By Bill Lynam
Like the rest of the Earps, Virgil, the second oldest of the Earp brothers by his father's second marriage, always seemed to wind up where his father or brothers were, but not for long. The lure of new gold and silver discoveries in the West drove him to seek his fortune at the next bonanza, but more often as a lawman than as a miner.
Donald Chaput, Virgil's biographer, and other historians reported on Virgil's first marriage to Ellen Rysdam when he was seventeen and she fifteen. The father-in-law attempted to have the marriage annulled when told they had married without his permission . Married under false names, they would not tell Ellen's father where they did it nor under which identities. Ellen, pregnant with their daughter, delivered Nellie Jane in the summer of 1862. The elder Rysdam forbade Virgil to see his daughter or his child. Unhappy with this, Virgil joined the Union Army on August 21, 1862. Participating in several major battles, he was mustered out at Nashville, Tennessee on June 26, 1865.
Returning home to Pella, Illinois, he found both his wife and child and his own family gone. His father Nick had moved to San Bernadino, California and Ellen went with her family to the Pacific Northwest. Ellen, told that Virgil had died of battle wounds, later remarried. Virgil, not knowing where Ellen had gone, followed the trail to California in a wagon train and caught up with his father. It wasn't until twenty-three years later that Virgil found out where Ellen and his daughter, Nellie Jane, lived.
On this trip, he passed through Prescott, Arizona, and finding it to his liking, made it a point to return someday.
In the spring of 1866, he became a wagon master and hauled goods between southern California and Prescott, which was becoming a supply and refurbishing point for the mining activities developing in the vicinity. Wyatt, his younger brother, joined him as a teamster.
Meanwhile, Nick, the father, moved back to Monmouth, Illinois. While out west, Virgil and Wyatt worked different jobs. In 1869, they moved back east to join their father. When they got to Monmouth, they found that Nick had moved on to Lamar, Missouri where his brother, Jonathan lived. Nick, by then a local Justice of the Peace, among other duties, married Virgil to Rozilla Dragoo on May 28, 1870. Three years later, Virgil, headed west again but without Rozilla. The records don't show what happened to the marriage or her.
In 1873, he met Alvira "Allie" Sullivan, a waitress at the Planter's House Hotel in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Together, they moved throughout the west settling in Prescott from Dodge City, Kansas in 1876.
Virgil's first jobs in Prescott were delivering mail, some gold mining and running a sawmill, said, but not proven, to be located where the Thumb Butte parking lot is now. He provided sawn lumber for homes and timbers for mine shoring. He also placed a bid for 500 cords of pine for the U.S. Army at Camp Whipple. In 1878, he applied for a night watchman's job in Prescott. On September 3, 1878, the Common Council appointed Virgil at a salary of $75 a month. Eager for more work, Virgil filed and, on November 8, 1878, was elected Constable of the Prescott Precinct by a margin of 165 votes over the runner-up. Less than a month later, the Arizona Journal Miner reported on December 6, he resigned his night watchman job. Working day and night was too much.
Reporting 28 years later, the Prescott Gazette recalled a shoot out in which Virgil was involved. Shortly after arriving in Prescott, Virgil was deputized along with others by Sheriff Ed Bowers for a manhunt to chase down two fellows shooting up the town.
The Gazette recited "the town was visited by two cowboys from the Bradshaw Basin region." They were said to be "shooting up saloons and other resorts." Then, riding out of town towards the Brooks Ranch, shooting right and left as they departed town.
Arriving at the Brooks Ranch, "the cowboys sent word to the officers that they were camped there, and if any of the officers wanted them, to come out and get them. These men were considered bad ones and were known to be dead shots."
Meanwhile, "Sheriff Bowers, organized a posse of citizens...and started for the Brooks Ranch on horseback," led by Deputy U. S. Marshall Stanford and another deputy in a hack. The party in the hack passed the bad men unmolested, but the cowboys opened fire on the posse. Sheriff Bower's horse was hit." The Sheriff returned fire but was not himself hit.
"Arriving at the scene, Virgil Earp, armed with a Henry rifle, proceeded up the creek in the direction of the shooting, and, noticing one of the cowboys crouched under an oak tree reloading his gun, shot and killed him."
"The other cowboy was shot with a charge of buckshot and lived two days, finally dying at the hospital. Ear[p] came into prominence as a determined man and a good shot after this."
Virgil kept up on the mining news, interested in where new strikes were found. He wrote Wyatt, who was in Dodge City, that Tombstone, Arizona appeared to have great opportunities and they ought to move there. Preparing for the move, Virgil had himself appointed Deputy U.S. Marshall. This would give him a job when he got to Tombstone and he received his commission on November 27, 1879.
One writer suggested that the Earps sought law enforcement positions only to protect their gambling interests. There may have been some truth to this since wherever the Earps wound up, they either owned full or partial interests in saloons and the gambling tables run in these establishments.
Virgil and his brothers, Wyatt and Morgan, filed mining claims in the Tombstone area, but Virgil spent more time looking for steady employment. Already a Deputy Marshall, he was also appointed Chief of Police of Tombstone on October 28, 1880, to replace the murdered Fred White. Virgil also ran for Town Marshall but was defeated for election based on six ordinances he had proposed, one of which, giving the Marshall the authority to arrest anyone he thought was a nuisance, probably cost him the election.
Virgil, one of the key participants in the gun fight that has come to characterize the old west and that went on to become a classic myth through any number of Hollywood recreations, was the law in Tombstone on the day of the gun fight nearby the OK Corral on October 26, 1881.
It was a shoot out between lawmen and cattle thieves and bandits. Virgil Earp deputized his brothers Morgan and Wyatt Earp and their friend, John Henry "Doc" Holliday. Jim and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton were killed in the gunfight. The dead were members of the notorious "Cowboy Gang" who effectively controlled the town, and were noted for rustling cattle and holding up stages.
These killings set off a series of ambushes against the Earps. Virgil, already wounded at the shoot out in the leg, was wounded again on December 28, 1881, shot-gunned in his left arm and side by an unknown assailant at the Oriental Saloon. Several months later, his brother Morgan was killed on March 18, 1882. These incidents set off revenge killings against the perpetrators by Wyatt, Doc Holliday and their friends.
Virgil, with his arm permanently crippled, moved with Allie and became the first Marshall of Colton, California.
(Part 2 continues next week)
Bill Lynam is a volunteer at the Sharlot Hall Museum.
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number: (ft107p). Reuse only by permission.
There are no known photographs of the Earps in the Prescott Area. In the late 1860s Virgil and his brother were first known to have come to the area but mostly as running freight teams, like this one, between Southern California and Prescott. This photo was probably taken in the mid 1880s and appears to be about where Seitz Office City is today.