Before he became the celebrated lawman…before he fought at the infamous OK Corral….Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp lived on and off for 14 years in the small Iowa town of Pella.
Wyatt was born in Monmouth, Illinois, on March 19, 1848. Wyatt’s father, Nicholas Earp and his wife Virginia, moved from Monmouth in 1850. Accompanying them on their move to Pella were older brothers Virgil and James and sister Martha. Another older brother from his father’s first marriage, Newton, had already left home when the family moved. Four other children would be born in Pella—Morgan, Warren, Virginia, and Adelia. Martha and Virginia would not live beyond childhood. In addition, extended family members, including Nicholas’ brother Lorenzo, moved into the Pella area.
What brought the Earps to Pella? Land. Nicholas Earp was a restless wanderer, always looking for opportunities to invest and make money. Born in North Carolina, he moved to Kentucky, then Illinois, then Iowa, before heading West in 1864. It was these 14 years—from 1850 to 1864—that Wyatt grew to manhood, as his father owned farm land around the Pella area, and also worked as a Justice of the Peace and a Union Army recruiter.
Solid facts about Wyatt in Pella are few and far between. We know that the family lived the last three years of their life in Pella in the Van Spanckeren Stores building, which had been turned into apartments. This building is now on the National Register of Historic Places and houses the “Wyatt Earp Experience” at the Pella Historical Society and Museums. We know that the Earp brothers liked to fight—with each other and the local Dutch. One newspaper article talks about a fight he and his brothers got into with the (Dutch) Gaass brothers in Pella—a fight that ended when one of the Gaass boys took off his wooden shoe and “clobbered” Wyatt with it. Other accounts talk about the “Earp boys” (which included their cousins from Nicholas’ brother) coming into town and “raising a ruckus.”
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Wyatt’s older brothers Virgil and James enlisted; Nicholas left the family as well to recruit for the Union Army. Wyatt was left home with the smaller children to tend the farm. He must have longed for the adventure his brothers were finding—twice he ran away to join the Army, only to be discovered by his father Nicholas and, at 14 years old, sent back home. While we do not have Wyatt’s feelings recorded, another Pella boy Wyatt’s age, Tommy Cox, did enlist as a drummer. Surely, Wyatt was longing to join him and the other hundreds of boys from the area who enlisted.
In 1864, Nicholas was one of the wagon masters appointed to go West with the Rousseau party—a group of about 50 families from all over Marion County who were headed to California. Wyatt left with his family; from letters Nicholas wrote back to residents in the Pella area, we know Wyatt was tasked with shooting game while on the journey. Seven months later, the family was in San Bernadino, California.
Wyatt’s life from there was a restless one. He returned to the Midwest, marrying Urilla Sutherland in Missouri. She died in childbirth a year after their marriage, with the baby dying as well. This tragic event seems to shape Wyatt’s life from there on.
Wyatt moved West, roaming from town to town, culminating in the infamous 1881 shootout at the OK Corral in 1881. Wyatt was put on trial for the murder of the Clantons and McLaurys but was found not guilty. In the months that followed that shootout, Wyatt and his brothers were ambushed by supporters of the dead men; Virgil was wounded. Morgan was killed. Wyatt was never shot in any of his rough dealings.
He worked throughout the years wherever he was as a sheriff, brothel owner, mine owner, gambler…anything that would pay his way. Later years even found him as far north as Alaska as a speculator.
Wyatt died on Jan. 13, 1929, in California. After his death, many biographies began popping up, some of them glorifying him; others, degrading him. The myth and the legend of Wyatt Earp have endured to this day. Good guy or bad guy? You decide.
The Earp name is still found north of Pella in Jasper County, where Lorenzo Earp lived. In fact, there is still more than one “Wyatt Earp” in that lineage living today.