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. 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. Named Celia Ann Blaylock, she went to church & school, with typical parental discipline of the time. In I Married Wyatt Earp, author Glen Boyer states that Josephine took dance lessons and had a maid. Mattie allegedly suffered from severe headaches and became addicted to laudanum, which was commonly used as a pain killer at the time. 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. [37] One block away on the 1000 block of Clay Street in a neighborhood known for prostitution was a brothel, owned by Hattie Wells. However, court records indicate that she continued to call herself by her childhood nickname of "Celie", which was often phonetically spelled by court clerks as "Sally"; no court records have been found throughout her life using the name "Mattie". [16] After Wyatt died in 1929, Josephine traveled to Boston, Massachusetts to try to persuade the publisher to stop the release of the book. 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. In the 1880 United States Census Blaylock is listed as Wyatt's wife though there is no record of a legal marriage. [12] Waters' work was later found to be critically flawed, "based upon prevarications, character assassinations, and the psychological battleground that was the brilliant, narcissistic mind of its author. It is undisputed, however, that he was arrested in a brothel raid in 1872. 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. [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. The feud escalated, and on October 26, 1881, it finally exploded into violence in a gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone. [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. Eventually, she ended up in Dodge City, Kansas. [Henry] Jaffa told me later that Earps woman was a Jewess. Charlie Welsh, Grace Spolidora's father, was a good friend of Earp's. They rented a cabin from Rex Beach for $100 a month and spent the winter of 18981899 there. Grace, her sisters, Alma, and her mother brought in meals. [6]:235 Frank Waters wrote in The Earp Brothers of Tombstone of public fights between Sadie Marcus and Blaylock and how the affair was a public scandal. [26]:52 Following Wyatt's return to San Francisco, Josephine began using the name of "Josephine Earp". [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. Mattie was considered Earps common-law wife and in the 1880 census, the 30-year-old was listed as Mattie Earp, wife of Wyatt Earp. [2] Earp was appointed assistant marshal in Dodge City under Marshal Lawrence Deger around May 1876. Apartment buildings were crowded and large homes were converted into rooming houses. Her poor lifestyle would see her age out of favor, while her laudanum addiction saw her die of suicide by opium poisoning on July 3, 1888. If Josephine, as she said, left San Francisco at age 18, it's unclear why she would still be attending school upon her return two years later. Josephine left Behan in 1881, before the Gunfight at the O.K. [1] Sarah returned home less than a year later, chagrined and shamed by her experience. While the gunsmoke of the Civil War had settled, life in the American frontier was no picnic. The Tragic Story Of Henry Duke Of Cornwall, Henry VIII's Son Who Died At Just Seven Weeks Old, 32 Disturbing Photos Of Life Inside Soviet Gulag Prisons, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. Emmitt. It was immensely popular for many years, becoming the university's fourth all-time best selling book with over 35,000 copies sold. [60] Later in life, Josephine was not a practicing Jew and did not seem to care whether her partners were Jewish. [34] Josephine always sought excitement in her life. Allegedly a runaway, she's said to have left . We aren't sure when they met. To her the women appeared not as "soiled doves" but nicely dressed women living a life of leisure. She enjoyed some brief success as a juvenile actress on the San Francisco stage during the 1870s. Blaylock left Colton and returned to Pinal City, but the silver boom had died out and the bulk of the town's population had moved on. 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." [32] At the time, her parents, her sister Henrietta, and her brother Nathan were all living in a lower-class neighborhood south of Market Street in San Francisco with their daughter, her husband, their four children, and a boarder. But they'd met only four years earlier, while passing through Texas. Actor Hugh O'Brianbecame a household name and earned Emmy nominations for his portrayal of the O.K. Wyatt is generally tied to three women: Urilla Sutherland, Cecilia Ann "Mattie" Blaylock, and Josephine Marcus. They traveled West, thinking they would find some work. She went to San Francisco in March 1882 and was joined that fall by Wyatt, with whom she remained as his life companion for 46 years until his death. She passed away on July 3, 1888, at about the age of 38. [6][26] Ray says that Josephine didn't have a friend named Dora Hirsch. "[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. 48 snapshots of life in the real Wild West. The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp was the first adult Western on television and became a top-ten-rated series, reports the LA Times. The family lived on a small farm that Henry had obtained in 1846. Earp developed a reputation as a sportsman as well as a gambler. 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. Josephine told Earp's biographers and others that Earp didn't drink, never owned gambling saloons, and that his saloons didn't offer prostitutes, which all have been documented. [85], On August 5, 1897, Earp and Josie once again joined in a mining boom and left Yuma, Arizona for San Francisco. Following the Earp Vendetta Ride, the Earp posse went to Albuquerque, New Mexico for two weeks. Meet Mattie Blaylock, The Abandoned Common-Law Wife Of Wyatt Earp. [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. [25] She would not even talk about the key events of 188182, their key years in Tombstone. Corral made him a legend. She may have arrived in Prescott, Arizona as early as 1874. [63] At some point during August and September, Sadie and Wyatt may have become friends and perhaps more seriously involved. 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. The opening date of the Baldwin Hotel is much earlier than the date Josephine said she left for Arizona with the Pauline Markham Troupe in 1879. Three days later, Sieber and Sgt. [1] She maintained a relationship with Johnny Behan's son, Albert Price Behan, whom she had grown to love as her own son. 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. In the summer of 1878, Doc Holliday and Big Nose Kate, said to be his wife, arrived in Dodge City intent on relieving the cowboys who had recently arrived at the end of a cattle drive of their hard-earned wages. In her memoirs she wrote, "the younger children (niece and nephew), and our friends were told that I had gone away for a visit. [2], Prescott had 668 residents in 1870. [47]:19 Soon after they arrived, Behan's ex-wife sent their eight-year-old son Albert to live with him. [48] The couple moved back to Prescott, Arizona Territory, where John had been working, and four months later, on June 15, 1869, she had her first child, Henrietta. Earp was apparently heavily affected by his first wife's death and started acting out. "[19], As late as 1936, Josephine took legal action to suppress certain details of her and Wyatt's life in Tombstone. Corral: The True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp, by Ann Kirschner", "Testimony of Wyatt S. Earp in the Preliminary Hearing in the Earp-Holliday Case", "The Earps, Doc Holliday, & The Blonger Bros", "Long Green's Bodyguard Swears he is a Poor Man", "San Diego Walking Tour: Gaslamp Quarter", "Wyatt Earp: The Missing Years, San Diego In The 1880s", "Shady Ladies in the "Stingaree District" When The Red Lights Went Out in San Diego", "The Story of New San Diego and of its Founder Alonzo E. Horton", "Seattle newspaper reports on November 25, 1899, that Wyatt Earp will open a gambling house in the city", "1900 United States Federal Census for Mrs W S Earp", "Earp Historical Timeline San Francisco and Alaska", "Earp Historical Timeline Page 12 The Final Years", "Cemetery of the Week #116: Wyatt Earp's gravesite", Rare Original Letters: Josephine "Sadie" Earp, 1914 "Kaloma" valse hesitante by "Gire Goulineaux", a pseudonym of Johann C. Schmid (19701951), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Josephine_Earp&oldid=1152582421, Hills of Eternity Memorial Park, Colma, California, frontier adventurer; gambler; possibly prostitute, This page was last edited on 1 May 2023, at 03:08. It was a working-class, ethnically mixed neighborhood, where smoke from factory chimneys filled the air. [26]:54, In November 1899, they left Alaska for a period and went to Seattle, Washington, with a plan to open a saloon and gambling room. Cinergi Pictures EntertainmentMattie Blaylock (left) and Wyatt Earp (center) as portrayed by Dana Wheeler Nicholson and Kurt Russell in Tombstone (1993). 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. 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 . [26]:46 Neighbors in Prescott witnessed Behan visiting the "house of ill fame" on Granite Street on several occasions during December 1874. [2] In November 1879, Johnny Behan opened his new saloon for business. The horse was a frequent winner and sometimes Wyatt bought Josephine some jewelry with the proceeds. The moment came between March and October of 1868, when the two adult sisters left town without money or permission from their parents. 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. ", Mattie was born Celia Ann Blaylock in Monroe Township, Johnson County, Iowa, near Fairfax, Iowa, to Henry Blaylock and Elizabeth "Betsy" Vance. [19] Wyatt had a mischievous sense of humor. She wasn't that upset. [2], As an adult, Josephine claimed her father was German and ran a prosperous mercantile business.
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