Billy Claiborne and the Year After the O.K. Corral

Billy Claiborne lived through the O.K. Corral shooting. A little over a year later, Frank Leslie shot and killed him outside the Oriental Saloon.

It is easy to move straight from one event to the other. That is usually how Claiborne’s story gets told. But a few newspaper notices give us a look at the year in between, when he had a murder case of his own to face and found himself accused of stealing horses he reportedly helped recover.

His trouble with the law began before the shooting on Fremont Street.

A Charleston dispatch dated October 1, 1881, reported that Claiborne had killed James Hickey that afternoon. Published in the Arizona Weekly Star on October 6, it described Hickey as a man who had been drinking for several days and abusing people he encountered.

According to that report, Hickey was in Green’s saloon when Claiborne came in. Angry words passed between them. Claiborne drew his revolver and fired, killing Hickey. By the time the dispatch was sent, Claiborne was in the sheriff’s custody.

The Arizona Weekly Citizen also reported the killing and said Claiborne had been taken to Tombstone. Its short notice called the incident a drunken quarrel.

So, when Claiborne stood near the Clantons and McLaurys on October 26, he already had a serious court case ahead of him.

On November 8, he appeared before Justice Wells Spicer to testify about the Fremont Street shooting. He described himself as a Hereford resident, driving a buggy and working at a smelter for Herring and the Neptune Mining Company. He had recently turned twenty-one.

Claiborne said he was unarmed during the fight. A bullet had struck the knee of his trousers, and, according to his testimony, Sheriff Johnny Behan pushed him into Fly’s photograph gallery near the end of the shooting.

During questioning, the defense brought up the Charleston killing. Claiborne declined to answer.

Asked about his nickname, Claiborne said John Slaughter’s men had called him “The Kid” because he had been the smallest member of their outfit. That was the explanation he gave under oath.

The hearing concerned Earp and Holliday. Claiborne’s own case still had to be settled.

By May 1882, a Tombstone jury had reached a verdict in the Hickey killing. It took them seventy-two hours. The Arizona Daily Star of May 23 reported that they returned to court on Saturday and found Claiborne not guilty. That would put the verdict on May 20.

The news traveled beyond southern Arizona. On May 26, Prescott’s Weekly Journal-Miner reported the acquittal and repeated a complaint from the Tombstone Nugget about how much the case had cost Cochise County.

The Nugget thought some of that expense should fall on the people whose spite, it claimed, had brought about a second trial.

The notice gives us a glimpse of the local argument over the case, along with a reference to a second trial. It does not explain how the first trial ended.

After seventy-two hours of deliberation, the jury had found Claiborne not guilty of murder.

Then, only a few weeks later, his name turned up in another troublesome report.

The Arizona Sentinel of July 1 carried word from Bisbee that Billy Claiborne was “again in trouble.” The paper reminded readers that he had recently been released from jail, then reported that he had taken twenty-six head of stock from the San Pedro Valley.

The owner, named in that notice as Pete Spencer, was supposedly after him.

But on the same date, the Tombstone Epitaph told a different story.

Its notice said Claiborne had been treated unjustly by the report that he had taken Pete Spence’s stock. According to the Epitaph, he had gone after the thieves and recovered the horses.

The paper said he followed men it identified as Mexicans from Tuesday morning until Thursday night, covering more than 250 miles. It also said he went without food for three days.

That was the Epitaph’s account of the pursuit. Its purpose was to correct the accusation against Claiborne.

The paper said Claiborne was indignant. While he had been chasing the people who took the horses, a story had circulated that he was the thief.

Both notices appeared on July 1. Readers of the Sentinel received the accusation, while readers of the Epitaph received the correction.

The available accounts leave a gap between that summer episode and Claiborne’s appearance at the Oriental in November.

By November 14, he was at the Oriental Saloon in Tombstone.

The Epitaph’s account, published four days later, included testimony about his confrontation with Frank Leslie. Leslie said Claiborne interrupted a conversation with friends, became abusive, and would not leave them alone.

Leslie took him by the coat collar and led him away. Claiborne left threatening to get even.

Soon afterward, men warned Leslie that Claiborne was outside with a rifle.

According to Leslie, he went out and saw Claiborne near a fruit stand. He tried to persuade him not to shoot. Claiborne fired and missed; Leslie returned fire and wounded him.

Other witnesses described hearing Claiborne threaten Leslie before the shooting. Officer James Coyle arrived during the gunfire and took Leslie into custody.

Claiborne died, and the coroner’s jury found the killing justifiable. That was the inquiry’s conclusion, reached after hearing Leslie and the other witnesses.

The accounts used here establish no connection between Claiborne’s O.K. Corral testimony and his confrontation with Leslie.

Between the two shootings, Claiborne had appeared as a witness, faced his own murder trial, and received an acquittal. He had also seen an accusation of stock theft circulate while, according to the Epitaph, he was pursuing the thieves.

Those scattered reports leave much of his last year untold. They do let us follow him beyond Fremont Street, into a courtroom and onto the trail of missing horses, before his final morning in Tombstone.

Sources and notes

Arizona Weekly Star, October 6, 1881, page 1. Charleston dispatch dated October 1, “Shooting Scrape at Charleston.”

Arizona Weekly Citizen, October 9, 1881, page 4. Brief notice of the Hickey killing.

William F. Claiborne testimony, November 8, 1881, preliminary examination before Wells Spicer. Published transcription: https://www.famous-trials.com/earp/515-claibornetestimony

Arizona Daily Star, May 23, 1882, page 2. Acquittal notice, reproduced at Tombstone Travel Tips: https://www.tombstonetraveltips.com/billy-claiborne.html

Weekly Journal-Miner, May 26, 1882, page 3. Verdict and comment attributed to the Tombstone Nugget.

Arizona Sentinel, July 1, 1882, page 1. Stock-theft accusation.

Tombstone Epitaph, July 1, 1882, page 3. Correction concerning Pete Spence’s horses.

Tombstone Epitaph, November 18, 1882, page 1, “Leslie’s Luck.” Reproduced at Tombstone Travel Tips: https://www.tombstonetraveltips.com/billy-claiborne.html

Date note: The Star’s October 1 dispatch says the killing happened that afternoon. October 1, 1881, was a Saturday. The Citizen’s October 9 notice says “Friday afternoon,” wording that may have survived from an earlier report. Reprinting has not been confirmed. October 7 cannot be inferred as the shooting date from that later notice, because the Star had already published the killing on October 6.