Doc Holliday's Handheld Howitzer

John Henry “Doc” Holliday was born August 14, 1851, in Griffin, Georgia, to Henry Burroughs Holliday and his wife Alice Jane. The young man had a cleft palate repaired by his uncle John, both a physician and his namesake. Holliday subsequently struggled with a bit of a speech impediment as a result. Those who knew him said his blonde hair was nearly white.

Doc was a smart man classically trained. He studied Latin, French and Ancient Greek at the Valdosta Institute. At age 20 Holliday earned a Doctorate from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery. The college held his degree for five months as you had to be at least 21 to practice dentistry.

Holliday practiced in St. Louis and Atlanta before settling in Dallas. While there he competed in a dental fair, winning awards for “Best Set of Teeth in Gold,” “Best in Vulcanized Rubber” and “Best Set of Artificial Teeth and Dental Ware.” Throughout his dental career, however, there remained an ever-present specter.

Holliday’s mother died of tuberculosis when the young man was 15. This is likely where he contracted the disease. In this day TB was a death sentence. Holliday gravitated out West in hopes the dry air might offer him some prolongation. However, the paroxysmal coughing curtailed his dentistry.

The Old West’s Seminal Gunfight

On October 26, 1881, Deputy U.S. Marshal Virgil Earp was having some trouble with a group of local cowboys from the Clanton and McLaury clans. Earp simultaneously served as the Police Chief of Tombstone, Ariz. When things came to a head, Virgil deputized Doc Holliday and gathered his brothers Morgan and Wyatt for assistance in disarming the violent men.

Expecting a serious fight, Virgil dropped by the local Wells Fargo office and borrowed a 10-gauge side-by-side coach gun. Concerned he might inadvertently alarm the local townspeople, Virgil passed the heavy gun to Holliday so he might conceal it underneath his long duster coat. The ad hoc lawmen confronted the belligerent cowboys in a modest lot on Fremont Street.

The details are disputed. However, it is generally understood Doc Holliday killed Tom McLaury with a shotgun blast to the chest before being grazed by a bullet fired by Tom’s brother Frank. Frank purportedly yelled the challenge, “I’ve got you now!” to the cool gunman dentist. Holliday was said to have responded, “Blaze away! You’re a daisy if you have!” I have no idea what it means, but it sure sounds cool.

When the smoke cleared Virgil and Morgan Earp were wounded. Tom and Frank McLaury lay dead alongside Billy Clanton. This tidy little bloodbath precipitated its own modest war.

Parker Shotguns

Some names just carry a certain intrinsic gravitas. Among automobiles brands like Bentley, Jaguar and Rolls Royce reliably command respect. The scattergun equivalent is Parker.

Charles Parker was the 11th of 12 children born to a destitute family in Connecticut in 1809. After working as a farm hand and subsequently in a factory, Mr. Parker took $70 and in 1832 opened his own facility making coffee mills. His first metalworking machines were actually driven by horses. In 1844 Mr. Parker upgraded to steam power and expanded his catalog to include tools, lamps and dinnerware.

With 1861 came the American Civil War and the Parker Company began making rifles for the Union. As a military contractor business was booming. At the terminus of the war Charles Parker joined his brothers John and Edmund to begin making Parker Brothers shotguns. Those earliest side-by-side scatterguns employed a “T-latch” system of locking.

The T-latch consisted of a prominent pushbutton located ahead of the trigger guard. Upward pressure on this device released the barrels to pivot open. This same model was also called the “lifter action” as a result. Twin triggers and associated exposed hammers completed the design.

Parker shotguns came in a variety of grades, gauges and styles. While Parker became known for expensive top-end guns crafted for royalty and folk of comparable means, their consumer guns were titled “Old Reliable” as a reminder they were not out of financial reach of the Common Man. In 1889 Parker introduced their first hammerless shotgun design.

Will’s Parker

My 10-gauge Parker is fairly well preserved given its 145 years. At some point in the distant past somebody very professionally pruned the barrels back to 18″. They never bothered replacing the front sight bead.

Trimming the barrels pretty much ruins any collector’s value the gun might have, so I just whipped up a replacement bead in my workshop. I turned a steel machine screw in my drill press and shaped the end into a ball using a hand file. I then sited the mounting hole, drilled it and tapped it by hand. A little thread locker keeps everything sturdy. Whoever originally cut the barrels back also crafted a nifty little wooden plug to fill the resulting void between the barrels.

The Rest Of The Story

Doc Holliday was rumored to have been a cold-blooded killer and pure death with a gun. Despite apocryphal rumors he killed as many as 16 men, his only historically confirmed kill was Tom McLaury in October of 1881. Regardless, at the time of his death Holliday had been arrested 17 times and survived ambush on five separate occasions.

Doc Holliday ultimately succumbed to tuberculosis in a hotel room in Glenwood Springs, Colo., on November 8, 1887 at age 36. He had always expected to meet a violent demise. Realizing the end was near, Holliday looked at his bare feet—knowing he was about to die with his boots off — and flatly said, “This is funny.” Those were his final words.

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