While the gunsmoke of the Civil War had settled, life in the American frontier was no picnic. [18]:36, During the later years of her life, in addition to burnishing the life and legend of husband Wyatt Earp, "she scripted a history of make believe to hide a number of things of which she was not terribly proud. Both made a stagecoach journey from San Francisco to Prescott, Arizona Territory; both traveled with a black woman named Julia; both were sexual partners with Behan; both were 19 years old, born in New York City, and had parents from Germany. [92][93] Although gambling was illegal, the police were paid by John Considine, owner of the three largest gambling concessions, to look the other way. She asked Wyatt for a divorce, but Wyatt didn't believe in divorce and refused. (Josephine in her own account said that she brought her maid, a black woman named Julia, with her. [1] Henry found work as a baker. Death of Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp, widow of Wyatt December 19, 1944 Josephine Sarah Marcus, born to German Jewish immigrant parents in Brooklyn, NY, in 1861, grew up in San Francisco. In 1906 he discovered several deposits of gold and copper near the Sonoran Desert town of Vidal, California on the Colorado River and filed more than 100 mining claims[63] near the Whipple Mountains. It was apparently not his first run-in with the law. If Sieber helped her, the only time period that fits Josephine's story is when Sieber was in the Prescott area at Camp Verde from 1873 to 1875. Mattie allegedly suffered from severe headaches and became addicted to laudanum, which was commonly used as a pain killer at the time. Heartbroken and addicted, Blaylock tried her best to prevail. [42]:p275-198[77], After the Coeur d'Alene mining venture died out, Earp and Josie briefly went to El Paso, Texas before moving in 1887 to San Diego where the railroad was about to arrive and a real estate boom was underway. Josephine had to walk past the brothel every day on her way to school. Wells also owned a brothel in Prescott, Arizona. Before moving to Tombstone, he faced a series of lawsuits alleging that he stole money and falsified court documents. Corral gunfight, which took out three of the Cochise County Cowboys. To understand the homosexual representation by Jason Priestly in "Tombstone" well I think one must grasp that a couple of years before Wyatt Earp died in Los Angeles, an embittered old man at the poor treatment he thought himself to have received in Breckenridge's own biography, "Helldorado" complaining to his own working biographer, Stuart Lake, that "Helldorado" was a kind of torpedo job . Earp became angry and left. She was peculiar. In early April, Wyatt left Arizona for New Mexico and then Colorado. It tells the story of Wyatt Earp's darkest secret. Her father was a baker. He had a "relationship with" Sadie Mansfield, likely the same girl who had traveled with Hattie Wells' prostitutes from San Francisco. [83] Josephine frequently griped about Wyatts lack of work and financial success and even his character and personality. There they reunited with Holliday and Big Nose Kate. She may have arrived in Prescott, Arizona as early as 1874. 1880; Tip Top, Yavapai, Arizona Territory; roll 37, page 413A,, enumeration district 22. The family lived on a small farm that Henry had obtained in 1846. I finally finished reading this book about the life and times of Wyatt Earp. The recent Wild West auction in Harrisburg, Pa., included a trunk owned by Celia Ann "Mattie" Blaylock, Wyatt Earp's second wife. With Kevin Costner, Dennis Quaid, Gene Hackman, David Andrews. She said that she had believed Behan was planning to marry her, but he kept putting it off, and she grew disillusioned. Wyatt never sent for her and she moved to Pinal, Arizona, where she resumed life as a prostitute, eventually committing suicide by taking an overdose of laudanum. [26], Professor Pat Ryan stated that Josephine or Sadie may have used the stage name May Bell as a member of the Markham stage group. [5]:65 It is not known exactly when Earp and Blaylock ended their relationship. It was discovered in a backyard in Fresno, California. Mrs. Hirsch, because of Doras part in it was as anxious as my people (family), to keep it a secret. His first was Urilla Sutherland who died early in his marriage. Born in Wisconsin in 1850, Mattie was raised in Fairfax, Iowa until she ran away from home at the age of 16. She said Weiner used a connection he had in Prescott to help Josephine get home. After a time however I very much improved in health so that within two years after my experience I was once more a normal healthy girl." [2] Sophie and Carl had three children together: Nathan (born 1857), Josephine, and Henrietta (born 1864). [38], Josephine said the girls arrived with the troupe in Tombstone on December 1, 1879, for a one-week engagement. While some creative liberties have been taken in the film, its depiction of the events surrounding Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, along with the rest of the motley crew, is fairly . The group spent 10 days sleeping on the floor. Earp begins an affair with a . Allegedly a runaway, she's said to have left . Related read: The Real Story of Doc Holliday and Big Nose Kate. Wyatt Earp After the legendary gunfight in Tombstone that lasted only 30 seconds, but would up defining Earp for the rest of his life, Earp and his new common law wife Sadie (a.k.a Josie) traveled around the west, scoring money in the gold rush and by investing in properties. Wyatt, Wyatt's wife Mattie, his brother James, James's wife Bessie, James's 16-year-old step-daughter, and Doc traveled by wagon train from Dodge City to Prescott, picking up Big Nose Kate on the way. This page is not available in other languages. [71][86][29]:78, They boarded the steamship Rosalie for Nome, Alaska on September 21. [91] She also gambled on the boats to and from Alaska. She and her sister-in-law Alma were concerned about the care Josie gave Wyatt. [25] Josephine's own story offers a conflicting account of when she first reached Arizona. In the gunfight, Virgil, Morgan and Wyatt Earp joined Doc Holliday to . In mid-1868, Celia ran away with her younger sister Sarah to avoid farm life. She always interfered! Sid Grauman of Grauman's Theater and cowboy actor and long-time friend of Wyatt Earp William S. Hart paid for her funeral and burial. Corral, she was at her home when she heard the sound of gunfire. It was here that he met Mattie Blaylock, with whom he started an affair and moved to the town of Tombstone on Dec. 1, 1879. Wyatt is generally tied to three women: Urilla Sutherland, Cecilia Ann "Mattie" Blaylock, and Josephine Marcus. [114] Actor Hugh O'Brian, who was playing Earp in the 195561 television series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, offered a reward for the stones return. . Around the age of 16, she left home with her younger sister, Sarah, and moved west. We aren't sure when they met. Josephine Sarah Marcus was born in 1861 in New York City, the second of three children of immigrants Carl-Hyman Marcuse (later Henry Marcus) and Sophie Lewis. [44][52][53] The area in which Behan campaigned was also near Cave Creek, where Al Sieber was looking for Indians. During the same week, Behan registered at the Bank Exchange Hotel in Phoenix, and on March 5 the Prescott Weekly Journal-Miner reported that Sadie had returned to Gillette from Phoenix on March 2. He opened a small business catering to miners and joined a few posses pursuing bandits. He reportedly worked on a floating brothel thereafter and married teenage prostitute Sally Heckell, who was busted alongside him on Sept. 10, 1872, and identified herself as his wife. Marshal under Marshal J.F. Enchanted by a performance of Gilbert & Sullivan's H.M.S. He lived about two blocks from the family, so he likely already knew the family. He also told Baldwin to stop lending money to Josephine, but she continued to gamble anyway. "[2], In her Cason manuscript, Josephine or Sadie wrote that she and Dora were homesick and returned to San Francisco with Sieber's help. Instead, Earp left Colorado in late 1882 and arrived in San Francisco where Virgil was seeking treatment for his arm. [11], Josephine thought Johnnys marriage proposal was a good excuse to leave home again. He was known to disappear for days at a time "to see property", the family euphemism for a drinking binge, and Earp was his regular partner. Josephine and Wyatt went to great lengths to keep her name out of Lake's book, and she threatened litigation to keep it that way. [3][68] The Earp party split up in Albuquerque, and Holliday and Dan Tipton rode on to Pueblo, while the rest of the group headed for Gunnison.[69]. And he definitely wasn't the infallible hero later accounts made him out to be. Corral made him a legend. [71] Director John Ford said that whenever Josephine left town for religious conventions, Earp would come into town, play poker, and get drunk with the cowboy actors. And even after marrying James in 1873, Bessie continued working as a "sporting girl" in Kansas. Shortly after that election his young wife, Urilla Sutherland, died. [2] In November 1879, Johnny Behan opened his new saloon for business. While the town already had five saloons with five courtesans, Johnny's new saloon had none. Mattie Blaylock began a relationship with Earp after April 1876 in Dodge City, following his departure from Wichita, Kansas and the end of his relationship with Sally Heckell, who called herself Sally Earp. Mattie waited for Wyatts telegraph that she should return to Tombstone, but it never arrived. September 8, 2013 Terri J Huck. Pinafore more than a dozen times from December 24, 1879 through February 20, 1880. "[26]:43 From Yuma, the troupe took a stagecoach to Tucson, not Prescott. When he delayed, she was ready to leave him. [85], On August 5, 1897, Earp and Josie once again joined in a mining boom and left Yuma, Arizona for San Francisco. [36]:154, "Josephine Marcus" redirects here. In 1884, Wyatt and his wife Josie, his brothers Warren and James, and James' wife Bessie arrived in Eagle City, Idaho, another new boomtown that was created as a result of the discovery of gold, silver, and lead in the Coeur d'Alene area. Apartment buildings were crowded and large homes were converted into rooming houses. [41][42] On October 21, 1879, the Los Angeles Herald reported that May Bell was among members of the Markham troupe. [6][38] Author Sherry Monahan questions why an 18-year-old woman would be carrying books to school and find it necessary to "run away. [112] On July 7, 1957, grave-robbers dug into the Earp's grave in an apparent attempt to steal the urn containing his ashes, but unable to find them, stole the 300 pounds (140kg) grave stone. [101][102] Josie's three nieces, daughters of her half-sister Rebecca and husband Aaron Wiener, would frequently visit the couple during the winter months at their desert camp. Corral icon. Charlie Welsh, Grace Spolidora's father, was a good friend of Earp's. Now after this I'm not going to redeem any more of your jewelry." But was apparently restless there. By David Cranmer. There is no legal record of a marriage between the two. Earp named a mining claim he filed on February 16, 1880 "Mattie Blaylock. Previous researchers of Matties life state there are court records of her prostitution during this time that name her as Celie or Sally. [27], Josephine is quoted in I Married Wyatt Earp that she received a letter and $300 from her father, urging her to return to San Francisco. Because so much has been written about Doc Holliday, much of it conflicting, it often is difficult to get a clear picture of his personal appearance, demeanor, and behavior. In his memoirs, Wyatt Earp described Holliday this way: "He 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 . The horse was a frequent winner and sometimes Wyatt bought Josephine some jewelry with the proceeds. She met a gambler from Arizona who asked her to marry him. Who was at Wyatt Earp's funeral? When her father had difficulty finding work, the family moved in with her older sister and brother-in-law in a working-class tenement. [2], Josephine's father Henry was a baker. On June 14, 1900, Wyatt and Josephine were bound for Nome, Alaska. [26]:52 Following Wyatt's return to San Francisco, Josephine began using the name of "Josephine Earp". Eventually, she ended up in Dodge City, Kansas. "[13], In the course of writing Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal (1931), Stuart Lake learned that Josephine had lived with Johnny Behan in Tombstone and other aspects of Josephine's life that she wanted to keep private. [34], The type of work available to unmarried women without means in that era was as waitresses, laundresses, seamstresses, or other dull work which Josephine avoided. What did Wyatt Earps wife drink? [67] During their stay in Albuquerque, the two men ate at The Retreat Restaurant owned by "Fat Charlie". [21], In about 1923, Charles Welsh, a friend who Earp had known since his time in Dodge City in 1876, and a retired railroad engineer, frequently invited the Earps to visit his family in San Bernardino, Needles, and later in Los Angeles. [16] After Wyatt died in 1929, Josephine traveled to Boston, Massachusetts to try to persuade the publisher to stop the release of the book. The Cochise County Cowboys were initially a mere nuisance, but killed marshal Fred White on Oct. 28, 1880 and would spark the gunfight at the O.K. Her confusing recollection of events show how easily Josephine mixed fact and fiction. [2] Upon their arrival, her father found a highly stratified Jewish community. Retrieved on June 20, 2011. A staff writer for All Thats Interesting, Marco Margaritoff has also published work at outlets including People, VICE, and Complex, covering everything from film to finance to technology. The earlier stone is on display in the Colma Historical museum.[112][115]. No contemporary accounts place her at the scene of the gunfight afterward. Meet Mattie Blaylock, The Abandoned Common-Law Wife Of Wyatt Earp. In 1868 she ran away from home at age 16, taking her 13 year old sister Sarah, with her. Celia, or "Celie" as she was known as a child, attended Sunday school, learned Biblical parables, and was taught to live by the Ten Commandments. "[32] Honkytonk bars in that era often had a reputation as places for prostitution[33] and his choice of language ("three hundred or so of her kind") may have referred to Josephine's work as a prostitute. [120], The book has become an example of how supposedly factual works can trip up researchers, historians, and librarians. [46][47] She was the step-daughter of Yavapai County Sheriff John P. He was in agreement, but Josephine, who was 37, miscarried soon after. [21] Mattie resumed life as a prostitute and committed "suicide by opium poisoning" on July 3, 1888. Meet Mattie Blaylock, The Abandoned Common-Law Wife Of Wyatt Earp By Marco Margaritoff | Edited By Erik Hawkins Published March 24, 2022 In the mid-19th century, Mattie Blaylock left her farm life in Iowa behind and eloped with Wyatt Earp, but ended up abandoned by the lawman after the Gunfight at the O.K. [17] She was also in need of money, and tried to sell a collection of books to Lake while he was writing the book. She successfully kept both women's names out of Stuart Lake's biography of Wyatt and after he died, Josephine may have threatened litigation to keep it that way. (It's now a ghost town in Shoshone County). [26]:47 Like cerebral meningitis, St. Vitus Dance is a form of a streptococcus infection. In the summer they retreated to Los Angeles, where Wyatt struck up relationships with some of the early cowboy actors, including William S. Hart and Tom Mix. [84][110] Wyatt became critically ill in late 1928. The Markham troupe is documented as leaving San Francisco on board the Southern Pacific Railroad, not a ship nor a stagecoach, in October 1879 for Casa Grande, Arizona, the end of the line. After Wyatt Earp's death, Josephine insisted on being called Josie or Josephine. [43], During the next few months, until April 1882, Sadie Mansfield is recorded in various newspapers as traveling back and forth between Tombstone and San Francisco several times. He participated in the notorious O.K. Blaylock and her sister Sarah, meanwhile, rejected their prospective suitors and soon hatched a plan to escape and see the world. "[38] She said that at the age of 18, she ran away with two friends, Dora Hirsch, daughter of her music teacher, and a girl named Agnes, who had a role in Pauline Markham troupe's production of H.M.S. Meyers was born at Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in 1931. On the inside were the German Jews and on the outside were the Polish Jews. They moved to San Francisco, where Josephine attended dance school as a girl. [19] Josephine sought to get her own life story published and gained the assistance of Wyatt's cousins Mabel Earp Cason and Cason's sister Vinolia Earp Ackerman. In the summer of 1879 he moved back to Prescott, the territorial capital. She apparently expected to receive a telegram from Earp telling her where to meet him, but it never arrived. All three Earp brothers had been the target of repeated death threats made by the . She was laid to rest in the cemetery about one mile from the old townsite. [50][51] On September 28, 1874, Behan was nominated at the Democratic convention to stand for re-election. By Kathy Weiser-Alexander, updated February 2020. [39] Josephine wrote that Dora was hired as a singer, and she was hired as a dancer. Upon their return, they arrived late in the evening and a day earlier than expected, at the house built with her father's money. Some women in Tombstone operated restaurants, boarding houses, and apparel and millinery shops, and a few ran some of the dry goods stores. She enjoyed some brief success as a juvenile actress on the San Francisco stage during the 1870s. [76] Wyatt followed the crowd looking for gold in the Murray-Eagle mining district and paid $2,250 for a 50 feet (15m) diameter white circus, in which they opened a dance hall and saloon called The White Elephant. [2] Earp was appointed assistant marshal in Dodge City under Marshal Lawrence Deger around May 1876. Wyatt, Virgil, and James Earp with their wives arrived in Tombstone on December 1, 1879. "United States Census, San Francisco, California", "San Francisco Morning Call Newspaper Vital Statistics", "I Married Wyatt Earp: The Recollections of Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp", "Voting Ward Maps, 1852, 1860, 1870, 1880", "The Jewish First Lady at Legendary Lawmaker Wyatt Earp's O.K. As an unmarried woman in frontier Tombstone, vastly outnumbered by men, she was likely regarded by some as a prostitute, regardless of her true status. [60] Later in life, Josephine was not a practicing Jew and did not seem to care whether her partners were Jewish. On Oct. 26, the Earps were ambushed by the cowboys in broad daylight. She also received her Bachelor of Arts in history, magna cum laude, from the same institution. The family was forced to move in with Josephine's older sister Rebecca and her husband Aaron "south of the slot" (south of Market Street) at 138 Perry Street between 3rd and 2nd at Harrison in a tenement on the flatlands. Mattie also left the area and reportedly traveled with other Earp family members to California. Earp goes home to a wife addicted to a laudanum, a common drug of the time mixing morphine and opium. There they met Virgil and Allie. Some critics described the book as a fraud and a hoax, and the University of Arizona withdrew the book from its catalog. Running into town in the direction of the shots, Josephine was relieved to see that Wyatt was uninjured. Earp had grown into a grizzled widower after his first wife, Urilla Sutherland, died of typhoid fever in 1870. Wyatt Earp, in full Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp, (born March 19, 1848, Monmouth, Illinois, U.S.died January 13, 1929, Los Angeles, California), legendary frontiersman of the American West, who was an itinerant saloonkeeper, gambler, lawman, gunslinger, and confidence man but was perhaps best known for his involvement in the gunfight at the O.K. His elder brothers joined the Union Army when the American Civil War began, while Wyatt, 13 years old, and his younger brothers took care of the farm. The third of four children, Josephine Sarah (Marcus) Earp was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1861 to German-Jewish immigrants Sophie and Hyman (Henry) Marcus. Celia Ann Mattie Blaylock was involved with Wyatt Earp after the death of his first wife, and is often termed as Wyatts common law wife. All in a day's work! Who Killed Johnny Ringo? It is a very good read and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to know more about the life and times of Wyatt Earp. The cousins recorded events in her later life, but they found Josephine evasive about the timing and nature of events during her time in the Arizona Territory and Tombstone. She was buried in the Pinal Cemetery in Pinal, Arizona. [72] This was one week after Morgan Earp was assassinated and five days after Wyatt set out in pursuit of those he believed responsible. It was described by the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology in 2006 as a creative exercise that cannot be substantiated[121] or relied on. [65], In his book, The Tombstone Travesty (later republished as The Earp Brothers of Tombstone), Frank Waters quotes Virgil Earp's wife, Allie, as saying that "Sadie's charms were undeniable. She is buried in the cemetery at Pinal City, now a ghost town, located just west of the former mining town of Superior, Arizona. Behan moved for a time to the northwest Arizona Territory, where he served as the Mohave County Recorder in 1877. The San Diego Union printed a report from the San Francisco Call on July 9, 1882 that Virgil Earp was in San Francisco (receiving treatment for his shattered arm) and that Wyatt was expected to arrive there that day. While Earp would be valorized by films like Tombstone (1993), Blaylocks story remains lesser-known, from her lifelong loyalty to her fatal addictions. In the meantime, Wyatt was getting more and more involved with Josephine, who he would later marry. Mattie Blaylock (left) and Wyatt Earp (center) as portrayed by Dana Wheeler Nicholson and Kurt Russell in. [32] The money was to cover her return trip, and it was ten times what she needed for the fare, and there is no record of him having sent the money to her. Boyer, Glenn G. Wyatt Earp: Facts Volume Two, Childhood and . Blaylock continued to work as a prostitute. He recorded Josephine as a member of the Marcus household,[5] information that may have been offered by her parents. [6] Henry Marcus initially made enough money to send Josephine and her sister Hattie to music and dance classes at McCarty's Dancing Academy, a family-owned business on Eddy St. that taught both children and adults. Celia was a reasonably skilled seamstress and may have sought work in that field, but both girls found life on their own very difficult. [1] She maintained a relationship with Johnny Behan's son, Albert Price Behan, whom she had grown to love as her own son. Blaylock planned to return to sex work in Pinal City, but with most of the prospective clientele gone with the silver, making a living there proved difficult. [6][26] Ray says that Josephine didn't have a friend named Dora Hirsch. Her real name was Leah Hirschberg, whose mother was a music teacher. He managed a small store during the spring of 1899 in St. Michael on the Norton Sound, a major gateway to the Alaskan interior via the Yukon River. Of those three, there's a "maybe" around Marcus, but it should come as no surprise that Mattie Blaylock, the woman usually described as the "second Mrs. Wyatt Earp," had a history of prostitution. "[18]:79 Victoria cited liaisons with several woman, but specifically mentioned a "Sadie or Sada Mansfield", a 14-year-old "woman of prostitution and ill-fame" as co-respondent in the divorce action. There is some evidence that she lived from 1874 to 1876 in Prescott and Tip Top, Arizona Territory under the assumed name of Sadie Mansfield, who was a prostitute, before becoming ill and returning to San Francisco. Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal. [106] During an investigation of the boxing match by a panel appointed by San Francisco Mayor Washington Bartlett, they learned Josephine Earp was a "degenerate horseplayer" and that she frequently took loans out against her jewelry. [18]:93, Behan and his wife were divorced in less than a month, in June 1875. [71] Josephine was addicted to gambling on horse racing and her wagering increased until Wyatt gave her an ultimatum. She ran away with the gambler anyway, who later abandoned her in Arizona. Mattie eventually returned to Arizona where she spent her remaining years working as a prostitute. In between, they had crossed paths, but it's not as if they went everywhere together. It is in large part due to Josephine's efforts to build and burnish the reputation of her common-law spouse that he has been depicted in books and movies as a champion of justice . [107] The San Francisco Examiner ran a series of stories over three days describing Earp's life in exaggerated detail that ridiculed him. When she was seven years old, the family moved to San Francisco. The case was tried the same day with only one witness for the defense, Jennie Andrews. [5][9] In early 1880, Henry was living with his son-in-law Aaron, who was employed as a bookkeeper. They likely headed west to one of the growing towns along the Kansas-Iowa-Missouri border area. It is unlikely that he was a "wealthy German merchant" as she described him. Knowledge of her place in Wyatt's life was concealed by Josephine Earp, his later common-law wife, who worked ceaselessly to protect her and Wyatt's reputation in their later years. Earp did mezuzah when entering the house." Bat Masterson, a friend of Wyatt Earp's who was in Tombstone from February to April 1881,[29]:41[30] described her to Stuart Lake as "an incredible beauty"[31] and as the "belle of the honkytonks, the prettiest dame in three hundred or so of her kind. Some researchers also state that Josephine Earp, Wyatt Earps fourth and final common law wife, did her best to keep her husbands past with Mattie a secret. "[2] She said, "the whole experience recurs to my memory as a bad dream and I remember little of its details. Wildcat - The Untold Story of Pearl Hart. Wyatt's common-law wife Mattie (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson) is addicted to laudanum and his attention is caught by Josephine Marcus (Dana Delany), a traveling actor. [56], On May 22, 1875, Behan's wife Victoria filed for divorce. Mattie Blaylock Celia Ann "Mattie" Blaylock was involved with Wyatt Earp after the death of his first wife, and is often termed as Wyatt's "common law" wife. Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp (1861-December 19, 1944) was an American part-time actress and dancer who was best known as the wife of famed Old West lawman and gambler Wyatt Earp.