by David Boyd (c)
As a child growing up in rural Griffin, Georgia, several events occurred that greatly influenced my life. As an infant, so I’m told, I was baptized in the First Presbyterian Church of Griffin. Years later, I discovered that the poet Sidney Lanier, and the legendary folk hero Doc Holliday, were also baptized and attended church there.
During my teenage years, my fascination with gunfighters greatly outweighed any interest I had in poetry. I was obsessed with Doc Holliday, our hometown western hero. However, the movie Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, as well as other western movies, raised questions in my mind. Were the stories of Doc Holliday’s life true? What really happened? Not until I was grown did I have the resources and patience to learn the truth about this Southern gentleman. In time, my research resulted in a greater understanding of the man, the myth, and the legend.
John Henry Holliday, later known as Doc, was born in Griffin on August 14, 1851. His parents, Henry Burroughs Holliday and Alice Jane McKey, were from South Carolina. They provided a good education for their son, but his primary interest was the great outdoors. Nothing interested young John Henry more than hunting, fishing, and horseback riding.
In 1861, Henry Burroughs Holliday accepted a presidential appointment from Jefferson Davis to serve as a Quartermaster in the 27th Ga. Infantry, Confederate States of America. After the Battle of Manassas, he was promoted to the rank of major and fought in the Peninsula Campaign as well as the Battle of Malvern Hill. In 1862, a short time after fighting at Malvern Hill, he was forced by poor health to leave the army and return to his family in Griffin.
As the war came closer to home, the Holliday family moved south to Loundes County, Georgia, where they settled on a 2,450 acre farm seven miles north west of Valdosta. Henry Burroughs Holliday was hoping to find a safe haven for his wife and child. Unfortunately, this would not happen. Generals James McPherson, John Logan, and William T. Sherman had made their way to Atlanta, burning and killing everything in sight.
By 1864, Sherman and Logan had proved successful in devastating all of Georgia. Southerners reeled under the impact. Plantations, farms and homes were torched and destroyed. Wells were poisoned. Personal property and stores were pillaged. Clearly, the South would never be the same. And the world of young John Henry Holliday was forever changed.
On the heels of the war, John Henry graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery. He returned to Georgia and lived with an uncle, Dr. John Stiles Holliday. Also staying at Dr. Holliday’s house was a black slave named Sophie Walton. Sophie had relocated at the Holliday home after her master’s plantation had been torched and burned. Sophie was not the typical servant who reigned over the kitchen and household chores. She had other interests – primarily playing cards. With a deck of cards in her hands, she performed wizardry. John Henry was fascinated with Sophie’s talent at cards and under her guidance, he became addicted to the games. One of the tricks Sophie taught her apprentice was the art of “skinning.” She also taught him every other card trick she knew. The hours spent playing cards with Sophie would soon have a great impact on his future.
At the age of twenty-one, John Henry had the unfortunate draw of contracting tuberculosis and was given a year to live. His doctor prescribed a dry climate and suggested that he move west. Following his doctor’s advice, he moved to Texas and established a dental practice in Dallas. Friends and patients began calling him Doc Holliday. Dutifully, he practiced dentistry by day. But, at night, he found something much more exciting. He gravitated toward the local saloons. This honed his appetite not only for drinking, but for card playing as well. Putting Sophie Walton’s card tricks into practice, especially the art of skinning, Doc soon gained the reputation as a sporting man. The labels gunslinger and killer would soon follow.
The ill-fated dentist seemed to have thrown his life to the wind, not caring about the consequences of tomorrow. With a medical death sentence hanging over his head, Doc figured he had nothing to lose. Abandoning the dental practice, he left for Fort Griffin, Texas. Later, his trail would lead to Jacksboro, Denver, Cheyenne, Deadwood, Dodge City, Las Vegas, Tombstone, Leadville, and other hell-roaring boomtowns. While gun fighting and gambling across the American West, he made friends with other characters who would in time become legendary.
One such person was the famous gunman Wyatt Earp. The two met early on the trail – at Fort Griffin. Having a great deal in common, they quickly became friends. The friendship escalated when Doc saved Wyatt’s life from a band of desperadoes in Dodge City, Kansas.
Another individual who became entangled in the life of Doc Holliday was a woman named Kate Harony, aka Kate Elder. Some called her ‘Big Nose’ Kate. When it came to Doc Holliday, she claimed to be the only woman he remained close to for the rest of his life. Kate also claimed that she and Doc traveled everywhere together. Most likely, this was true with one exception – when they had a brief parting of the ways in Tombstone, Arizona.
One of the most famous gun battles of all time, the gunfight at the OK Corral, took place in Tombstone on October 26, 1881. Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp, along with Doc attempted to disarm a cowboy group consisting of Billy Clairburn, Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury, Ike Clanton, and Frank McLaury. Three of the cowboys were killed and Virgil Earp was wounded. The fight lasted only 30 seconds. At the time, the key players had no idea that they had just been involved in the most famous gunfight in the history of the Wild, Wild West! After the fight, a bystander, R. F. Coleman, commented, “Doc Holliday was as calm as if at target practice and fired rapidly.” Apparently, however, this was not the case. Doc returned to his hotel room where Kate was waiting for him. She later recalled, “After the fight was over, Doc came in, and sat on the side of the bed and cried and said, ‘Oh, this is just awful-awful.’ ”
The story of The Gunfight at the OK Corral, eventually became a moviemaker’s dream. Many say that Doc Holliday left Georgia and rode off into those make-believe Hollywood movies that made him a legend. In the movies, he appeared a fearless gunman and killer. But, in reality he was a very sick man whose only fear was his degenerating physical condition due to the tuberculosis. Sadly, Doc’s only consolation was gambling and the companionship of Kate. In his heart, he secretly longed for Georgia and the family and friends he had left behind.
The legend of Doc Holliday and his gunfights provided Hollywood with movies that could only be described as Western thrillers. However, using Hollywood’s artistic license, scriptwriters often portrayed Doc Holliday’s life incorrectly. They had Doc killing men he never knew and in places he had never been, and some men he is credited with killing were slain by other gunfighters, and some were not killed at all.
In May of 1887, Doc’s trail led him to Glenwood Springs, Colorado, and a town famous for mineral baths. He hoped the baths would help to curb the symptoms of the tuberculosis. Instead, he grew progressively worse. On November 8, 1887, he awoke, asked for a glass of whiskey, drank it, and said “this is funny”…and died. At the age of thirty-six, Doc played his one last hand and lost.
Doc Holliday’s life contradicts the myth of the man. He was not a sorrowful man, nor was his life a sad one. Doc once said, “When any of you fellows have been hunted from one end of the country to the other, as I have been, you’ll understand what a bad man’s reputation is built on.”
Inaccurate reports followed Doc after his death. His obituary was printed in a variety of newspapers, but none of them agreed on the facts. The local newspaper stated that Doc was buried in Linwood Cemetery, Colorado Springs, Colorado, at 4:00 p.m. November 8, 1887. However, the steep trail that led to the cemetery, which sits on a hill, was impassable because of bad weather. In truth, Doc was buried in a temporary grave at the foot of the hill. The paper also stated that many friends attended his funeral. Since he was buried the same day that he died, this, too, is doubtful.
Today, Linwood Cemetery, overlooking Glenwood Springs, contains a headstone and a monument to the memory of one Doc Holiday. Supposedly, he was buried there. But, historians agree that he was not. Both the monument and headstone are filled with mistakes. Tombstone historian Ben Traywick, states it best: “It is difficult to see how many mistakes could be made on a headstone without trying.”
Historical writings state that Doc Holliday died on November 8th, 1887, and was buried in the Linwood Cemetery in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. The records in Glenwood Springs do not indicate where Doc is buried in the cemetery. In fact, some historians doubt that he is buried there at all. As a member of the Doc Holliday Society, I have research that indicates Doc may be buried in his hometown of Griffin, Georgia.
Bill Dunn of Griffin can tell you exactly where he thinks the remains of that legend are located. Dunn, who is the head of the Doc Holliday Society and a distant relative of Holliday’s, has been engaged in extensive research on the Holliday family for the past 17 years. Bill states,” There is no doubt in my mind why the people in Glenwood Springs don’t know exactly where Doc is buried, as he isn’t there. I believe Doc is buried right here in his hometown of Griffin. Doc was originally buried in Linwood Cemetery, but he is not there now. You just don’t lose the grave of a man who held his celebrity status.”
Some researchers believe that Doc’s father, Major Henry Holliday, C.S.A., went to Glenwood Springs and claimed his son’s remains. Anyone who says that Major Holliday didn’t have motive to return his remains back to his place of birth discounts the strength of a Southern heritage. Money was not an issue. Major Holliday was a very wealthy man. Transportation of the coffin would probably have been done by rail, as the train depot in Griffin was within a mile of the cemetery.
Dunn thinks that if the Major did not retrieve Doc’s remains himself, he had his nephew, Robert Alexander Holliday, go for him. In fact, Doc’s girlfriend, Kate Elder, recalled that one of Doc’s cousins visited him in Tombstone after the shootout at the OK Corral. Dunn believes that this man was cousin Robert. After Doc’s death, it seems reasonable that Robert would have traveled out to retrieve the body, provided the Major had asked the favor.
Strangely coincidental, or maybe not, the grave of Major Holliday is also missing. Considering that the Major was a wealthy landowner, hero of three wars, and mayor of Valdosta, Georgia, that fact seems unlikely. Major Holliday outlived his son, but not the legend. He died on February 22, 1893, in Valdosta, but his grave has never been located. Dunn has found the grave of every Holliday except for the Major and Doc. Dunn now believes without a doubt that he has found the unmarked graves of both in Griffin’s Oak Hill Cemetery.
The two unmarked graves that Dunn has found are located in the Thomas plot. The families were very close and the Thomas family may have agreed to an anonymous burial of Doc in their family plot to avoid vandalism of his grave. “I believe they buried Doc in Oak Hill when he was brought back from Glenwood Springs and Major Holliday was buried there when he died,” Dunn said. “Why would a plot containing expensive marble markers of the Thomas family contain two concrete slab graves with no marking? Could it be they wanted them to remain anonymous?
Osgood Miller, an employee of Clark Monument Company for forty-six years, supports Dunn’s claim. He remembers the late Charlie McElroy, who was the cemetery superintendent during the 1930s, telling him that Doc Holliday was buried in Oak Hill. Charlie had pointed in the direction of the Thomas plot. Several years later the late Griffin historian Laura Clark pointed out the same area as Doc’s final resting place.
In 1906, The Washington Post stated, “Doc Holliday was a native of Georgia and take him all in all, he was possessed of the most daredevil and reckless bravery of any of his associates.” After all these years, does Doc’s ghost walk the streets of Griffin at night? Not likely, but if you visit Oak Hill Cemetery on a moon-lit night you may encounter, as Wyatt Earp once said, “the nerviest, fastest, deadliest man with a six-gun I ever saw.” As Doc once said, “you may be a daisy if you do!”
Edward Jordan Lanham, (c) copyright 2000
Interpretive illustrations by R. David Boyd, (c) copyright 2000
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A special thanks to my father, the late Edward J. Lanham Sr., who with his love of the “Wild West” and his knowledge of the Griffin, Georgia connection to Doc, Doc’s family, and the Presbyterian Church that we all attended, made me fascinated with our national treasure...the West!
Edward J. Lanham, Sr.
1st Presbyterian Church, Griffin, GA.
Doc Holliday, by Karen Holliday Tanner
The Illustrated Life and Times of Doc Holliday, by Bob Booze Bell
John Henry, by Ben T. Traywick