I want to call your particular attention again to one fact, which writers of Tombstone incidents and history apparently have overlooked: with the deaths of the McLowerys, the Clantons, Stillwell, Florentino Cruz, Curly Bill, and the rest, organized, politically protected crime and depredations in Cochise County ceased.
Oh, yes, there were individual crimes committed thereafter, as there would be in any bailiwick, but organized outlawry ended with the deaths of Curly Bill and his gang.
Let me repeat . .. Were it to be done over again, I would do exactly as I did at that time".
William Earp was the longest living among the Earp brothers and died in 1929 at the age of 80.
Quotes from others about the person
"Wyatt Earp was a man of action. Withal, Wyatt Earp was a thinking man, whose mental processes were as quick, as direct, as unflustered by circumstance and as effective as the actions they inspired".
William Earp married Urilla Sutherland in 1870. His wife contracted an illness during pregnancy and died within months of their marriage.
He developed a relationship with prostitute Mattie Blaylock and that lasted many years. She was listed as his common-law wife. He abandoned her sometime after the assassination of his brother Morgan.
He became involved with Josephine Marcus in 1882. She became his common-law wife and the couple lived together for 46 years.
