The German Jews were usually more affluent, were better educated, and spoke German, while the Polish Jews, who spoke Yiddish, were typically peddlers and much more religious. 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. C. S. Fly/Wikimedia Commons A portrait of Wyatt Earp's wife, Josephine Earp, in 1881, the year they met. [4] In the 1880 United States Census of Tombstone, Blaylock is listed as Wyatt's wife though there is no record of a legal marriage. Pinafore more than a dozen times from December 24, 1879 through February 20, 1880. [5][9] In early 1880, Henry was living with his son-in-law Aaron, who was employed as a bookkeeper. [63] Wyatt and Josie never had any children. He lived so long, passing away in 1929 at the ripe old age of eighty, that he had time to mold and nurture his public image after it had become a bit ragged . [43][57] The only difference noted in the 1880 census is their occupation: Sadie in San Francisco is listed as "At home", while Sadie in Tip Top is recorded as a "Courtesan". [1] Henry found work as a baker. This is the story of that life together after Wyatt's famous. [2] Josie attended the Powell Street Primary School on Powell St. between Clay and Washington in San Francisco. Tombstone Ending Explained: What Happened To Each Main Character Nov 13, 2021 57:50. [6] Markham already had a national reputation as a burlesque dancer and singer. Blaylocks teenage years featured community picnics and barn dances that she and her sisters enjoyed. 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. [8] She had been using laudanum and alcohol to excess for some time. They rented a cabin from Rex Beach for $100 a month and spent the winter of 18981899 there. "[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. 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. In the 1880 United States Census Blaylock is listed as Wyatt's wife though there is no record of a legal marriage. 7 things you didn't know about Wyatt Earp and his famous gunfight Celia may have sought work as a seamstress or something of the like as she was skilled in the trade. Celia Ann "Mattie" Blaylock (January 1850 - July 3, 1888) was a prostitute who became the romantic companion and common-law wife of Old West lawman and gambler Wyatt Earp for about six years. [32] In reconstructing her life story, Josephine said years later that she actually lived with Kitty Jones and her husband, a lawyer,[27]:117 while working as a housekeeper for Behan. The two fought side by side in Tombstone, Arizona, in 1881's famous gunfight at the O.K. [1] Celia had no desire to live on a farm for the rest of her life. [28] When Stuart Lake was researching his book Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal he heard stories about Sadie's personal history. She was laid to rest in the cemetery about one mile from the old townsite. John Wilson Vermillion (1842-1911), also known as " Texas Jack " or later as " Shoot-Your-Eye-Out Vermillion ", was a gunfighter of the Old West known for his participation in the Earp Vendetta Ride and his later association with Soapy Smith . He opened a small business catering to miners and joined a few posses pursuing bandits. E.C. [26]:4748, In February or March 1879: The Prescott Weekly Journal-Miner reported that John Behan was visiting San Francisco. Is Tombstone a True Story? Is the 1993 Movie Based on Real Life? May 9, 2014. [36]:154, "Josephine Marcus" redirects here. Later in life Josephine described her first years in Arizona as "a bad dream". [118], Beginning in about 1994, critics began to challenge the accuracy of the book, and eventually many parts of the book were refuted as fictional. On November 25, 1899, the Seattle Star reported Earp's arrival. [45], Behan married 17-year-old Victoria Zaff in March 1869 in San Francisco, her step-father's home town. Corral. [38][58][59], Josephine wrote much later that her family wanted to keep her "escapades from the public." The group included a black woman named Julia Barton. Tombstone diarist George W. Parsons never mentioned seeing Wyatt and Josephine together and neither did John Clum in his memoirs. While Sarah would turn back within months after life on the road proved difficult, Blaylock forged ahead and adopted the name Mattie.. Related read: The Real Story of Doc Holliday and Big Nose Kate Mattie & Wyatt Leave Arizona [23] Sadie Mansfield reappeared in Tombstone when she was noted in the July 1882 Tombstone census, but Josephine Marcus and Josephine Behan were not. Corral", "Travesty: Frank Waters Earp Agenda Exposed", "Josephine Earp, Wyatt Earp's Jewish Widow, Admits Her Destitution to Earp's Biographer", "Book Review: Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal", "San Francisco History Public Schools 1879", "Stage-struck Songsters: Operetta in Territorial Prescott", "Tombstone 1881: A Sampling of RoguesA Glorification of Thugs", "Zaff Randall, Victoria Frances Yavapai County, Arizona | Arizona Gravestone Photos", "Making The West: Approaches to The Archaeology of Prostitution on the 19th-Century ining Frontier", "The Earps: Josie and Wyatt's 47-Year Odyssey", "I Married Wyatt Earp The Recollections of Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp", "LA Then and Now: Mrs. Wyatt Earp Packed Her Own Punch", "Doc Goodfellow: Arizona's Gutsiest Physician from the Territorial Days", "Lady at the O.K. [79][80][81], The Earps moved back to San Francisco in 1891[82] so Josie could be closer to her family. He promised to marry her and she joined him in Tombstone. Wyatt Earp wasn't always on the right side of the law. After Earp left Tombstone and Blaylock, she waited in Colton, California to hear from him, but he never contacted her. She had a small, trim body and a meneo of the hips that kept her full, flounced skirts bouncing. 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. To feed her gambling habit, Josephine would pawn the jewelry to millionaire Lucky Baldwin, but Wyatt would later buy the jewelry back. [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. [19] Wyatt had a mischievous sense of humor. The Earps returned briefly to San Francisco in April 1900, but they returned to Seattle before boarding the steamer SS Alliance. Earp became angry and left. [2], On February 6, 1875, criminal charges were filed against Sadie Mansfield for petty larceny, accusing her of stealing two German silver spoons worth $126.00. [42]:275298 In December 1883, they visited Galveston, Texas, and in March 1884 they were in Salt Lake City. [2][26]:47 In January 1876, Josephine or Sadie left Prescott, stopped at a Los Angeles hotel, and returned to San Francisco before March 6. Celia Ann Mattie Blaylock was a prostitute and the common-law wife of Wyatt Earp, a western frontiersman famous for his participation in the 1881 gunfight at the O.K. Earp's former wife, Mattie Blaylock traveled with other Earp family members in April 1882, to Colton, California, waiting for Wyatt to telegraph her and invite her to join him. 8. Wyatt Earp was born in Monmouth, Illinois in 1848. "[19], As late as 1936, Josephine took legal action to suppress certain details of her and Wyatt's life in Tombstone. [2] She said Behan told her family that he could not leave his livery stable business long enough for a wedding in San Francisco. Corral gunfight, which took out three of the Cochise County Cowboys. She may have arrived in Prescott, Arizona as early as 1874. In the book I Married Wyatt Earp (1967), based on a manuscript which she purportedly wrote, author Glenn Boyer quotes her as saying, "I liked the traveling sort of man better than the kind that sat back in one town all his life and wrote down little rows of figures all day or hustled dry goods or groceries and that sort of thing My blood demanded excitement, variety and change. Her father worked as a baker. 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. [25] She would not even talk about the key events of 188182, their key years in Tombstone. Retrieved on June 20, 2011. 48 snapshots of life in the real Wild West. Mattie Blaylocks grave at the Pinal City Cemetery in Superior, Arizona. 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. She became addicted to laudanum. [71] Josephine was addicted to gambling on horse racing and her wagering increased until Wyatt gave her an ultimatum. Josephine insisted she was striving to protect Wyatt Earps legacy. AK: Did Wyatt Earp really lose his pistol in Juneau? Earp had grown into a grizzled widower after his first wife, Urilla Sutherland, died of typhoid fever in 1870. [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. Wyatt Earp had a total of three wives. [2], Sadie Mansfield left Gillete, near Tip Top, and arrived in Phoenix on February 13, 1880. The rest struggled to get by or gambled their fortunes away while destitute women like Blaylock relied on prostitution and cowboys terrorized towns. Actor Hugh O'Brianbecame a household name and earned Emmy nominations for his portrayal of the O.K. [29]:78[96], After Tonopah's gold strike waned, Wyatt staked mining claims just outside Death Valley and elsewhere in the Mojave Desert. Josephine ran away, possibly as early as age 14, and traveled to Arizona, where she said she went "looking for adventure". Wikimedia CommonsMattie Blaylocks grave at the Pinal City Cemetery in Superior, Arizona. She always interfered! Wyatt put oil leases he owned in Henrietta's name with the agreement that the proceeds would benefit Josie after his death. Earp named a mining claim he filed on February 16, 1880 "Mattie Blaylock. While they survived without a scratch after 30 seconds of gunfire, Blaylock had already been wounded as Earp had already met Josephine Sadie Marcus months ago. The facts about Josephine Earp and her relationship to Wyatt were relatively unknown until amateur Earp historian Glenn Boyer published the book I Married Wyatt Earp. [34] Many madams and prostitutes had more control of their lives and greater independence than "respectable" women, who often ostracized them. Her death was ruled a suicide. The Rufus Buck gangs exploits didnt last long, but they were brutal enough to quickly go down in, Wyatt Earp may be lionized for his role in the gunfight at the O.K. [95] In February 1902, they arrived in Tonopah, Nevada, known as the "Queen of the Silver Camps," where silver and gold had been discovered in 1900 and a boom was under way. Grace recalled that Josie, who had never had many domestic skills, did very little housekeeping or cooking for Wyatt. [66], A letter written by former New Mexico Territory Governor Miguel Otero appears to indicate that Earp had strong feelings for Josephine shortly after leaving Tombstone in April 1882. [26]:11 In November 1874, a woman named Sadie Mansfield took a stagecoach from San Francisco to Prescott along with several prostitutes working for Madame Hattie Wells. [57] Nineteen-year-old Sadie Mansfield, the same person his former wife Victoria had named in their divorce five years earlier, was also living in Tip Top. Known as "Sadie" to the public in 1881, she met Wyatt in the frontier boom town Tombstone, Arizona Territory when she was living with Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan. Let's save Wyatt's women for last and begin with Virgil, who is the second best-known Earp brother. Some women in Tombstone operated restaurants, boarding houses, and apparel and millinery shops, and a few ran some of the dry goods stores. Mattie Blaylock spent her entire childhood learning scripture and attending church. They hunted down some of the outlaw Cochise County Cowboys they believed responsible for maiming Virgil Earp and killing Morgan. She attributed the highly exaggerated stories about Wyatt Earp to Josephine. Before moving to Tombstone, he faced a series of lawsuits alleging that he stole money and falsified court documents. When Wyatt died in 1929, Josephine Earp had his body cremated and secretly buried him in the Marcus family plot in the Jewish Hills of Eternity Memorial Park in Colma, California. Writer Alan Barra suggests that Behan and Earp knew of their mutual attraction to the same woman before the Gunfight at the O.K. What happened to Wyatt Earps Mattie? - TimesMojo [40], Author Roger Ray thoroughly researched Josephine's story about joining the theater company and found many inconsistencies. "[20] While Blaylock was living with Earp, she suffered from severe headaches and became addicted to laudanum, an opiate-based pain reliever widely available at the time. [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. From 1891 to 1896, the Earps lived in at least four different locations in San Francisco: 145 Ellis St., 720 McAllister St., 514A Seventh Ave. and 1004 Golden Gate Ave.[70] After moving to southern California in about 1903, they also lived in several different locations. Rudolph Stauffer found the Apaches that had escaped the reservation at Cave Creek and fought them. She passed away on July 3, 1888, at about the age of 38. 'Tombstone' 25 years later: Revisiting the cast of the surprise western 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. She was the third of six children born to parents Henry and Elizabeth Blaylock. Generally accepted to be a picture of Earp in Prescott, Arizona Territory, in 1880. She met a gambler from Arizona who asked her to marry him. She said that she had believed Behan was planning to marry her, but he kept putting it off, and she grew disillusioned. The coroners report stated that she died of supposed suicide by opium poisoning., Related read: Im Your Huckleberry: the Real Meaning of Doc Hollidays Famous Line. Earp did mezuzah when entering the house." "Allie's Story: Mrs. Virgil Earp and The "Tombstone Travesty", "Pharmacology and Pharmacokinetics of Alcohol and Opioids", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mattie_Blaylock&oldid=1143484556, This page was last edited on 8 March 2023, at 00:57. Shortly after that election his young wife, Urilla Sutherland, died. [1] Sarah returned home less than a year later, chagrined and shamed by her experience. From Wichita to Dodge City, to the O.K. Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp | Jewish Women's Archive Blaylock and her sister Sarah, meanwhile, rejected their prospective suitors and soon hatched a plan to escape and see the world. Earp developed a reputation as a sportsman as well as a gambler. Tombstone (DVD, 2002, 2-Disc Set, Vista Series Directors Cut - eBay Matt Jancer. 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. Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was born on March 19, 1848, the fourth child of Nicholas Porter Earp and his second wife, Virginia Ann Cooksey. For those of you with knowledge about Victorian medicines, you know they're mostly high grade opiates. "[2][26]:46 If as Josephine stated she traveled with Markham's troupe from San Francisco in December 1879, there are no contemporary accounts of the trip being interrupted by Indians. [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. Boyer's book was considered a factual memoir, and cited by scholars, studied in classrooms, and used as a source by filmmakers for 32 years. Wyatt Earp Biography - Facts, Childhood, Family Life & Achievements Who Killed Johnny Ringo? Earp moved to Wichita, Kansas, and worked as a shotgun guard for Wells Fargo. Cason says she and her sister "finally abandoned work on the manuscript because she [Josie] would not clear up the Tombstone sequence where it pertained to her and Wyatt. [17] She was also in need of money, and tried to sell a collection of books to Lake while he was writing the book. Josephine Earp's story was shrouded in mystery throughout her life, but modern historians posit that she lied about her early years in an effort to conceal her unsavory past. We aren't sure when they met. [60] Later in life, Josephine was not a practicing Jew and did not seem to care whether her partners were Jewish. [85], On August 5, 1897, Earp and Josie once again joined in a mining boom and left Yuma, Arizona for San Francisco. She lived on the family farm, had local friends & activities. "She didn't go to his funeral, even. After her death, historians have conflicting views of how Earp spent his time. Corral in Tombstone, a man becomes a myth in this thrilling journey of romance, adventure, and desperate heroic action. Court records show that she became a prostitute beginning in 1872[1] in Fort Scott, then later in Dodge City. Josephine was born in New York to a Prussian Jewish family. Wyatt Earp is a unique breedfor more reasons than oneamong the famed gunslingers and infamous outlaws who shot their way across the Wild West horizon. [44] She said that Sieber and his scouts led her stagecoach and its passengers to a nearby adobe ranch house. "[26] Prostitution wasn't illegal in the territory as long as the women paid their licensing fees. Finally, Mattie left California and moved to Globe, Arizona, where she returned to prostitution. [32] Sadie was an attractive woman, with thick, dark hair, vivid black eyes, and was well-endowed. Josephine wanted to keep what she viewed as their tarnished history in Tombstone private. When she was seven years old, the family moved to San Francisco. Mattie waited for Wyatts telegraph that she should return to Tombstone, but it never arrived. Celia Ann Mattie Blaylock was born around 1850 into a religious family in Iowa. "You're not a smart gambler. He wrote (in her voice), "Hattie and I attended the McCarthy Dancing Academy for children on Howard Street (Polk and Pacific). While Blaylock grew dependent on laudanum to treat her headaches, Earp was increasingly embroiled in deadly conflict as a newfound deputy sheriff. [46][47] She was the step-daughter of Yavapai County Sheriff John P. When the Comstock Lode production began to fade, San Francisco suffered. Josephine Earp: The Truth About Wyatt Earp's Wife - Grunge Blaylock was said to have suffered from headaches, and while in Tombstone, Arizona, she became addicted to laudanum, a then-common opiate and pain killer. [2] He began campaigning and the Prescott Miner reported on October 6, 1874, that "J.H. Earp begins an affair with a . A second stone of flat granite was also stolen. However, she was well aware that she would soon be married off to likely live out her life as a housewife. William Vermillion, Nancy Owens. [120], The book has become an example of how supposedly factual works can trip up researchers, historians, and librarians. This podcast is dedicated to Nick's wife, Linda. At the age of 22, he entered the law enforcement profession by beating his half-brother Newton in a race for constable of Lamar Township, thirty-five miles north of Joplin, Missouri. Heartbroken and addicted, Blaylock tried her best to prevail. 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. "[84][19][21], Among the facts Josephine wanted scrubbed from Earp's history, she persuaded biographers Flood, Lake and Burns to write that Earp was a non-drinker. In 1879 the Pauline Markham Theater Company came to town, and Josephine slipped away with the troupe. "[21] After Wyatt's death, Josephine told her friends and family to stop calling her Sadie, Wyatt's name for her, and insisted they call her Josie. )[43] On October 20, 1875, the Arizona Weekly Miner of Prescott, Arizona noted that among the passengers en route from San Francisco were "Miss Saddie [sic] Mansfield and Mrs. Julia Barton, a servant. Previous researchers of Matties life state there are court records of her prostitution during this time that name her as Celie or Sally. [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]. Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday Weren't That Close It's true that Holliday and Earp were friends. 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 . [75] At Santa Rosa, Earp personally competed in and won a harness race.