“Doc” Holliday

Introduction It is impossible to cover the amazing life of Doc Holliday in a short essay. With that in mind I am going to share with you the highlights of his life, than I present the facts from the myths about his life. Feel free to e-mail me any questions about Doc. John Henry “Doc” Holliday John Henry Holliday was born on August 14, 1851 in Griffin, Georgia to John Burroughs Holliday and Alice Jane Holliday. John was the only surviving child of their marriage his having had an older sister who passed away two years before john was born. John had a birth defect, which consisted of a cleft palate and partly cleft lip also called a hair lip. Actually this birth defect is not that uncommon. It still to this day occurs in every 600 to 800 births and there is no explanation as to why this defect occurs. At two months of age the defect was repaired surgically by a cousin, and famous surgeon, named Doctor Crawford Long. The surgery left no speech impediment however the repair was visible scar in his upper lip which he tried to cover by growing a mustache. John’s greatest influence as a young man was his mother Alice Holliday, a refined Southern Lady, who took great pleasure doting on her only son John, by helping him with his schoolwork and she taught him to play the piano. John practiced playing piano every chance he had and developed into a concert level pianist. Her greatest gift to John was to refine him to be a Southern Gentleman. John was born into an upper middle class family. His father was a pharmacist and his uncles were all either doctors or dentists. Alice Holliday died from Tuberculosis on September 16th, 1866 when John was just fifteen years old. It was felt by historians, she contracted the disease during the Civil War while caring for sick soldiers at the Andersonville Prison and while there endured many major physical hardships. The death of his mentor, mother and best friend took a heavy toll on young John as she was the stabilizing force in his life. Then he became even more bitter when his father married a twenty three year old neighbor, Rachel Martin, just a little over three months after his mother’s death on December th 18 1866. From that point their relationship was strained at best. John’s father inherited a plantation of over 2400 acres near the town of Valdosta, Georgia and so the family moved there permanently when John was just sixteen years old. Young John became very rebellious and was in and out of trouble over the next three years. Finally, with no where else to turn, John’s father enrolled him in the nearby Valdosta Institute, which was a very ritzy private military school. He hoped the discipline of a military school might help change his son’s attitude. John excelled in grammar, mathematics, history and learned to speak fluent French and Latin and began to play the game of poker with fellow students in his free time, winning enough money to allow him not to have to work while there at school. To his father’s surprise, John graduated with top honors at the school. After graduating from The Valdosta Institute it is thought by most historians that John chose to go to dental school for two reasons, the first because his uncle’s was the founder of the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery and second, it would put distance between he and his father. John excelled at dental school graduating on March 1st, 1872 at the age of 19 with a Doctorate of Dental Surgery Degree and was the valedictorian of his class. While at dental school he made expense money again by playing poker with fellow students. He moved Atlanta, Georgia after graduating and lived with an uncle, Doctor John Stiles Holliday while he and his college roommate and good friend Arthur C. Ford looked to start a dental practice. Also staying at his uncle’s house was a black slave named Sophie Walton. Sophie had relocated to the Holliday home after her master’s plantation had been torched and burned to the ground. 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 young apprentice was the art of “skinning.” Skinning is removing cards from a new deck, altering some or all of the cards (by marking them) and then returning the cards to the deck and resealing the deck. She also taught him every other card trick she knew. The hours spend playing cards with Sophie would soon have a great impact in young John’s life. After opening the dental practice with Art Ford, John began suffering from a dry cough. They both thought it was simply a smoker’s cough or that he might have caught the flu. After a couple of months when the symptoms did not go away, John sought medical treatment and was sadly diagnosed with Tuberculosis. He was then forced to sell his portion of the practice to his partner and seek another way to make a living. He took up the second love of his life which was that of a gambler and sought work playing poker and also from time to time as a Faro dealer and also as a bartender when he was down on his luck. It has been widely thought by most historians that John contracted TB from his mother because it is a virus and can stay dormant for years before becoming active. It can be spread from a sneeze, cough or even singing. It is highly contagious and spreads rapidly when subjects are in close proximity of each other and in tight environments with little or no air movement, which is why it was so devastating to the Native American population, because of their life style, living in dwellings with little or no air movement. John received the nickname of “Doc” in Ft Worth, Texas while dealing Faro at the famous Fannies Bordello slash saloon. He made a name for himself on the gambling circuit and also a very good living. Doc was an excellent gambler because he was very intelligent but most of all because he had a photographic mind and counted cards. Which means he could picture every discount card that was played, hence, as each new hand was dealt and the deck became smaller, knowing the cards that had been played gave him a distinct advantage. And also according to Wyatt Earp in his biography, Frontier Marshall, Doc like all other gamblers at that time, cheated when needed but he was so proficient of a card player that it was generally not necessary. He was simply a born gambler. Doc was told by several physicians while still living in Atlanta that he had about six months to a year to live and that he could slow the effects of the disease if he moved to a dry climate. His first stop was Dallas, Texas because that is where the railroad ended at that time. Contrary to Hollywood movies, “Doc” Holliday traveled by train because he simply was not in good enough health to travel by horseback and travel by stagecoach created too much dust. As a matter of fact, Doc did not even own a horse. If he wanted to go horseback riding he would simply go to the livery stable and rent a horse. He lived in hotels and boarding houses. Also because of his bad health he did not camp or sleep on the ground as Hollywood would like us to believe. Each time a new railroad town opened “Doc” Holliday could be found there for two reasons, first he probably had been run out of a previous town or was broke and second with the new town came lots of people with money to lose. Doc continued to practice dentistry in towns where he gambled without a license. He generally always took out a newspaper ad when he arrived in a new town stating the he gave a money back guarantee on his dental work. He worked on all of his friends teeth over the years including Wyatt Earp. A gambler in the Old West had to be able to protect himself, because in most cases he stood alone. Doc was well aware of this fact and faithfully practiced with his guns and throwing knives, becoming very proficient with both weapons but especially with his sidearm which was a short barreled pearl handled Cold 45 pistol. In the summer of 1876 down on his luck he took a job dealing Faro at a saloon in Fort Griffin, Texas. It was there that he first met Wyatt Earp. Wyatt had a warrant for the arrest of Arkansas Dave Rudabaugh for crimes committed in Dodge City, Kansas, where Earp was a Deputy Marshall. Wyatt heard from the town Marshall in Fort Griffen that Doc might have some information about the whereabouts of his prey. So, Wyatt approached Doc to ascertain any information he could provide him about Rudabaugh. They formed an unlikely friendship from that day. Wyatt was calm and collected and Doc being high strung and anything but calm. Their friendship culminated from respect for each other’s positions in life and most important was their mutual dislike for Arkansas Dave Rudabaugh.

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