On March 19,
1848, Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was born in Monmouth, Illinois to the late
Nicholas Porter Earp and Virginia Ann Cooksey Earp. Wyatt had 5 brothers, including Virgil, James, and Morgan Earp.
As an adult Wyatt was a city policeman in Wichita,
Kansas and Dodge City, Kansas. He also served as a deputy sheriff and deputy
U.S. marshal in Tombstone, Arizona. He was also at different times a farmer,
teamster, buffalo hunter, bouncer, saloon-keeper, gambler, miner, and on one
occasion a boxing referee. He was never a cowboy or drover. He is best known
for his part in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral during which three outlaw
Cowboys were killed. The 30-second gunfight defined the rest of his life.
Earp's modern-day reputation is that of the Old West's "toughest and
deadliest gunman of his day."
Earp spent his early life in Iowa. His first wife
Urilla Sutherland Earp died while pregnant less than a year after they married.
Within the next two years he was arrested, sued twice, escaped from jail, then
was arrested three more times for "keeping and being found in a house of
ill-fame". He landed in the cattle boomtown of Wichita, Kansas where he
became a deputy city marshal for one year and developed a solid reputation as a
lawman. In 1876 he followed his brother James to Dodge City, Kansas where he
became an assistant marshal. In the winter of 1878 he went to Texas to gamble
where he met John Henry "Doc" Holliday whom Earp credited with saving
his life.
Continually drawn to boomtowns and opportunity,
Earp left Dodge City in 1879, and with his brothers James and Virgil, moved to
Tombstone, Arizona. The Earps bought an interest in the Vizina mine and some
water rights. There, the Earps clashed with a loose federation of outlaw
cowboys. Wyatt, Virgil, and their younger brother Morgan held various law
enforcement positions that put them in conflict with Tom and Frank McLaury, and
Ike and Billy Clanton, who threatened to kill the Earps. The conflict escalated
over the next year, culminating on October 26, 1881 in the gunfight at the O.K.
Corral, during which the Earps and Holliday killed three of the Cowboys. In the
next five months, Virgil was ambushed and maimed and Morgan was assassinated.
Pursuing a vendetta, Wyatt, his brother Warren, Holliday, and others chased
down the Cowboys they thought responsible.
After leaving Tombstone, Earp continually invested
in various mining interests and saloons. He and his third wife, in their later
years, moved between Los Angeles and the Mojave Desert, where the town of Earp,
California was named after him.
So, you may ask, what is Wyatt Earp's connection to
Hartford, Kentucky. Wyatt's parents, Nicholas Porter Earp and Virginia Ann
Cooksey Earp, were born and raised in Hartford and married in Hartford,
Kentucky in 1840. Nicholas and Virginia Earp's owned a "plantation"
in Hartford where their first two sons, Virgil and James Earp were also born
before the family moved to Illinois in 1843. Property records at the Ohio
County Court House reflect property transfers with the Earp family dating from
1839 until 1841 but no clear marking of where the plantation was located. It is
believed the plantation was located along Rough River in Hartford.
