Doc Holliday, (John Henry Holliday) (aka the deadliest dentist of the wild west) was the second child of Henry Burroughs Holliday and Alice Jane Holliday. A baby girl (Martha Eleanora) was born to them just a year before but sadly, she died around the age of six months.
Doc Holliday was born with a cleft palate and had issues with his ability to speak. It was said he actually underwent corrective surgery to correct the cleft palate.
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| Dental school graduation photography-1872 |
His mother died from tuberculosis in 1866 (he was 15). He later succumbed to tuberculosis as well and died in 1887 (36 years old). He is buried at Pioneer Cemetery in Colorado. His tombstone reads, "Doc Holliday, died in bed."
Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection that can spread to any organ in the body, most specifically the lungs. Tuberculosis weakens the immune system and is fatal if untreated.
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| Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday in the Tombstone movie. |
In 1880, he moved to Tombstone to be closer to his friend Wyatt Earp and his family (Virgil and Morgan). He parted ways with Wyatt Earp about seven years later and went to Colorado where he later died in a hotel room alone.
As described in history, Doc Holliday had a lot of nerve and was scared of nothing! He was one of the most feared gunslingers of his time. He wanted people to fear him. He was also a drunk and a brilliant gambler. The mystique that surrounds this Georgia native is fascinating. No one is exactly sure how many people he really killed because he loved to spread rumors to make him look a lot worse than he was. Some say he wanted people to fear him because he was a fairly scrawny man so he invented grand stories to make himself look more fierce. He was jailed often but managed to escape or be released, and he avoided extradition for a few of his crimes. People liked Doc Holliday and also feared him. He was one of the fastest gunslingers in the Wild West.
Georgia is full of fascinating people, and Doc Holliday is by far, one of my personal favorites.
"I found him a loyal friend and good company. He was a dentist whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long, lean blonde fellow nearly dead with consumption and at the same time the most skillful gambler and nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun I ever knew."
– Wyatt Earp speaking of Doc Holliday
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