The name of the Wyatt Earp stirs up thoughts of gunfights and the violence of the American west and of Tombstone Arizona. But Wyatt was not alone in Tombstone. His family and their wives were there along with him. Two of his brothers joined him at the gunfight at the OK Corral on the day of fate. They were Morgan and Virgil Earp. After the gunfight, a trial was held and Wyatt and the other men who stood alongside of him there were exonerated by the law. But bad blood still existed between the Cow-boy factions in Tombstone and the Earp clan. Both Virgil Earp and Morgan would be ambushed. Virgil would be wounded and survived. Morgan would die from his gunshot wounds.
In an article that first appeared in "Old West Magazine (1983) a story appeared which primarily introduced Morgan's common law wife, Louisa, who up until then had only been a mysterious name known through Frank Waters fictional memoir of Mrs. Virgil Earp. That story also introduced the first authentic photo of Morgan Earp. Two photos of Louisa also accompanied that story.
The 1983 Winter Issue of "Old West Magazine" #47304 From the Authors collection
Article by Glenn Boyer: Brother in the Shadow from the 1983 Winter Issue of "Old West Magazine" #47304 From the Authors collection
Temescal, San Bernadino Co. California July the 19th, 1880
My husband starts for Arizona in the morning. I'm going to stay here for the present with his parents. They do not want me to go, so I think I will have to stay here this summer. We
have had ripe peaches and watermelons and green corn since the first of the month and we have not had any rain for four months, but we have very pleasant weather.
-From your sister Louisa Houston
Letter from Lousia Houston to her sister Kate
MORGAN SETH EARP
Morgan Earp was born on April 24th, 1851 in Lake Prairie Township, Marion County Iowa, of which Knoxville is the County seat. His parents were Nicholas Porter Earp and Virginia Ann Cooksey Earp. When he was born they were living in the country on a farm. Morgans childhood was the same as his brothers, and farming was a difficult endeavor for the entire family. Though Morgan hunted, Fished and wandered the countryside. The Earp family was very close-knit group of people, and Nicholas Earp was a very strong father figure who had severed honorably in the war with Mexico. At around the time of the civil war. The Earp family, under their farther Nicholas, decided to follow the new trails west to migrate to California, a grand expedition. Morgan was thirteen years old at the time and was accompanied by his brother Wyatt and James. After extensive preparations, in the Spring of 1864, the Earps departed Pella Iowa and headed west in a wagon train along the Oregon Trail, reaching Fort Bridger, Wyoming Territory, then heading south to Salt Lake City and across the Mormon Cut off, and Mojave Desert, arriving at their new home in San Bernadino California in December of 1864. One can only imagine what it must have been like for the young Earp boys. This trip must have shaped them into fine frontiersman. Lessons learned here most certainly helped them in the coming years. Nicholas Earp settled on a farm in the area of San Bernadino and lived there until 1868, when Nicholas, a man who had a wandering in his blood, pulled up stakes and returned to the east. By this time Morgans older brothers had moved on, and He and his brother Warren, were left to handle the drudgery of farm life. After the Civil War, brother Virgil wandered the West. He drove stages in California, worked the Union Pacific Railroad beds with Wyatt in Wyoming and ran a grocery in Lamar, Missouri, where Wyatt was constable and father Nicholas was justice of the peace. Virgil drove stages during the 1870s in Iowa, it was that there he met his third wife Allie Sullivan (first wife Ellen Rysdam remarried after being told by Ellen’s father that Virgil had died in combat in 1863, while his second wife, 17-year-old Rosella Drago, simply vanished from the records). Allie would stick by Virgil for the rest of his life. Virgil may have served briefly as a policeman with Wyatt in Wichita in 1875 and in Dodge City in 1876 and 1877. Brother James left the family and headed west to boom towns in Nevada. Nichoals Earp, Morgan and Warren made their way back east by wagon train and made it to the Union Pacific railhead in Wyoming. There they found Virgil and Wyatt working with railroad on construction crews. The reunited family then went east together to visit relatives in in Iowa and Illinois. The family eventually moved to Lamar Missouri where Nick Earp had owned farmland for many years. The Earps also left Lamar Missouri and Morgan parted ways with the family, and not much information is available about his whereabouts until 1875 when he shows up in Dodge City Kansas, where he served as a part time deputy sheriff the year before his brother Wyatt joined the Dodge City police force. Apparently, Wyatt tried to secure jobs for both Morgan and Virgil on the Wichita police force but wasn't successful. According to recollections of the family of Louisa (Houston) Earp, both her and her sister Kate (Kate Houston Robinson) went to Dodge city as Harvey (1) Girls. But she and Morgan probably did not meet there because Morgan had left Dodge city before her arrival (Brother in the Shadow: Glenn G. Boyer) but likely met her in another railroad town. (2) Record show that Morgan showed up in Butte Montana as a member of the police force on December 16th, 1879, and stayed there until early 1880.
In December of 1879, the three elder Earp brothers, Jim, Virgil and Wyatt came to Tombstone, expecting to open a stagecoach line. They found the field full and turned to saloon keeping and gambling. They were unaware their talents with six-shooters would soon draw them into a political confrontation between the old Arizona Democrats and Republican investors who controlled Tombstone. Morgan arrived in Tombstone in late 1880, just around the time when the friction between the cow-boy factions and law enforcement, the situation which would eventually lead to his death. His brother Wyatt Earp was about to be appointed deputy-sheriff of Pima County for the Tombstone District, and brother Virgil was U.S. Deputy Marshal and had been since his arrival in Tombstone in December of 1879. These facts confirm why there was confrontations with numerous members of the outlaw gangs around Tombstone.
"In the period from December 1879-1880 , when Morgan reached Tombstone, there was no open hostility between the Earp's and what was to become known as the Cow-Boy gang, a confederation of lawless freebooters, men who had been run out of Texas and New Mexico."
-Glenn Boyer: Brother in the Shadow, Old West Magazine Winter 1983
There is a fairly deep history here in this part of the story, and has been well researched, and written about in other publications. But it necessary to note that Morgan never received adequate credit for his role in Tombstone. But it's worth mentioning that Morgan was both a fair and active Lawman in his own right. But the simple truth is that Morgan had become embroiled innocently in the Tombstone situation, and was merely trying to support his family, just like his brother Wyatt, he guarded bullion shipments of Wells Fargo, he gambled as did all of his brothers, he moonlighted as a Lawman and sometimes worked full time as a peace officer.
On the night of March 18, 1882, after returning from a play at Schieffelin Hall, Morgan decided to play a game of pool with Bob Hatch in the back of Latters saloon on Allen street. He was fatally shot in the back, and the bullet entered his spine, the shot came through a window on the back door of the saloon. A second shot followed obviously directed at Wyatt who was seated in a chair near the game. The following morning, a Coroner's inquest convened based principally upon the testimony of the wife of Pete Spence. It was decided that the killers were Frank Stillwell and Spence, abetted by two others, one of whom was known as Indian Charlie and the other a John Doe. He was just 30 years old. Morgan’s body was then transported to California, where he is buried at Hermosa Cemetery in Colton, California
References;
Virgil Earp: In a Brother’s Shadow
Although he was a first-rate lawman and stood tall during that deadly gunfight near the O.K. Corral, Virgil Earp will forever be known as Wyatt’s older brother.
by Lee A. Silva3/23/2018
Morgan Earp "Brother in the Shadow" Vol III by Glenn G. Boyer
Legends of America
Morgan Earp – Killed in Tombstone, Arizona
Note 1
Fred Harvey was a businessman, and entrepreneur recognized the need for better restaurants and accommodations along rail lines throughout the Southwest. He formed a partnership with the Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe Railway to open establishments along their routes. As part of the hotel and restaurant service staff, the Fred Harvey Company created the iconic Harvey Girls, who are often described as one of the first workforces made up of all women in the Southwest. Women made up much of the service staff that worked at the Fred Harvey Company’s establishments. Women came from all over the country to work as a Harvey Girl
Ref
Note 2
Morgan Earp "Brother in the Shadow" Vol III by Glenn G. Boyer
Brother in the Shadow Old West Magazine Winter 1983 Article by Glenn Boyer
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