This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
Wyatt Earp grew up in Monmouth, Illinois, in the 1850s before he went west to meet his destiny in the gunfight at the O. K. Corral and become the hero of more than twenty Hollywood movies. By rights, however, Wyatt's father, Nicholas, deserves a share of the glory. Wyatt only had outlaws to contend with at the O. K. Corral, while back in Monmouth, Nicholas faced a more formidable enemy: Presbyterians.
Nicholas Earp brought his family to Monmouth in 1856. Wyatt was ten at the time. Nicholas and his brother, Walter, soon perfectly became the town constables, a job for which they were both perfectly suited. Monmouth was a town with almost no real crime, just a bit of drunkenness now and then. The temperance movement was in full swing, and Monmouth had adopted an ordinance prohibiting the sale of liquor in 1855, except by druggists, and only then for "medical, mechanical, and sacramental" purposes.
As Methodists and Republicans, the Earps were officially on the temperance side, but they were not above a drink or two, and Nicholas even had a little bootlegging business on the side. Their view of the law was that some laws were meant only for bad guys, and not for upright town citizens—that is to say, the Earps' friends, who included many druggists.
The two Presbyterian churches in Monmouth had tried to stop the liquor traffic, but with little effect until the arrival of the Reverend David Alexander Wallace in 1856 to found Presbyterian Monmouth College. Worried about the young men and women who would be coming to the college, Wallace began a crusade to have the prohibition laws carried out to the letter. He soon gained the support of editors, attorneys, and all fellow Presbyterians.
And that is how Constable Nicholas Earp found himself in court in the spring of 1858, charged with selling liquor. Nicholas was able to gain several continuances over the next months due to a friendly judge, but he was eventually found guilty, fined a small amount, and run out of town. A bedraggled and demeaning end.
The whole thing must have taught young Wyatt Earp a dubious lesson: guns are a better bet than courts when seeking fame and fortune.
Rock Island Lines is supported by grants from the Illinois Humanities Council, the Illinois Arts Council—a state agency—and by Augustana College, Rock Island.
