Doc Holliday: The Deadly Dentist

Wyatt Earp’s Revenge Ride

Determined to avenge himself on those who shot his brothers and restore the family honour, Wyatt quickly identified those he believed responsible. The first to die was Frank Stilwell, who was shot in cold blood by Wyatt and Doc, who accompanied him. Joined by old friends Sherman McMasters, Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, Texas Jack Vermillion, and Wyatt’s younger brother Warren, Wyatt and Doc now embarked upon a three week orgy of violence.

This became known to history as Wyatt Earp’s Revenge Ride. By the time they had finished at least 8 Cowboys lay dead, though the final figure may have been much higher. In July, 1882, the legendary Johnny Ringo was shot dead in Tombstone. Rumours persist that Doc Holliday was responsible and that his murder was Wyatt’s reward for Doc’s loyalty. Johnny Ringo, had earlier had a violent altercation with Doc during which Doc had been heard to remark, “All I want from you is ten paces out in the street”. Their thirst for revenge sated, Doc and Wyatt went their separate ways. Doc travelled to Colorado where his health went into steady and irreversible decline, and he was dependent upon large doses of laudanum and alcohol to see him through the day. Finally, he settled in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, hoping the waters there would help clear his lungs. But he was dying and despite his best endeavours to do otherwise he would die in his bed. Committed to a nursing home he spent the last months of his life bed-ridden and slipping in and out of consciousness. Receiving Absolution he died on 8 November, 1887, his last words were “I’II be damned. This is funny”. He was just 36. His tombstone reads – Doc Holliday 1852 – 1887. He died in his bed.

Wyatt Earp wrote of his friend: ” Doc was a dentist not a lawman or an assassin, whom necessity had made a gambler, a gentleman whom disease had made a frontier vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit. A long, lean, ash-blond fellow nearly dead with consumption, and at the same time the most skillful gambler and the nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a gun that I ever knew.”

Once asked if he ever had a conscience about his killing, Doc replied, ” I coughed that up with my lungs years ago.”