TOMBSTONES Chapter Eight

 

I am pretty certain what 31 year old Town Marshal Frederick G. "Fred" White (above) was thinking, as he approached the empty lot near the corner of Sixth and Allen Streets. It was just about 12:30 on the chilly morning of Thursday, 28 October, 1880, and Fred had spent most of the evening chasing down and collecting guns from drunken cowboys. None of these intoxicated miscreants wanted to hurt anyone. But the difference between a chimpanzee thrashing the underbrush with a branch, and a human, is that humans have invented gunpowder and alcohol.

This was why Tombstone made it illegal to carry a gun in the city limits, except when entering or leaving town. As a man of average intelligence - which by all accounts Fred was - and being a friendly and compassionate fellow - as everyone knew him to be - Fred knew that guns plus people plus alcohol plus time eventually equals somebody getting shot. As freelance journalist Clara Spalding Brown noted the same idea when writing about Tombstone and its environs - "When saloons are thronged all night with excited and armed men, bloodshed must needs ensue occasionally."

There were half dozen men in the vacant lot between Tough Nut and Allen Streets. They were just "shooting at the moon", using their pistols as noisemakers. Fred approached the men quietly but firmly, as he always did. The drunk "Cow Boys" - Frank Patterson (of stolen mule fame), Ed Collins, James Johnson (who worked on the Clanton ranch with his brother Bill), Arthur Ames, Robert Lloyd and Curley Bill Brocius - all knew Fred and liked him. And even knowing they faced a $10 fine, they all seemed willing to hand over their guns. Fred must have been certain this would be his last such encounter that night.

The first to surrender his gun was "Curly Bill" Brocius (above). Brocius was pretty drunk, and yanked the weapon out of his pocket. As Fred White grabbed the barrel, the gun went off. The crack shattered the Arizona night. Fred groaned, doubled over and fell. In an instant a new figure stepped out of the dark, and pistol whipped Brocius to the ground.

When the confrontation began,  Wyatt Earp (above) was one block to the east, beneath the tent canvas of Owen's Saloon (below, right), where he dealt faro. Republican friends had recently secured him an appointment as a deputy sheriff for the southern part of Pima County, making him a tax assessor and collector as well. That earned him 10% of everything he collected. But that was "maybe" income, and for Wyatt, dealing faro was a sure thing. 

Still, hearing the gunfire, Wyatt walked away from the table to investigate. He saw Fred White approaching the men, and sensing danger, Wyatt borrowed a pistol from fellow stagecoach guard Fred Dodge, and walked down the street to back up the sheriff. When Ed White was shot, it was Wyatt who leapt to the wounded man's defense and disabled the shooter. The other cowboys scattered into the dark of a nearby wash and somebody started shooting at Wyatt. Almost immediately Wyatt was joined on the street by Morgan Earp and Fred Dodge.

Fred Dodge recalled years later that, "When "Morg" and I reached him, Wyatt was squatted on his heels beside Curly Bill and Fred White. Curly Bill's friends were pot-shooting at him in the dark...." In his book "Under Cover for Wells Fargo", Dodge explained, "Wyatt said to me, "Put the fire out in Fred's clothes." When he looked, Dodge saw that Brocius' shot had been so close, the muzzle blast had set Marshal White's vest smoldering.  Added Dodge,  in a letter, "Wyatt's voice was even and quiet as usual."

Once the shooting from the arroyo had slackened, volunteers carried Marshall White to the Fifth Street side of the Golden Eagle Brewery building (above), and up the stairs to the second floor office of Doctor H.M. Matthews, who was also the county coroner. At the same time Dodge and the Earps led Curley Bill off to the "lockup", a 10' X 12" windowless structure. All the way there, Billy Brocius kept asking, "What have I done?" The lawmen then proceeded to track down the others in the confrontation. Within hours all 6 of the drunks were safely in the lockup.

According to Dr. Matthews, the bullet from Brocius' gun entered Fred White's body "Four inches below and three inches to the left of the naval.... traveling downward...(and) pierced the small intestine..." Eighty years before the discovery of antibiotics, to all intents and purposes Fred White was dead the instant the bacteria inside his intestines were released into his abdomen. 

Opiates kept Fred White pain free for 2 days, giving him time to dictate a statement that the shooting had been accidental. He died on Sunday, 31 October, with his father and friends at his bedside. The gun belonging to Curley Bill Brocius was picked up in the street. It had only one round fired. Curley Bill had not even been responsible for the shooting that drew Marshall White to the confrontation. He's been trying to stop it.

In the morning, in the courthouse at Third and Toughnut Street (above), in front of Tucson's Judge Gray, Frank Patterson pleaded that he had been trying to quiet the shooting party. The others, who paid a $10 fine, each supported his story. Arthur Ames was fined an additional $30 for carrying a concealed weapon. Brocius asked to have his case held over until he could get an attorney. And given the popularity of Ed White, the Earps thought it best to transport the cowboy to Tucson to stand trial.

The first result of the shooting was that Deputy Federal Marshal Virgil Earp was asked to temporarily fill the job as Town Marshall, until a special election could be held on Saturday, 13, November, 1880.  But with the bounty of economically business opportunities available in Tombstone, the race eventually narrowed to either Virgil or the 33 year old miner, Benjamin Sippy.  The financially challenged Sippy won the November ballot, 311 to 259 votes for Virgil. Editor of the "Epitath", John Clum (above)  chose to be optimistic, suggesting Sippy "...should receive the support and assistance of all good citizens."  In fact, Ben Sippy would prove to be brave, clear headed and determined, when he was on duty.  He spent his first months in office arresting speeders on the streets of Tombstone.

Later that November, William "Curley Bill" Brocius stood trial in Tucson for Fred White's death, before Judge Neugass. Fred White's dying statement was read into the record and Wyatt Earp even testified he thought the gun had gone off "half cocked".  

Judge Neugass had little choice, and dismissed the charges. Curley Bill (above) walked out of court a free man.  Even though Wyatt's testimony had helped clear him of the murder charge, Brocius never forgave Wyatt Earp for the pistol whipping. It was yet another firm step on the road to the most iconic 30 seconds of violence in the American history.

- 30 -

TOMBSTONES Chapter Five

 

I am confident that during March of 1879 Edward Schieffelin (above) was suffering from ennui. He had new clothes, and probably for first time in his life he was being treated with respect.  But the man who had spent half his life alone, seeking his fortune over the next hill, admitted, "I never wanted to be rich..."  His discovery of the Tombstone silver lode had robbed him of what Shakespeare's Hamlet called "...the name of action". So in Philadelphia, he left negotiations for the million dollar deal to his brother Alfred and their partner, Richard Gird.

The principle investors in the richest silver strike since the Comstock lode, Frank and Phillip Corbin, had built their fortune (above) making door locks and metal trimmings for coffins. They knew nothing about mining. But because they agreed how best to profit from the Lucky Cuss and Tough Nut claims, they were welcomed as partners. 

The new corporate offices for The Tombstone Milling and Mining Company, at 425 Walnut Street in Philadelphia, issued half a million shares of stock, which were quickly snapped up by investors. Almost over night Ed Schieffelin was a millionaire. And there was more to come.

Within a year there were 3,000 working mines between the Dragoon and Mule mountains and the San Pedro River.  Besides the original four, the richest claims would be the Grand Central, the Goodenough, the Vizna, the Empire, the Tranquility, the Sydney, The Girard, The Sulphuret and The Bob Ingersoll. But none were as rich as the first. At depth the Tough Nut's vein was sometimes 20 feet wide, and required 75 men to extract it and another 80 to mill what it produced. The vein in the Grand Central mine was 8 to 12 feet wide.

Tombstone Mining and Milling sold half of the Lucky Cuss for $10,000, using the cash to fund construction of stamping mills, under newly named Superintendent Richard Gird.

Over 500 tons of ore each day from all the mines had to be transported by 16 mule team ore wagons 8 miles west to the San Pedro river, at a cost of $3.50 a ton. Along both banks, 7 deafening stamp mills were constructed, surrounded by almost identical reverberating villages of between 200 and 600 residents each, named Charleston, Contention, Fairbank and Millville.  Here running water or steam driven steel hammers, 140 "stamps" in total, pounded the ore 24 hours a day until it was reduced to powder. Separated in baths of cyanide, and then heated to 1,763 degrees Fahrenheit, the 90 % pure liquid silver was then poured into molds. Carried by stagecoach to Benson, where it met the The New Mexico and Arizona branch of the Atchison Topeka and the Santa Fe railroad, the ingots were then shipped in the bars to El Paso, Texas for ultimate refining.

In one year alone- between April 1881 and April 1882 - the San Pedro mills shipped $1.3 million worth of silver bullion to El Paso - about $30 million today.   In just 4 years greater Tombstone grew from 100 to 8,000 white males. Adding women, African Americans, Hispanics and Chinese, the real total was probably closer to 10,000 souls living in the Sonoran desert without direct access to fresh water, food, or plumbing. 

Everything had to be brought in by wagon or burro. And still the town eventually supported Vogan's 10 pin Bowling Alley And Bar, a gym, a book store, 4 churches, an ice house, one school, 2 banks, 3 newspapers, several billiard parlors, an ice cream parlor, 2 Italian, 1 French, a couple of Chinese and several Mexican restaurants, as well as many that promised "Home Cooking" and a few which actually delivered it,  110 saloons, 42 lawyers, at least 14 gambling and dance halls and at least a dozen brothels.

The Can Can French restaurant advertised "Game as wild as a tornado, chicken as tender as a maiden’s heart, ice-cream as delicious as a day in June, dessert that would charm the soul of a South Sea Islander and smiles as bright as the morning sun..." The Grand Hotel boasted 16 rooms, each "..fitted with walnut furniture and carpeted...spring mattresses that would tempt even a sybarite, toilet stands and fixtures... the walls papered, and...each room having windows." There was even limited telephone service by 1882.

Most famous (or infamous) business in Tombstone would be the tiny Bird Cage Theatre- serving customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week after it opened Christmas eve 1881.  It was named for the twin second floor balconies, housing seven tiny 7 bedrooms, all  without support beams. The most profitable square feet in Tombstone was suspended from the ceiling- it's physical load transferred to the thick adobe exterior walls (below).  Their moral load carried by the patrons seemingly without effort 

A beer at the bar cost a dollar - equivalent to $22 today - extra if you ordered it from one of the suspended "cages" (above). These were single use spaces - prostitution being pound for pound and minute for minute the most profitable business in Tombstone, far exceeding the silver mines. 

According to the New York Times the Birdcage was "...the wildest, wickedest night spot between Basin Street (New Orleans) and (San Francisco's) the Barbary Coast."

It was also small. Past the bar (above), the main hall was just 15 X 15 feet, not including the stage and orchestra pit. With summer temperatures routinely reaching 118°F, and with open flame gas jets providing the only lighting in the windowless building, crowded with warm bodies and clouds of cigar smoke from the basement gambling parlor, tempers and oxygen must have both been in short supply.

The only thing holding the level of sin at bay seemed to have been the lack of water, and by March of 1881 the Huachuca Water Company had trapped the flow from 3 springs behind a dam  (above) built across Miller canyon, 6,500 feet up in the Huachuca Mountains, southwest of Tombstone. Gravity forced the fresh water through the 7 inch iron pipe across 26 miles of desert to a 1 million gallon reservoir just above Tombstone. The water must have been hot.

Boasted the "Epitaph", "It is safe to say that no other town in America, of its size and population, is better supplied with amusements...Only last evening...there were meetings of firemen, Odd fellows, city council, the literary and debating society, together with a ball, a theatre, a dancing school, and a couple of private parties, all at full blast! Hurrah for Tombstone! (above)"

The town's economy rested on the strong backs and arms of its 6,000 male miners and mill workers  - mostly Cornish, Irish, Poles and Germans (above). They earned the union wage of $4 for every 10 hour shift in the tunnels. Between that sum and the pay for teamsters and support staff, $168,000 in cash was injected into Tombstone's economy each week. 

And just about as many faro dealers, bartenders, south side prostitutes, lawyers, restaurant owners, hotel clerks, bakers, Chinese laundrymen, Mexican laborers, opium den operators, life insurance salesmen and politicians did their very best to take every dime of it.  It was a miner, whose addictions had reduced him to a dish washer, who bestowed upon Tombstone it's official nickname - not El Dorado (golden city) but Helldorado.

Still, in its bloodiest year - 1881 - Tombstone, Arizona officially recorded only 6 homicides. And 3 of those were by police officers, in the shoot out at the O.K. Corral. Over the decade between the town's founding and water flooding into the mines, there were 130 "murders and self-defense" gun deaths, 18 "accidental" gun deaths and 15 self inflicted gunshot deaths. That low a death toll, when compared to the higher rates in outlying mill towns, can only be ascribed to ordinance Number 9, imposing a $25 fine for carrying a deadly weapon "...in the hand or upon the person or otherwise....within the limits of said city of Tombstone..." Guns were still readily available, but the slight delay in accessing them seems to have made all the difference.

Meanwhile Mose Drachman, resident of the little mill town of Charleston (above, bottom) - population about 350 -  and without benefit of ordinance Number 9 -  remembered "...it was not an uncommon sight to see one or more dead men lying in the street when going to work...If a dead man had a gun on him and was shot from the front, no one bothered to look for the killer.” 

Charleston's only employee was sheriff, judge, treasurer and Justice of the Peace, James Burnett, "...a known scoundrel..." "Justice Jim" operated on a strictly cash basis, kept the town treasury in his pocket, recorded no records and favored the "open carry" approach to justice.

One of the few murders in Charleston to ever go to trial occurred outside Harry Queen's saloon on 1 October, 1881.  Braggart and hothead James Hickey was on the tail end of 3 day bender, and out of money. As he staggered out the door he ran into Billy "The Kid" Claiborne (above). Hickey had been looking for the popular Claiborne for days, spoiling for a fight and calling him "a prick eating son-of-a-bitch".  The Kid tried to walk away from the drunk, and warned Hickey that if he kept following, Claiborne would kill him. When Hickey kept coming, Billy shot him down, and when Hickey got up, The Kid shot him once more in the face, killing him. It took 2 trials but Billy Claiborne was eventually found to have killed in self defense.   

More typical were 2 other murders in Justice Burnetts'  jurisdiction of Charleston (above). First, the   January of 1881 shooting of W.P. Scheider, chief engineer of the Corbin Mill, who was gunned down by Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce, AKA Micheal O'Rourke  -  and the March 1882 killing of 26 year old Martin Ruter Peel, who was murdered in full view of witnesses by 2 masked men.  Martin was an engineer for Tombstone Mining and Milling, and the son of a prominent judge. Yet no one was ever charged in his murder. O'Rourke was arrested and was threatened by a lynch mob of miners and cowboys - encouraged by Curly Bill Brocius and Johnny Ringo. The lynching was blocked by among others Wyatt Earp, who managed to lock up the killer in Tombstone.  But Johnny-Behind -The- Deuce never stood trial because he escaped jail. Thus the "Open Carry" version of justice was far from open or just.

The brother, Albert Schieffelin, stayed around Tombstone only long enough to build the largest adobe structure in the southwest, where men could take their wives to hear music and see theatre -  Schieffelin Hall. Then he left for Los Angeles, where he died in 1885, of the consumption he contracted in the mines. Richard Gerd ran the mills for years, eventually selling his share of the flooding mines for $800,000. But the finder, Ed Schieffelin ,  never returned to Tombstone. 

Eventually Ed (above) bought a ranch near the Schieffelin homestead in the Rogue Valley in Oregon. But even a wife and child, and mansions outside of San Francisco and in Los Angeles could not hold him. In May of 1897 Ed suffered a heart attack, alone in a California mountain cabin, still looking for "Mother Nature's Gold". When he died, Ed was not yet 50 years old.  He left his wife Mary, "...all...real and personal properties, in...California", and gave the rest of his fortune to his only surviving brother, Jay.

As his will requested Ed was buried 3 miles east of Tombstone, near the dry wash where he had first found ore. In his coffin he was provided with a pick. a shovel and his old canteen, should the afterlife offer him opportunities for more prospecting. His tombstone (above) is, as he requested, "a monument, such as prospectors build when locating a mining claim." It was as if he were saying this was where his life ended, after 15 years of searching and 20 years before his death.

- 30 -

TOMBSTONES Chapter Nine

I am pretty certain what 31 year old Town Marshal Frederick G. "Fred" White (above) was thinking, as he appoached the empty lot near the corner of Sixth and Allen Streets, in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. It was just about 12:30 on the chilly night of Thursday, 28 October, 1880, and Fred had spent most of the evening chasing down and collecting guns from drunken cowboys. None of these intoxicated miscreants wanted to hurt anyone or anything. In the same way a solitary young bull charges about an open field, or adolesent stags butt heads, it is natural that humans, particularly young males, will occasionally want to blow off a little steam. But the difference between a chimpanze thrashing the underbrush with a branch, and a human, is that humans have invented gunpowder and guns and alcohol.

This was why Tombstone made it illegal to carry a gun in the city limits, except when entering or leaving town. As a man of average intelligence - which by all accounts Fred was - and being a friendly and compasionate fellow - as everyone knew him to be - Fred knew that guns plus people plus alchol plus time eventually equals somebody getting shot. As freelance journalist Clara Spalding Brown noted the same idea when writing about Tombstone and its environs - "When saloons are thronged all night with excited and armed men, bloodshed must needs ensue occasionally."

There were half dozen men in the vacant lot between Toughnut and Allen Streets. They were just "shooting at the moon", using their pistols as noisemakers. Fred approached the men quietly but firmly, as he always did. The drunk "Cow Boys" - Frank Patterson (of stolen mule fame), Ed Collins, James Johnson (who worked on the Clanton ranch with his brother Bill), Arthur Ames, Robert Loyd and Curley Bill Brocius - all knew Fred and liked him. And even knowing they faced a $10 fine, they all seemed willing to hand over their guns. Fred must have been certain this would be his last such encounter that night.

The first to surrender his gun was "Curly Bill" Brocius (above). Brocius was pretty drunk, and yanked the weapon out of his pocket. As Fred White grabbed the barrel, the gun went off. The crack shattered the Arizona night. Fred groaned, doubled over and fell. In an instant a new figure appearded out of the dark, and pistol whipped Brocius to the ground.

When the shooting party first started, Wyatt Earp (above) was one block to the east, beneath the tent canvas of Owen's Saloon (below, right), where he dealt faro. Republican friends had recently secured him an appointment as a deputy sheriff for the southern part of Pima County, making him a tax assessor and collector as well. That earned him 10% of everything he collected. But that was "maybe" income, and for Wyatt, dealing faro was a sure thing. 

Still, hearing the gunfire, Wyatt walked away from the table to investigate. He saw Fred White approaching the men, and sensing danger, Wyatt borrowed a pistol from fellow statecoach guard Fred Dodge, and walked down the street to back up the sheriff. When Ed White was shot, it was Wyatt who leapt to the wounded man's defence and disabled the shooter. The other cowboys scattered into the dark of a nearby wash and somebody started shooting at Wyatt. Almost immediatly Wyatt was joined on the street by Morgan Earp and Fred Dodge.

Fred Dodge recalled years later that, "When Morg and I reached him, Wyatt was squatted on his heels beside Curly Bill and Fred White. Curly Bill's friends were pot-shooting at him in the dark...." In his book "Under Cover for Wells Fargo", Dodge explained, "Wyatt said to me, "Put the fire out in Fred's clothes." When he looked, Dodge saw that Brocius' shot had been so close, the muzzel blast had set Marshal White's vest smoldering. Added Dodge in a letter, "Wyatt's voice was even and quiet as usual."

Once the shooting from the aroyo had slackened, volunteers carried Marshall White to the Fifth Street side of the Golden Eagle Brewery building (above), and up the stairs to the second floor office of Doctor H.M. Matthews, who was also the county coroner. At the same time Dodge and the Earps led Curley Bill off to the "lockup", a 10' X 12" windowless structure. All the way there, Billy Brocius kept asking, "What have I done?" The lawmen then proceeded to track down the others in the confrontation. Within hours all 6 of the drunks were safely in the lockup.

According to Dr. Matthews, the bullet from Brocius' gun entered Fred White's body "Four inches below and three inches to the left of the naval.... traveling downward...(and) pierced the small intestine..." Eighty years before the discovery of antibiotics, to all intents and purposes Fred White was dead the instant the bacteria inside his intestines were released into his abdomen. 

Opiats kept Fred White pain free for 2 days, giving him time to dictate a statement that the shooting had been accidental. He died on Sunday, 31 October, with his father and friends at his bedside. The gun belonging to Curley Bill Brocius was picked up in the street. It had only one round fired. Curley Bill had not even been responsible for the shooting that drew Marshall White to the confrontation.

In the morning, in the courthouse at Third and Toughnut Street (above), in front of Tucon's Judge Gray, Frank Patterson pleaded that he had been trying to quiet the shooting party. The others, who paid a $10 fine, each supported his story. Arthur Ames was fined an additonal $30 for carrying a concealed weapon. Brocius asked to have his case held over until he could get an attorney. And given the popularity of Ed White, the Earps thought it best to transport the cowboy to Tuscon to stand trial.

The first result of the shooting was that Deputy Federal Marshal Virgil Earp was asked to tempprorally fill the job as Town Marshall, until a special election could be held on Saturday, 13, November, 1880.  But with the bounty of economically business oportuinites available in Tombstone, the race eventually narrowed to either Earp or the 33 year old miner, Benjamin Sippy.  The financially challenged Sippy won the November ballot, 259 to 311 votes. Editor of the "Epitath", John Clum (above)  chose to be optimistic, suggesting Sippy "...should recieve the support and assistance of all good citizens."  In fact, Ben Sippy would prove to be brave, clear headed and determined, when he was on duty.  He spent his first months in office arresting speeders on the streets of Tombstone.

Later that November, William "Curley Bill" Brocius stood trial in Tuscon for Fred White's death, before Judge Neugass. Fred White's dying statement was read into the record and Wyatt Earp even testified he thought the gun had gone off "half cocked".  

Judge Neugass had little choice, and dismissed the charges. Curley Bill (above) walked out of court a free man.  Even though Wyatt's testimony had helped clear him of the murder charge, Brocius never forgave Wyatt Earp for the pistol whipping. It was yet another firm step on the road to the most iconic 30 seconds of violence in the history of the American west.

- 30 -