Tales of the old, wild days in Tombstone were heard in Boston at the recent trial of the Crabtree will case in the Suffolk Probate Court, and caused the prim, bluestocking city of the Puritan Fathers to gasp in scandalized bewilderment. Lotta Crabtree, famous stage beauty, died in Boston without known heirs and left something like $4,000,000 to charity. Mrs. Carlotta Crabtree Cockburn of San Gabriel, California, claiming to be a niece, sued for a share in the estate. According to the plaintiff’s story, Jack Crabtree, only brother of Lotta, married Anne Leopold in San Francisco and lived with her in Tombstone in –81. After the birth of a daughter, he deserted his wife and baby and joined his sister, in the management of whose theatrical affairs he had a hand until his death five years later. Soon after he disappeared, his wife levanted, it is said, with Jack Rabb, a gambler. Within a few years, she also died. Deserted by both parents, the little girl was adopted by Ed Bullock, a Tombstone liveryman and Jack Crabtree’s most intimate friend. The girl grew up in Bullock’s home in California, and at her marriage became Mrs. Cockburn. In seeking to invalidate Mrs. Cockburn’s claims, lawyers for the Crabtree estate contended that Jack Crabtree and Anne Leopold were never married and that Bullock was the child’s father.
Nothing in recent years had given Tombstone such a delicious morsel of scandal to roll over its tongue as this interesting case. Citizens divided into two factions. Whether Jack Crabtree and Anne Leopold were married and whether the baby was their child were questions which threatened to precipitate a vendetta in Tombstone society comparable in flaming intensity to the Earp-Clanton feud. Tombstone pioneers in many parts of the country gave depositions on one side or the other. Among these witnesses were Wyatt Earp, William Breakenridge, and Mrs. Alec Derwood, once the wife of Buckskin Frank Leslie. John B. Wright, lawyer of Tucson, who has fought Mrs. Cockburn’s battle from the first, went to court in Boston armed with sixty depositions from old Tombstone citizens in support of his client’s claim.
Mr. Wright, Arizona lawyer for thirty-four years, enlivened the Boston court proceedings with a frontier anecdote.
“I was on a train bound for Tombstone,” said Mr. Wright, “when it was boarded by two masked robbers. I was travelling with a deputy sheriff who wore two six-shooters. ‘Are you a good shot?’ I asked him in a whisper out of the corner of my mouth as we stood in the aisle with our hands above our heads. ‘No,’ he replied emphatically. ‘Then,’ said I, ‘for God’s sake, don’t shoot.’ The robbers took our money and watches and the deputy sheriff’s guns, but politely returned my office keys.”
The Boston court, in its decision, denied Mrs. Cockburn’s claim. It held that Jack Crabtree and Anne Leopold had never been married, that their relations did not even constitute common-law marriage, and that Mrs. Cockburn was not an heir and had no legal claim of any kind upon the Lotta Crabtree estate.
Life goes pleasantly in Tombstone, if quietly. It is a sociable, hospitable little community. The women are forever entertaining. There are church affairs and Woman’s Club affairs and Literary Society affairs and amateur theatricals by the Drama League and concerts by the high school band. Roads about town are excellent; it is an easy, pleasant drive to Tucson, Benson, Bisbee, Douglas. Motor parties go frequently to Agua Prieta, Naco, and Nogales across the Mexican line, where they dine on enchiladas, tamales, and frijoles, and, if the truth must be known, drink a few bottles of ice-cold beer. One drives in an hour to Naco, pleasant oasis of wetness.
The Epitaph, as in old days, keeps Tombstone abreast of the times. It is a weekly now, published in a plant equipped with linotype machines and modern presses, and with its scareheads and typographical technique, it looks much like a big city newspaper. William H. Kelly, who edits it and manages its business affairs, is the grandson of George H. Kelly, state historian. He is a college-bred man and a trained journalist, and he gets out a lively and interesting paper. Tombstone has already elected Billy Kelly an alderman and promises to send him to Congress some day.
The gossip and happenings of Tombstone as recorded in the Epitaph are widely different from those of an earlier time. … Mrs. William Lutley entertained at bridge last evening. … Mrs. A. C. Cummings gave a delightful dinner. … Mrs. Porter McDonald’s card party was an enjoyable affair. … Mrs. A. H. Gardner read a paper before the Literary Society. … Mrs. Ethel Macia was hostess at a dinner dance. … Mr. and Mrs. J. D. Taylor returned from a visit to Warren. … Judge and Mrs. Albert M. Sames are back from Douglas. … C. J. Sheldon presided at the luncheon of the Business Men’s Club. … Porter McDonald spent yesterday in Naco, driving over in his new car. … Bud Marr is making good in his new position as chief of police. … Jeff Milton was in from Fairbank. … A. M. Morris, superintendent of the Bunker Hill Mining Company, has been transferred to Montmorenci. … Greenway Albert has returned from California. … J. T. Kingsbury and wife spent Sunday in Nogales. … R. B. Krebs, and J. A. Ivey, and wife are visiting in Bisbee. … Sheriff George Henshaw and Mayor Charles Schneider are back from Tucson. … This sort of thing constitutes news in Tombstone nowadays.
Allen Street, with its dilapidated old stores, looks a little forlorn in daylight, despite its asphalt and its automobiles. But when a coyote lifts a weird song in the mesquite and the moon hangs over the Dragoons, it is easy to imagine it the frontier boulevard it used to be. Then the disfiguring scars left by the years disappear, and the ancient buildings, bathed in the soft light as in a fountain of
