In the mid-19th century, Mattie Blaylock left her farm life in Iowa behind and eloped with Wyatt Earp, but ended up being abandoned by the legendary lawman soon after the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Wikimedia CommonsMattie Blaylock ran away from home when she was 18 and fled to the West, later becoming the common-law wife of Wyatt Earp.
Mattie Blaylock spent her entire childhood in the 1850s learning scripture and attending church. Raised by devout parents on Iowa farmland, she yearned for freedom and a life of adventure. With no intentions to waste time and wait to be married off, Blaylock took destiny into her own hands and ran off to the Wild West — then met a man named Wyatt Earp.
Not long after the gun smoke of the Civil War had settled, life in the American frontier was no picnic. Of the countless prospectors who rushed west to mine silver, only a few became rich. The rest struggled to get by or gambled their fortunes away while destitute women like Mattie Blaylock relied on prostitution and had to deal with outlaws terrorized most towns.
It was amidst this chaos that Mattie Blaylock marry famous lawman Wyatt Earp, long before his Gunfight at the O.K. Corral made him a legend. While Earp would be valorized in novels, stage shows, and films like Tombstone, Blaylock’s story remains lesser-known, from her lifelong loyalty to her fatal addictions. This is her story.
The Early Life Of Mattie Blaylock Before Heading To The Wild West
Born Celia Ann Blaylock in 1850 in Johnson County, Iowa, she was raised on a small farm near the town of Fairfax. Her parents, Henry Blaylock and Elizabeth Vance, had left Indiana in 1846 and built a quiet life for themselves and their kids. Their farm lay near a main railroad stop where drifters asked for food and water.
According to Edward C. Meyers’ Mattie: Wyatt Earp’s Second Wife, Blaylock was the youngest of three children and her family’s second daughter. Her father hoped to turn their farm into a profitable business and regularly brought his kids along on trips into Fairfax to procure supplies and network with the locals.
Mattie Blaylock’s early childhood consisted of little more than Sunday school and strict adherence to contemporary household rules, and her parents subscribed to the notion that sparing the rod would spoil the child.
Wikimedia CommonsMattie Blaylock was in a relationship with famous Old West lawman Wyatt Earp for six years.
Blaylock’s teenage years featured community picnics and barn dances that she and her sisters enjoyed. However, she was well aware that she would soon be married off to likely live out her life as a housewife.
As the oldest, Martha Jane Blaylock was the first to be married in 1860, when she was 17. Blaylock and her sister Sarah, meanwhile, rejected their prospective suitors and soon hatched a plan to escape and see the world.
The moment came between March and October of 1868, when the two adult sisters left town without money or permission from their parents. While Sarah would turn back within months after life on the road proved difficult, Blaylock forged ahead — and adopted the name “Mattie.”
Mattie Blaylock Becomes The Common-Law Wife Of Wyatt Earp
While Mattie Blaylock’s first few years as a drifter are largely undocumented, by around 1872, she was working as a prostitute in Fort Scott, Kansas, then later settled in Dodge City — where she’d meet Earp.
Wikimedia CommonsWyatt Earp, pictured in 1869, years before he met Mattie Blaylock.
Earp had grown into a grizzled widower after his first wife, Urilla Sutherland, died of typhoid fever in 1870. He reportedly worked on a floating brothel thereafter and married teenage prostitute Sally Heckell, who was busted alongside him on Sept. 10, 1872, and identified herself as his wife. However, the union wouldn’t last.
Earp moved to Wichita, Kansas, and worked as a shotgun guard for Wells Fargo. He became a deputy before settling in Dodge City as assistant marshal. It was here that he met Mattie Blaylock, with whom he started an affair and moved to the town of Tombstone on Dec. 1, 1879. The United States Census confirmed her as his common-law wife by 1880.
Public DomainMattie Blaylock, the common-law wife of Wyatt Earp, photographed in Globe, Arizona, circa 1885.
While Mattie Blaylock grew dependent on laudanum to treat her headaches, Earp was increasingly embroiled in deadly conflict as a newfound deputy sheriff. The Cochise County Cowboys were initially a mere nuisance, but then they killed marshal Fred White on Oct. 28, 1880, which would help spark the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in 1881.
On October 26, lawmen including Wyatt Earp, his older brother Virgil Earp, and the infamous gunslinging deputy Doc Holliday were ambushed by the Cowboys in broad daylight near the photography studio of C.S. Fly. Following 30 seconds of the most mythologized gunfire in the history of the Wild West, three of the outlaws lay dead.
While Earp and the lawmen survived, Mattie Blaylock had already been wounded — as Earp had already met Josephine “Sadie” Marcus, the woman who would become his wife, several months prior.
Mattie Earp Is Abandoned, Then Suffers A Tragically Early Death
Wyatt Earp would send his siblings, their wives, and Mattie Blaylock to California after the murder of his brother Morgan and the wounding of his brother Virgil, for which he blamed outlaw Johnny Ringo, among others. With the help of fellow gunslingers like “Texas Jack” Vermillion, Earp went on his famous “Vendetta Ride” to track down the men responsible.
He promised Blaylock a telegram with instructions on where to reunite when it was safe, but never did. Instead, he married Marcus within weeks and never spoke of Blaylock again.
Wikimedia CommonsMattie Blaylock’s grave at the Pinal City Cemetery in Superior, Arizona.
Heartbroken and addicted, Mattie Blaylock tried her best to prevail. She hoped to return to the days of bustling mining town prostitution, but the boom had passed, and Blaylock withered. Her poor lifestyle would see her age out of favor, while her laudanum addiction saw her die of “suicide by opium poisoning” on July 3, 1888 at age 38.
After learning about Mattie Blaylock, read about some of the most notorious outlaws of the Wild West. Then, take a look at 48 photographs of life in the Old West.
