Thursday, December 26, 2013

John Henry "Doc" Holliday (1851-1887)

We share 6th great grandparents with John Henry "Doc" Holliday---the infamous gambler, gunslinger, and dentist.  This makes him our 4th cousin three times removed.
The following information is excerpts that come from Wikipedia:
Doc Holliday--- Born John Henry Holliday
August 14, 1851

Griffin, Georgia
, U.S. Died November 8, 1887 (aged 36)
Glenwood Springs, Colorado
U.S. Education Graduated from Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in 1872 at age 20
Occupation Dentistprofessional gambler, gunfighter
Known for Arizona War
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
Earp Vendetta Ride

John Henry "Doc" Holliday (August 14, 1851 – November 8, 1887) was an American gambler, gunfighter and dentist of the American Old West, who is usually remembered for his friendship with Wyatt Earp and his involvement in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
During his travels, he met and became good friends with Wyatt Earp and Earp's brothers. In 1880, he moved to Tombstone, Arizona, and participated alongside the Earps in the famous gunfight. This did not settle matters between the two sides, and Holliday was embroiled in ensuing shootouts and killings. He successfully fought being extradited for murder, and died in bed at a Colorado hotel/sanatorium at the age of 36.

The legend and mystique of his life is so great that he has been mentioned in countless books, and portrayed by various actors in numerous movies and television series. For the 100-plus years since his death, debate has continued about the exact crimes he may have committed during his life.
 In September 1873, Holliday moved to Dallas, Texas, where he opened a dental office with fellow dentist and Georgian John A. Seegar. Their office was located between Market and Austin Streets along Elm Street, about three blocks east of the site of today's Dealey Plaza.[10] He soon began gambling and realized this was a more profitable source of income, since patients feared going to his office because of his ongoing cough. On May 12, 1874, Holliday and 12 others were indicted in Dallas for illegal gambling.[10] He was arrested in Dallas in January 1875 after trading gunfire with a saloon-keeper, but no one was injured and he was found not guilty.[1] He moved his offices to Denison, Texas, and after being found guilty of, and fined for, "gaming" in Dallas, he decided to leave the state.
Holliday made his way to Denver, traveling the stage routes and staying at Army outposts along the way practicing his trade as a gambler. In the summer of 1875 he settled in Denver under the alias "Tom Mackey", working as a Faro dealer forJohn A. Babb's Theatre Comique at 357 Blake street. Here he heard about gold being discovered in Wyoming and on February 5, 1876 he relocated to Cheyenne, working as a dealer for Babb's partner, Thomas Miller, who owned a saloon called the Bella Union. In the fall of 1876, Miller moved the Bella Union to Deadwood (site of the gold rush in the Dakota Territory) and Holliday moved with him.[11]
In 1877, Holliday returned to Cheyenne and Denver, eventually making his way to Kansas to visit an aunt. He left Kansas and returned to Texas setting up as a gambler in the town of Breckenridge. On July 4, 1877 he got involved in an altercation with another gambler named Henry Kahn, whom Holliday beat with his walking stick repeatedly. Both men were arrested and fined, but later in the day, Kahn shot Holliday, wounding him seriously.[12]
The Dallas Weekly Herald incorrectly reported Holliday as dead in its July 7 edition. His cousin, George Henry Holliday moved west to take care of him during his recovery. Fully recovered, Holliday relocated to Fort Griffin, Texas, where he met "Big Nose Kate" (Mary Katharine Horony) and began his long-time involvement with her.[12] In Fort Griffin, Holliday was initially introduced to Wyatt Earp through mutual friend John Shanssey.[13] Earp had stopped at Fort Griffin, Texas, before returning to Dodge City in 1878 to become the assistant city marshal, serving under Charlie Bassett.[14]:31 The two began to form an unlikely friendship; Earp more even-tempered and controlled, Holliday more hot-headed and impulsive. This friendship was cemented in 1878 in Dodge City, Kansas, when Holliday defended Earp in a saloon against a handful of cowboys out to kill Earp, and where both Earp and Holliday had traveled to make money gambling with the cowboys who drove cattle from Texas.
Holliday was still practicing dentistry on the side from his rooms in Fort Griffin and in Dodge City, as indicated in an 1878 Dodge newspaper advertisement (he promised money back for less than complete customer satisfaction), but this is the last known time he attempted to practice.[13] Holliday was primarily a gambler although he had a reputation as a deadly gunman. Modern research has only identified three instances in which he shot someone. In the summer of 1878, Holliday assisted Earp during a bar room confrontation when Earp "was surrounded by desperadoes". Earp credited Holliday with saving his life that day and the two became friends as a result..[15]
One documented instance happened when Holliday was employed during a railroad dispute. On July 19, 1879, Holliday and noted gunman John Joshua Webb were seated in a saloon in Las Vegas, New Mexico when a former U.S. Army scout named Mike Gordon tried to persuade one of the saloon girls to leave her job and come away with him. When she refused, Gordon stormed outside and began firing into the building. Holliday followed him and killed him before he could get off a second shot. Holliday was placed on trial for the shooting but was acquitted, mostly based on the testimony of Webb.[16][17]
Dodge City was not a frontier town for long; by 1879, it had become too respectable for the sort of people who had seen it through its early days. For many, it was time to move on to places not yet reached by the civilizing railroad—places where money was to be made. Holliday, by this time, was as well known for his prowess as a gunfighter as for his gambling, though the latter was his trade and the former simply a reputation. Through his friendship with Wyatt and the other Earp brothers, especially Morgan and Virgil, Holliday made his way to the silver-mining boom town of Tombstone, Arizona Territory, in September 1880. The Earps had been there since December 1879. Some accounts state the Earps sent for Holliday when they realized the problems they faced in their feud with the Cowboy faction. In Tombstone, Holliday quickly became embroiled in the local politics and violence that led up to the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in October 1881.
The gunfight happened in front of, and next to, Fly's boarding house and picture studio, where Holliday had a room, the day after a late night of hard drinking and poker by Ike Clanton. The Clantons and McLaurys collected in the space between the boarding house and the house west of it, before being confronted by the Earps. Holliday likely thought they were there specifically to assassinate him.[18]
It is known Holliday carried a coach gun from the local stage office into the fight; he was given the weapon just before the fight by Virgil Earp, as Holliday was wearing a long coat which could conceal it. Virgil Earp in turn took Holliday's walking stick: by not going conspicuously armed, Virgil was seeking to avoid panic in the citizenry of Tombstone, and in the Clantons and McLaurys.[19]
An inquest and arraignment hearing determined the gunfight was not a criminal act on the part of Holliday and the Earps. The situation in Tombstone soon grew worse when Virgil Earp was ambushed and permanently injured in December 1881. Then Morgan Earp was ambushed and killed in March 1882. After Morgan's murder, Virgil Earp and many remaining members of the Earp families fled town. Holliday and Wyatt Earp stayed in Tombstone to exact retribution on Ike Clanton and the corrupt members known as the Cowboys. In Tucson, while Wyatt, Warren Earp, and Holliday were escorting the wounded Virgil Earp and his wife Allie on the first stage of their trip to California, they prevented another ambush in Tucson, and this may have been the start of the vendetta against Morgan's killers.
Several Cowboys were identified by witnesses as suspects in the shooting of Virgil Earp on December 27, 1881, and the assassination of Morgan Earp on March 19, 1882. Some circumstantial evidence also pointed to their involvement.
Wyatt Earp had been appointed Deputy U.S. Marshall after Virgil was maimed. He deputized Holliday, Warren Earp, Sherman McMasters, and "Turkey Creek" Jack Johnson, and they guarded Virgil Earp and his wife Allie on their way to the train for California. In Tucson, the group spotted Frank Stilwell and Ike Clanton lying in wait to kill Virgil. On Monday, March 20, 1882, Frank Stilwell's body was found at dawn alongside the rail road tracks, riddled with buckshot and gunshot wounds.[20]
Tucson Justice of the Peace Charles Meyer issued arrest warrants for five of the Earp party, including Holliday. They returned briefly to Tombstone on March 21, where they were joined by Texas Jack Vermillion and possibly others. Wyatt deputized the men who rode with him. After leaving Tombstone, the posse made its way to Spence's wood-cutting camp in the South Pass of the Dragoon Mountains. There they found and killed Florentino "Indian Charlie" Cruz. Over the next few days they also located and killed "Curly Bill" Brocius and wounded at least two other men thought to be responsible for Morgan's death. Holliday and four other members of the posse were still faced with warrants for Stilwell's death. The group elected to leave the Arizona Territory for New Mexico and then Colorado. While in Trinidad, Colorado, Wyatt Earp and Holliday parted ways, going separately to different parts of Colorado. Holliday arrived in Colorado in mid-April 1882.[21]
On May 15, 1882, Holliday was arrested in Denver on the Arizona warrant for murdering Frank Stilwell. Wyatt Earp, fearing that Holliday could not receive a fair trial in Arizona, asked his friend Bat Masterson, Sheriff of Trinidad, Colorado, to help get Holliday released. The extradition hearing was set for May 30.[22]:230 Late in the evening of May 29, Masterson needed help getting an appointment with Colorado Governor Frederick Walker Pitkin. He contacted E. D. Cowen, capital reporter for the Denver Tribune, who held political sway in town. Cowen later wrote, "He submitted proof of the criminal design upon Holliday's life. Late as the hour was, I called on Pitkin." After meeting with Masterson, Pitkin was persuaded by whatever evidence he presented and refused to honor Arizona's extradition request.[22] His legal reasoning was that the extradition papers for Holliday contained faulty legal language, and that there was already a Colorado warrant out for Holliday—one on bunco charges that Masterson had fabricated in Pueblo, Colorado.[22]
Masterson took Holliday to Pueblo, where he was released on bond two weeks after his arrest.[23] Holliday and Wyatt met briefly after Holliday's release during June 1882 in Gunnison.
On July 14, 1882, Johnny Ringo was found dead in the crotch of a large tree in West Turkey Creek Valley, near Chiricahua Peak, Arizona Territory, with a bullet hole in his right temple and a revolver hanging from a finger of his hand. The book, I Married Wyatt Earp, supposedly written by Josephine Marcus Earp, reported that Wyatt Earp and Holliday returned to Arizona to find and kill Ringo. Actually written by Glen Boyer, the book states that Holliday killed Ringo with a rifle shot at a distance, contradicting the coroner's ruling that Ringo's death was a suicide. However, Boyer's book has been discredited as a fraud and a hoax[24] that cannot be relied upon.[25]:489 In response to criticism about the book's authenticity, Boyer said the book was not really a first-person account, that he had interpreted Wyatt Earp in Josephine's voice, and admitted that he could not produce any documents to vindicate his methods.[26]
Official records of the Pueblo County, Colorado District Court indicate that both Holliday and his attorney appeared in court there on July 11, 14 and 18, 1882. Author Karen Holliday Tanner, in Doc Holliday, A Family Portrait, speculated that Holliday may not have been in Pueblo at the time of the court date, citing a writ of habeas corpus issued for him in court on July 11.[6] She believes that only his attorney may have appeared on his behalf that day, in spite of the wording of a court record that indicated he may have appeared in person—in propria persona or "in his own person". She cites this as standard legal filler text that does not necessarily prove the person was present. There is no doubt that Holliday arrived in Salida, Colorado on July 7 as reported in a town newspaper. This is 500 miles (800 km) from the site of Ringo's death, six days before the shooting.
Holliday spent the rest of his life in Colorado. After a stay in Leadville, he suffered from the high altitude. He increasingly depended on alcohol and laudanum to ease the symptoms of tuberculosis, and his health and his ability to gamble began to deteriorate.[6]:218
In 1887, prematurely gray and badly ailing, Holliday made his way to the Hotel Glenwood, a sanatorium near the hot springs of Glenwood Springs, Colorado. He hoped to take advantage of the reputed curative power of the waters, but the sulfurous fumes from the spring may have done his lungs more harm than good.[6]:217 As he lay dying, Holliday is reported to have asked the nurse attending him at the Hotel Glenwood for a shot of whiskey. When she told him no, he looked at his bootless feet, amused. The nurses said that his last words were, "Damn, this is funny." Holliday died at 10 A.M., November 8, 1887. He was 36.[3] It was reported that no one ever thought that Holliday would die in bed with his boots off.



Marcus Mark Hardin * (1681 - 1735)                 Marcus Mark Hardin * (1681 - 1735)
is our 6th great grandfather                                          is our 6th great grandfather
Mark Hardin * (1718 - 1790)                              Alice Hardin (1730-1777)
son of Marcus Mark Hardin *                                          daughter of Marcus Mark Hardin *
Benjamin Hardin * (1753 - 1834)                        Joseph Cloud (1770-1851)
son of Mark Hardin *                                                       son of Alice Hardin
Daniel Hardin * (1790 - 1850)                             Jane Cloud (1804-1853)
son of Benjamin Hardin *                                                 daughter of Joseph Cloud
Martin V Hardin (1834 - 1881)                            Alice Jane Mckey (1829-1866)
son of Daniel Hardin *                                                      daughter of Jane Cloud
Nancy Wilson Hardin * (1858 - 1933)                  John Henry “Doc” Holliday (1851-1887)
daughter of Martin V Hardin
Walter Scott Bramblett * (1882 - 1978)
son of Nancy Wilson Hardin *
Margaret May Belle Bramblett * (1911 - 1988)
 


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