What they said…

 

“Why you low down stinking slut!  If I should step in soft cow manure, I would not even clean my feet on that bastard!”

Lottie Deno - Ft. Griffin, Texas
Responding to Kate’s claim that Lottie was trying to steal her man.

“The dammed son-of-a-bitch has got to fight!” -  “The ball is about to open!”

Ike Clanton - Tombstone, Arizona
October 26, 1881

“I’ve got you now, you son of a bitch!”

Frank McLaury - Tombstone, Arizona
To Doc, near the end of the gunfight - October 26, 1881

“There was something very peculiar about Doc.  He was gentlemanly, a good dentist, a friendly man and yet, outside of us boys, I don’t think he had a friend in the Territory.  Tales were told that he had murdered men in different parts of the country; that he had robbed and committed all manner of crimes, and yet, when persons were asked how they knew it, they could only admit it was hearsay, and that nothing of the kind could really be traced to Doc’s account.  He was a slender, sickly, fellow, but whenever a stage was robbed or a row started, and help was needed, Doc was one of the first to saddle his horse and report for duty.” 

 Virgil Earp
 Arizona Daily Star - May 30, 1882“

"He was always decently peaceable, though his powers when engaged in following his ostensible calling, furthering the ends of justice, made him a terror to the criminal classes of Arizona.”

Bob Paul, Sheriff of Pima County, Arizona
Rocky Mountain News - May 22, 1882

“Doc was a dentist whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a frontier vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long, lean, ash-blond fellow nearly dead from consumption, at the same time the most skilful gambler and the nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun I ever knew.”

Wyatt Earp
San Francisco Examiner - August 2, 1896

“Holliday had a mean disposition and an ungovernable temper, and when under the influence of liquor, was a most dangerous man.  -  Holliday had few friends anywhere in the West.  He was selfish and had a perverse nature, traits not calculated to make a man popular in the early days on the frontier.”

                             Bat Masterson
                             Human Life - May 1907

“I said to him one day: Doctor don’t your conscience ever trouble you?  ‘No,’ he replied, with that peculiar cough of his, ‘I coughed that up with my lungs long ago’.”

                             Col. John T. Deweese - Doc’s Lawyer
                             Denver, Colorado

“Doc Holliday was a native of Georgia and take him in all, he was possessed of the most daredevil and reckless bravery of any of his associates.”

                             C.P. Thomas, plainsman
                             Washington Post - 1906

“I never approved of Doc.”

                              Mayor John Clum
                              In a letter to Major Kelly dated 08/23/1929

“Doc tipped pretty good.”

                              Art Kendrick
                              Bellhop, Hotel Glenwood - Glenwood Springs. Colorado
                              (quoted by Phyllis Bosco) Glenwood Post - August 23, 1985

“Doc was close to six feet tall, weight – one hundred and sixty pounds, fair complexion, very pretty mustache, blue-grey eyes and a fine set of teeth.”

                              Mary Katherine Haroney – “Big Nose Kate”

“There is scarce one in the country who had acquired a greater notoriety than Doc Holliday, who enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most fearless men on the frontier, and whose devotion to his friends in the climax of the fiercest ordeal was inextinguishable.  It was this, more than any other faculty, that secured for him the reverence of a large circle who were prepared on the shortest notice to rally to his relief.”

                               Carbonate Chronicle – Leadville, Colorado
                               Doc’s obituary – November 14, 1887

 

From Doc hisself…

“I enjoyed about as much of this as I could stand.”

                               Doc Holliday
                               In a letter to Mattie from Dodge City about Ft. Griffen - 1877

“If I had robbed that stage, I’d have got the $80,000.” (or was it $20,000?)

                              Attributed to Doc
                             after he was cleared of the Benson Stage hold-up - 1881

“Son of a bitch, rustler!”

                             Doc Holliday
                             referring to Ike Clanton, just before the OK gunfight - 1881

“You’re a daisy if you do.”

                             Doc Holliday
                             To the dying Frank McLaury - October 26, 1881

“This is just awful!”

                             Doc Holliday
                             To Kate, in their room at Fly’s after the gunfight. - 1881

“If I am taken back to Arizona, that is the last of Holliday!”

                             Doc Holliday
                             The Denver Republican - May 22, 1882

“If I were to kill someone here, no matter if I were acquitted, the governor would be sure to turn me over to the Arizona authorities, and I would stand no show for life there at all.”

                             Doc Holliday
                             Quoted in the Daily Democrat - Leadville, Colorado  1884

“…Fort Griffen, where Twenty-four men were hung from one tree while I was there.”

                             Doc Holliday
                             The Denver Republican - May 22, 1882

“When any of you fellows have been hunted from one end of the country to the other as I have been, you’ll understand what a bad man’s reputation is built on.  I’ve had credit for more killings than I ever dreamt of.”

                             Doc Holliday

“I’m not traveling about the country in search of notoriety, and I think you newspaper fellows have already had a fair hack at me.”

                             Doc Holliday
                             Gunnison Daily-News Democrat - June 16, 1882

“We have been the forerunners of government.  As soon as law and order was established anywhere, we never had any trouble.”

                             Doc Holliday
                             quoted by Bat Masterson in “Human Life” - May 1907

 

Dentistry:

J.H. Holliday, Dentist, very respectfully offers his professional services to the citizens of Dodge City and surrounding country during the summer.  Office at room No. 24, Dodge House.  Where satisfaction is not given money will be refunded.

                           Doc Holliday
                           Dodge City Times - June 8, 1878