Doc Holliday and Ft. Griffin, Texas

Fortunately I already had material regarding Doc's dental work and his saloon and gambling life during his stay in Dallas.

The library people did show me a short newspaper article written on New Years day 1875 regarding shots being fired by a saloon owner named Austin and a man named Holliday. I had already heard the story but the newspaper did confirm the fact that there were no injuries during the incident.

From Dallas I drove west through Fort Worth and on to Albany, Texas, which is located in Shackelford County.

The towns of Ft. Griffin and Jacksboro where Doc Holliday had some of his gambling problems no longer exist. However, the Old Jail Art Center located in Albany had custody of the old county court records and Ms. Joan Farmer, Archivist gave me a hand with my research project.

From prior research I had a good idea about Doc's exploits in Shackelford County, but going over the court documents I corroborated and expanded my previous knowledge. Through various court documents and Warrents I found some of Doc's Ft. Griffin assosiates including the saloon owner and saloon girls.

One of the Warrents issued by the Shackelford County court is for Doc Holliday and Big Nose Kate, his accomplice in their escape from Ft. Griffin in which they were charged with arson. (Kate set fire to an out building as a distraction to facilitate their escape.)
 
Ms. Farmer also told me that many researchers that had gone through the files had stolen some of the old records. She said county clerks had been careless about people going through things without close supervision and that had resulted in the removable of many of the early records.

In my opinion that's the same as stealing art from a museum.
 
From Albany, Texas I drove west and made another stop at Tombstone. From talking to dozens of people in Tombstone I conclude that about half the town is holding onto the myth that the genuine heroes at the shootout at the OK Corral were the outlaws.

But for my part, I'm a writer and researcher still looking for the facts.
 
Next on my trip agenda was the public library in Tucson. Less than a hundred miles away from Tombstone I sensed a more open attitude and found them much more even handed when dealing with western history.
 
The Arizona Historical Society in Phoenix was very helpful and provided me with some good solid facts about the formation of Cochise County and Tombstone politics.

By the time I left Phoenix for Los Angeles I was ready for a good rest. Back in LA I planned to take a couple of weeks off and do nothing, but I didn't make it past the first week.

During the drive west my thoughts were always on my next objective, what I needed to accomplish at that particular place. However, once I got to Los Angeles and started to organize my research material the story line began to fall into place and it all started back east.

Three characters I found at the Griffin Court Annex popped into my conscious mind. Henry B. Holliday's purchase of those slaves back in 1857 came alive as Uncle Lew, Aunt Susie and her child H.C.

Those three characters alone changed my approach to the story from a nonfiction work to fiction. It would not be true fiction but it would be fact based fiction or as some call it creative nonfiction. As a storyteller I first wanted to tell a good story – as a historian I needed to stick to the facts. The trade off was simple, my characters, no matter what situation they find themselves in are always true to their own convictions honesty, loyalty and integrity. In other words all of their basic beliefs.

My story begins in 1864 when John Henry Holliday was 13 years old and at the time his family was moving from Griffin to South Georgia.

The first draft of my story went well and with every scene I wrote my characters became more real to me. The fact that I followed Doc Holliday from that early age I got to know him very well. The first draft was done and I had answered many of my original questions, howerver two very large ones remained unanswered. (To be continued)
 
Writers Notebook:
 
What I've said about character integrity is exactly what Sherwood Anderson said years ago about respecting the characters you write about.
 
'Consider for a moment the material of the prose writer, the teller of tales. His materials are human lives. To him these figures of his fancy, these people who live in his fancy should be as real as living people. He should be no more ready to sell them out than he would sell out his men friends or the woman he loves. To take the lives of these people and bend or twist them to suit the needs of some cleverly thought out plot to give your readers a false emotion is as mean and ignoble as it is to sell out living men or women. For the writer there is no escape, as there is no real escape for any craftsman. If you handle your material in a cheap way, you become cheap. The need of making a living may serve as an excuse but it will not save you as a craftsman. Nothing will save you if you go cheap with tools and materials. Do cheap work and you are yourself cheap. That is the truth.'
Sherwood Anderson

About the Author
 
Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.

Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
www.RocktheTower.com
http://TheHurricaneHunter.blogspot.com