A few weeks before Holliday's birthday, dentist Arthur C. He lived with his uncle and his family so he could begin to build up his dental practice. : 51 Less than four months later, at the end of July, he relocated to Atlanta, where he joined a dental practice. Louis, Missouri, so he could work as an assistant for his classmate, A. Holliday graduated five months before his 21st birthday, so the school held his degree until he turned 21, the minimum age required to practice dentistry. On March 1, 1872, at age 20, he received his Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery (now part of the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine). In 1870, 19-year-old Holliday left home for Philadelphia. Holliday attended the Valdosta Institute, where he received a classical education in rhetoric, grammar, mathematics, history, and languages - principally Latin, but some French and Ancient Greek. Three months after his wife's death, his father married Rachel Martin. The same disease killed his adopted brother. In 1864, his family moved to Valdosta, Georgia, where his father would be elected mayor and his mother would die of tuberculosis on September 16, 1866. Holliday was baptized at the First Presbyterian Church of Griffin in 1852. When the Mexican–American War ended, Henry brought home an adopted son named Francisco. : 236 His father served in the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War (as a major in the 27th Georgia Infantry). Holliday was born in Griffin, Georgia, to Henry Burroughs Holliday and Alice Jane (McKey) Holliday. Holliday's graduation photo in March 1872 from the Pennsylvania School of Dentistry. Holliday spent the few remaining years of his life in Colorado, and died of tuberculosis in his bed at the Hotel Glenwood at age 36. Wyatt Earp learned of an extradition request for Holliday and arranged for Colorado Governor Frederick Walker Pitkin to deny Holliday's extradition. The federal posse killed three other Cowboys during late March and early April 1882, before they rode to the New Mexico Territory.
The local sheriff issued a warrant for the arrest of five members of the federal posse, including Holliday. They found Frank Stilwell lying in wait as Virgil boarded a train for California and Wyatt Earp killed him. As a federal posse, they pursued the outlaw Cowboys they believed were responsible. marshal, Earp formally deputized Holliday, among others. Unable to obtain justice in the courts, Wyatt Earp took matters into his own hands. Corral on the west side of town, which resulted in the famous shootout.įollowing the Tombstone shootout, Virgil Earp was maimed by hidden assailants while Morgan Earp was murdered.
The lawmen attempted to disarm five members of the Cowboys near the O.K. On October 26, 1881, Holliday was deputized by Tombstone city marshal Virgil Earp. In Tombstone, local members of the outlaw Cochise County Cowboys repeatedly threatened him and spread rumors that he had robbed a stage. In 1879, he joined Earp in Las Vegas, New Mexico and then rode with him to Prescott, Arizona, and then Tombstone. He saved Wyatt Earp, a famous lawman and gambler, while in Texas. Over the next few years, he reportedly had several confrontations. Hoping the climate in the American Southwest would ease his symptoms, he moved to that region and became a gambler, a reputable profession in Arizona in that day. He set up practice in Griffin, Georgia, but he was soon diagnosed with tuberculosis, the same disease that had claimed his mother when he was 15, having acquired it while tending to her needs while she was still in the contagious phase of the illness. : 415Īt age 21, Holliday earned a degree in dentistry from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery. Holliday's colorful life and character have been depicted in many books and portrayed by well-known actors in numerous movies and television series. He developed a reputation as having killed more than a dozen men in various altercations, but modern researchers have concluded that, contrary to popular myth-making, Holliday killed only one to three men. A close friend and associate of lawman Wyatt Earp, Holliday is best known for his role in the events leading up to and following the Gunfight at the O.K. John Henry " Doc" Holliday (Aug– November 8, 1887) was an American gambler, gunfighter, and dentist.