page_title: Wyatt Earp
section_title: Relationship with Sadie Marcus
hierarchical_section_title: Wyatt Earp / Move to Tombstone, Arizona / Relationship with Sadie Marcus
caption_attribution_description: Cabinet card image identified in the auction catalog as Josephine Sarah Marcus, common-law wife of Wyatt Earp, but may be Big Nose Kate (Mary Katherine Horony-Cummings), common-law wife of Doc Holliday. Image by C. S. Fly.
context_page_description: Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was an Old West lawman and gambler in Cochise County, Arizona Territory, and a deputy marshal in Tombstone. He worked in a wide variety of trades throughout his life and took part in the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which lawmen killed three outlaw Cochise County Cowboys. He is often erroneously regarded as the central figure in the shootout, although his brother Virgil was the Tombstone City and Deputy U.S. Marshal that day, and had far more experience in combat as a sheriff, constable, marshal, and soldier.
  Earp was at different times a professional gambler, teamster, and buffalo hunter. Over his lifetime, he owned several saloons, maintained a brothel, mined for silver and gold, and refereed boxing matches. He spent his early life in Pella, Iowa. In 1870, he married Urilla Sutherland, who contracted typhoid fever and died in childbirth. During the next two years, Earp was arrested for stealing a horse, escaped from jail, and was sued twice. He was arrested and fined three times in 1872 for "keeping and being found in a house of ill-fame".
context_section_description: Later in life, Josephine Sarah Marcus aggressively protected her and Wyatt's history while in Tombstone. Marcus was deliberately vague about this period, causing modern researchers to question what she was hiding. She said that she first visited Tombstone as part of the Pauline Markham Theater Troupe on December 1, 1879, for a one-week engagement, but modern researchers have not found any record that she was ever part of the theater company. The many contradictions in her story have led to considerable speculation about her past.
  Researchers have identified two women with similar names in the same region of the Arizona Territory whose lives bear many striking parallels. Sadie Mansfield and Sadie Marcus were known by their friends as Sadie. Both made a stagecoach journey from San Francisco to Prescott, Arizona Territory; both traveled with a black woman named Julia; both were sexual partners with Behan; both were 19 years old, born in New York City, and had parents from Prussia. The only difference noted in the 1880 census is in their occupations: the Sadie who lived in San Francisco is listed as "At home", while the Sadie in Tip Top is recorded as a "Courtesan". Josephine said that her parents hid her activities, and they may have been covering for her when the census taker was a neighbor who knew the family.
  Behan owned a saloon in Tip Top, Arizona, where he maintained a prostitute named Sadie Mansfield, and he moved to Tombstone in September 1880.  "Sadie" was a popular nickname for "Sarah", and prostitutes commonly changed their first names. Sadie Mansfield, the TipTop prostitute, may have returned to San Francisco and then rejoined Behan in Tombstone in September 1880 as Sadie Marcus, where they continued their relationship.
  In spring 1881, Sadie found Behan in bed with the wife of a friend and kicked him out, although she still used the Behan surname through the end of that summer. Earp had a common-law relationship with Mattie Blaylock. Modern researchers have found her listed as Earp's wife in the June 1880 census. She suffered from severe headaches and became addicted to laudanum, a commonly used opiate and painkiller, and later committed suicide. When Marcus learned that Stuart Lake had discovered the existence of Blaylock, she successfully demanded that he omit her from his book I Married Wyatt Earp.
  After Marcus arrived in Tombstone with Behan, Earp apparently developed an interest in her, although there are no records in Tombstone of a relationship between Josephine and Earp. Tombstone diarist George W. Parsons never mentioned seeing Wyatt and Josephine together and neither did John Clum in his memoirs. But Earp and Marcus certainly knew each other, as Behan and Earp had offices above the Crystal Palace Saloon.
  In April 1882, shortly after leaving Tombstone following the Earp Vendetta Ride, there is evidence that Earp had feelings for Marcus. The Earp posse went to Albuquerque, New Mexico, for two weeks.
  Wyatt and Holliday had been fast friends since Holliday saved Earp's life in Dodge City during 1878. Wyatt was staying with prominent businessman Henry N. Jaffa, who was also president of New Albuquerque's Board of Trade. Like Josephine, Jaffa was Jewish. During their stay in Albuquerque, the two men ate at the Retreat Restaurant owned by "Fat Charlie". Former New Mexico Territory Governor Miguel Otero described in a letter he wrote in 1940 an incident that indicates Earp's feelings for Marcus. He wrote, "Holliday said something about Earp becoming 'a damn Jew-boy.' Earp became angry and left…. [Henry] Jaffa told me later that Earp's woman was a Jewess. Earp did mezuzah when entering the house." 
  Earp's anger at Holliday's ethnic slur may indicate that his feelings for Josephine were more serious at the time than is commonly known. The information in the letter is compelling because at that time in the 1940s, the possibility of a prior relationship between Wyatt Earp and Josephine Marcus while in Tombstone was unknown. Otero could know these things only if he had a relationship with someone who had personal k
caption: A possible image of Josephine Sarah Marcus, who left a relationship with Johnny Behan and took up with Wyatt Earp
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