Tag: Wyatt Earp

  • Nicholas Earp, Sarah Jane Rousseau

    The Long Trail West

    In the final months of 1864, while the nation was still locked in the chaos of the Civil War, a wagon train rolled slowly across the American frontier. Among its passengers were two families whose names—at least in one case—would echo through the pages of Western legend. The Rousseaus were heading west in hopes of a new beginning. Hardened by war and failure, the Earps sought a better future in California. Leading the wagon train was Nicholas Porter Earp, father of Wyatt Earp, and it was here—on the unmarked road between Salt Lake and San Bernardino—that stories of strength, tension, and hardship unfolded, written down by the steady hand of Sarah Jane Rousseau in her trail diary.

    Nicholas Earp was, by any account, a man built for difficult times. Born in 1813, he had lived through the War of 1812 as a boy, served in the Black Hawk War, and later took up arms in the Mexican-American War. He had worked as a farmer, a constable, and a jack-of-all-trades—never truly settling, always looking for something better over the subsequent rise. By 1864, Earp was in his early 50s, grizzled and stiff from rough work. He was also deeply set in his ways.

    Descriptions of Nicholas during the journey paint him as short-tempered, headstrong, and deeply opinionated. He took command of the wagon train with the same kind of stern authority one might expect from a battlefield officer. There was little room for softness on the trail. Rules were rules. And if they weren’t followed, the consequences were loud, and sometimes threatening. This didn’t sit well with everyone.

    While traveling with her husband, Dr. John Rousseau, and their children, Sarah Jane Rousseau kept a diary of the journey. Her writing is a rare window into the human side of westward migration, especially from a woman’s point of view. She recorded weather patterns, daily mileage, and significant encounters. But she also took note of personalities and frictions along the trail, and Nicholas Earp features more than once in that record, which is not always favorable.

    At one point, Sarah wrote that Earp threatened to whip children—including, perhaps, her own. The details are brief, as was her style, but the implication is clear: he had a temper and believed in discipline the old-fashioned way. To modern readers, this feels shocking and harsh, but in 1864, it wasn’t unusual.

    Earp’s behavior was fairly common for the time. Discipline, especially of children, often came with raised voices and raised hands. A man like Nicholas, shaped by war and hardship, would have seen his role as head of the train—and his family—as one of control, protection, and order. His approach to leadership was informed by a world in which survival often depended on obedience. There was little room for backtalk or disobedience when you were facing down the deserts of Utah and Nevada, with limited water and no help for miles.

    As the wagons moved south from Salt Lake City, they picked up the Mormon Road, a rough route that cut across the Great Basin and the Mojave Desert. This trail, used by Mormon settlers on their way to California, was dry, dangerous, and unforgiving. The group passed through Beaver and Parowan, Utah, into southern Nevada, and then down into the California desert, where their trials multiplied.

    In her diary entry dated December 4, 1864, Sarah recorded a chilling stop near Salt Spring, on the southern edge of Death Valley. There, they found the remnants of a mining operation where three men had recently been killed—possibly by local Native Americans. Sarah noted the presence of four abandoned buildings and a quartz mill, and the unease in the camp was palpable. The group was vulnerable, tired, and on edge.

    A short time later, they reached Bitter Springs, another desolate stop known for its sparse water supply. According to Sarah, local Native people approached the wagon train but did not attack—perhaps because of the size of the party, or perhaps because their intentions were peaceful. Still, the tension must have been thick in the desert air.

    As the days wore on, tempers grew shorter. Food and water grew scarce. Animals began to falter. And the relationships among the travelers frayed. Nicholas Earp’s hardline leadership—so natural to him—probably became harder to tolerate under such conditions. His background, age, and sense of authority collided with the growing exhaustion of those around him. Sarah’s quiet observations hint at these dynamics, even if she never spells them out directly.

    And then there was Wyatt Earp—just 16 years old, along for the ride with his family. Later, he would become one of the most iconic lawmen of the Old West, but during this journey, he was simply a boy on a horse. Sarah barely mentions him. He rode. He hunted. He wore out horses. He did not yet command attention. His father’s shadow was too long.

    Eventually, the wagons followed the Mojave River, moving past waypoints like Camp Cady or Lane’s Crossing, before climbing the rugged terrain of Cajon Pass. From there, it was a descent into green hills and relative safety. In San Bernardino, they would find civilization—such as it was—and a temporary end to their troubles.

    But that journey, and the roles people played in it, stuck. Sarah’s diary survived to tell the tale. In her pages, we see a woman navigating not just a trail, but a world of personalities, expectations, and power struggles. We see Nicholas Earp not as a villain or a hero, but as a man of his time—unyielding, protective, severe. We see the toll that hard roads take on even the hardest men.

    And in the background, quietly riding along, was a teenager who would one day walk down a dusty street in Tombstone. But for now, he was just Wyatt—young, restless, and learning, perhaps unconsciously, what it meant to survive in a world ruled by men like his father.

  • The Arrest of Wyatt Earp — The Potash Wars

    S. Wallace Austin – January 26, 1929

    S. Wallace Austin & wife, Mary Hunter Austin

    The recent death of Wyatt Earp ( January 13, 1929) recalls to mind the part he played in the claim jumping expedition to Searles Lake in October 1910.  At the time I was Acting Receiver for the California Trona Company and was in charge of a group of placer mining claims covering some 40,000 acres.  The party had been organized at Los Angeles by Henry E. Lee, an Oakland attorney and probably was the best equipped gang of claim jumpers ever assembled in the west.  It consisted of three complete crews of surveyors, the necessary helpers and laborers and about 20 armed guards or gunmen under the command of Wyatt Berry Stapp.

    The party of 44 in number, arrived at Searles Lake in seven touring cars and established a camp at the abandoned town of “Slate Range City” about eight miles southeast of the company’s headquarters.  On the morning following their arrival we saw some of the surveyors across the lake and our foreman road over and ordered them off the property but they paid no attention to his protest an proceeded to do a very thorough job or surveying and staking.

    Searles Lake
    Searles Lake – Trona, Ca.

    As I considered it necessary to make some show of force in protecting our claims, I visited the enemy’s camp at sunrise the next day with our whole force of five men who were armed with all the weapons they could collect.  It was a very critical moment when we jumped from our wagon and walked up in front of the mess house where the raiders were assembled for breakfast.  I stood in the center with my boys on either side of me.  There was a shout and men came running from all directions and fearing there might be trouble.  

    I started right off to explain to the surveyors present that I had only come over to give notice that I was officially and legally in possession of the claims and that they were trespassers.

    Before I got very far a tall man with iron grey hair and a mustache pushed his way to the front and in a loud voice demanded why I had come into their camp with armed men.  At the same time he grabbed hold of my shotgun held by the boy on my left and attempted to take it away from him.  At this attack upon us I drew an automatic and ordered him to let go.  He did so and then ran to a building nearby saying “I’ll fix you.”  Before he could secure a rifle, however, the cooler headed members of the party surrounded him and calmed him down.  Also, you may be sure every effort was made to prevent a fight, as, in spite of our bold being, we were pretty badly scared.

    Wyatt Earp

    Just as things seemed to have quieted down,  one of the excited jumpers accidentally discharged a gun.  No one was hurt but, it was a very tense moment for all of us.  Having failed to dislodge the enemy the following day I called for a US Marshall and when he arrive the claim jumpers were all arrested and sent home including “Wyatt Berry Stapp”, none other than the famous Marshal Wyatt Stapp Earp.

  • Same Old Bull

    Wyatt Earp and his brand new Packard.
    — Wyatt had bought a brand new auto and was taking Josie out to visit a friend in Arizona. Somewhere south of Needles, a large bull leapt out from behind a creosote bush. The bull huffed and puffed and stomped and scrapped his hooves, lowered his head and charged the brand-new shiny-clean car. The bull came at the door on Josie’s side. She screamed. She was afraid the bull would kill her. However, she had no reason to fear death as Wyatt, drew his gun and put 3 shots into his thick skull right between its wide-set eyes. This killed the bull instantly. The bull had messed up the door pretty bad. Then all of a sudden some guy jumped out of the creosote yelling and screaming about the “prize bull” Wyatt just killed. An argument ensued. It seemed that Wyatt knew this guy’s boss and was the friend he was taking Josie to visit. It was pretty funny. Sort of. I don’t know who, if anyone, paid to get Wyatt’s door fixed. I imagine they ate the bull.

    The End.
  • Earp, California

    Earp, California is an unincorporated community in San Bernardino County in the Sonoran/Mojave Desert transition next to the Colorado River at the California/Arizona state line in Parker Valley.

    Welcome to Earp, California
    Welcome to Earp, California

    Earp, Ca. post office
    Earp post office at the eastern end of Highway 62, ZIP 92242.

    In 1910 the little town was named Drennan. In 1929 Drennan was renamed Earp in 1929 in honor of the nefarious Old West lawman and entrepreneur Wyatt Earp. Wyatt and Josephine Sarah Marcus, his common-law wife, lived in the area seasonally from about 1906 staking more than 100 claims near the base of the Whipple Mountains.

    Vidal, California
    Downtown Vidal, California

    Wyatt Earp Cabin
    Wyatt Earp, the legendary law man, gunfighter, gambler, businessman and miner along with his wife, Josephine, inhabited this “dream-come-true” cottage from 1925 through 1928, winter and spring months, while he worked his “Happy Days” mines in the Whipple Mountains a few miles north of this site. This is the only permanent residence they owned in their long lives.

    They bought a small cottage in nearby Vidal and lived there during the fall, winter and spring months of 1925 – 1928, while he worked his “Happy Days” mines in the Whipple Mountains a few miles north. It was the only place they owned the entire time they were married. They spent the winters of his last years working the claims but lived in Los Angeles during the summers, where Wyatt died on January 13, 1929.

    Happy Days Mine
    Josie & Wyatt and dog at Happy Days mine west of Parker, Az.

    Vidal/Parker area map