Several bloggers and would-be historians have stated as gospel that Wells Spicer was born in the same town as Wyatt Earp and was either cousin to the Earp brothers or related by marriage. Juicy stuff, seeing that Spicer was the justice of the peace that presided over the preliminary trial that would determine if the three “fighting” Earps (Virgil, Wyatt, and Morgan) and Doc Holliday would stand trial for first degree murder following the infamous “Shootout at the OK Corral”. Juicy stuff, if it was a true story.
Lynn R. Bailey, a prolific author who specializes in 19th century southern Arizona history, examined Spicer’s life in detail in A Tale of the “Unkilled”: The Life, Times, and Writings of Wells W. Spicer (Westernlore Press, 1999). According to Bailey, Spicer was born in Chemung, New York (not in Monmouth, Illinois, birthplace of Wyatt Earp). The Spicers eventually moved to Iowa and were there when the Earps briefly lived there, but were separated by over 120 miles (the Spicers lived in Tipton; the Earps in Pella). Spicer’s only known wife, Abbie (née Gilbert), is not known to be related to the Earps.
Additionally, in the court documents that survived time and vandalism as well as accounts from the two primary newspapers in town (the Tombstone Epitaph and the Tombstone Nugget), the prosecution team never asked Spicer to recuse himself from the case. If Wells Spicer was indeed related to the Earps, it seems unlikely that that fact would be lost among the citizens of Tombstone, much less the folks that were trying to hang the Earps and Holliday.
