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| Wyatt Earp in 1874 |
Born in 1848 in Monmouth, IL, he
was the fourth son of a farmer, harness maker, saloonkeeper and justice of the
peace, and was named after his father’s captain in the Mexican War, Wyatt Berry
Stapp. His father, Nick, led at least one hunt for bear in the forests
surrounding Monmouth, a town of about a thousand people when Wyatt was born.
Illinois left its impression on Earp,
biographer Allen Barra noted. “The most celebrated peace officers of the cattle
town era — Wild Bill Hickok, the Earp brothers, the Masterson brothers — lived
in Illinois as young men and grew up in the same pro-Union, Republican,
progressive, antislavery atmosphere that spawned Abraham Lincoln. (Several
other prominent lawmen were raised in neighboring states; the great Bill Tilghman,
whom Wyatt and Bat Masterson would know in Dodge City, grew up in equally
pro-Union Iowa.)”
Sources: “Inventing Wyatt Earp:
His Life and Many Legends," Allen Barra; “Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the
Legend,” Casey Tefertiller
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