The Tipton Conservative, Tipton, Iowa, April 12, 1956
Transcribed by Sharon Elijah, July 21, 2019

WAS FIRST TIPTON EDITOR SAME MAN AS JUDGE WHO FREED WYATT EARP?
RECORDS SHOW IT WAS WELLS SPICER

     Was it a Tipton attorney and editor who freed Wyatt Earp after the most famous gun battle in the history of the western frontier?

     Several Cedar county people think that Wells Spicer, once Cedar county judge, and first editor of the Tipton Advertiser, was the man who gave the directed verdict of acquittal that set Wyatt Earp and his brothers free after the gun fight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Ariz.

     No one has proof that the Wells Spicer who studied law in Tipton about 1850 was the same man who was judge in Cochise county, Arizona in 1881.

     However, Gordon Smith, Clarence, former Cedar county representative, has written to the Arizona Historical society in an attempt to trace the life of Spicer from the time he left Cedar county in 1858. So far, his efforts have been futile.

     But circumstance indicates that it was the same Wells Spicer who enlivened an early decade in Cedar county history who set free the Earps.

     Wells Spicer is not a common name. When he left Tipton in 1858 he was headed west. What happened to him after that is almost unknown; except for a brief mention in an 1878 history of Cedar county that says he was living in Utah.

     It was three years later that Wells Spicer sat as judge of the Earps. In the open frontier of Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, it is unlikely that there were two Wells Spicers engaged in the practice of law.

     It is fitting that a man such as Spicer should be added to “The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp,” for Spicer, when he lived in Cedar county, added a great deal to the life and legend of Tipton.

     Sometime before 1852 Wells Spicer read law in the office of Judge Samuel Bissell. Included among the first business cards published in a Cedar county newspaper in 1853, it listed the names of Wells Spicer and H. C. Piatt as editors.

     Spicer seems to have done most of the writing. A few month’s later he was listed as editor. Within a year he had purchased the paper which he published until 1857.

     N. C. Moffett, who was one of the men who purchased the Advertiser from Spicer, describes Spicer as a “very popular young gentleman.” Moffett believed that, in 1853, there was not a person in Tipton who had any practical experience in journalism and “considering the material to select from probably no better choice could have been made than Spicer.”

     “His very social, jovial, unassuming personality had made him a general favorite, not only with Tipton people, but with many old settlers throughout the county.”

     “And, as the paper began to circulate and receive the criticism of the pubic, it was justly admitted that the originality of his criticisms was self evident, although the language with which they were expressed was sometimes rather crude and unfinished,” Moffett wrote of the editor who had preceded him.

     Tipton, in the 1850’s was still a frontier community. If Spicer’s writing was crude, it followed the humor of the time.

     Spicer could describe a fight between cats, tied tail to tail, with the flamboyant eloquence of frontier journalism. He can also bring back to life a party held in the 1850’s, and his comments on the approaching fatherhood of a friend indicate the warm, personal relationship of the community.

     At one time Spicer was editor and publisher of the Advertiser, Cedar county judge, a job corresponding to the present county auditor; an active attorney, a member of the Democratic central committee, and one of Tipton’s finest practical jokers.

     He continued as Judge Bissell’s law partner for several years, formed another partnership and then practiced law by himself for the last three years he lived in Tipton.

     Spicer was a colorful and effective attorney, winning at least one murder case in Cedar county—the first he tried.

     Late in October, 1853, a Dr. Ingham moved into what was then Polk township. A short time later, the doctor’s wife died from what the coroner described as a blow in the stomach that also killed her unborn child.

     Spicer’s description of the crime in the Advertiser left little doubt as to the guilt of Dr. Ingham.

     But Spicer, the attorney, in a court battle that included a 12 hour examination by the three attorneys for the state, left little doubt as to his innocence.

     Dr. Ingham went free.

     Spicer apparently remained a bachelor while he lived in Tipton. He and some of the other young blades lived in the Fleming House, a hotel located where Nelson’s Hardware now stands.

     Much of the humor that amused the early residents of Tipton emanated from the “Fleming House gang,” of which Spicer was the leader.

     He was active in politics, serving as a county committeeman, a candidate for prosecuting attorney and judge of the county.

     He was also sergeant-at-arms of the Cedar county legislature, a debating society.

     Spicer’s last official act as a Cedar county officer remains alive in present Cedar county activities. It was Spicer, as county judge, who signed the order for the construction of the first Cedar county courthouse, in October, 1857.

     Spicer, however, was not responsible for the location of the present courthouse. As the Cedar county history of 1878 describes the event:

     “It is but an act of simple justice to Wells Spicer, who is now in Utah, to record the fact that he is not responsible for placing the courthouse on the outer edge of the west part of the public square.

     The next day after he let the contract, Spicer was succeeded in office by George Smith, who selected the site on which it now stands.

     When the selection was announced, the people petitioned “His Honor” to “reverse his decision” and build it in the center of the public square on the site of the old one.

     “The excavation had been commenced, and the petitioners even offered to make the excavation in the center of the square at their own expense if he would change the site. But he refused to heed the prayers of the petitioners. . .

     “There is left to them this consolation, however, before another national centennial day, a new, larger, grander and more expensive temple of justice will have become a necessity. The center of the square will be waiting to receive it.”

     A year later Wells Spicer was gone. Except for the comment that he was in Utah, 21 years later, he vanished from the pages of Cedar county history.

     There are several books on Wyatt Earp. One of them is “Tombstone,” by Walter Noble Burns, recently purchased by the Tipton public library.

     In these books the name of Wells Spicer appears.

     The gun fight between the Earps and the Clantons in Tombstone, Ariz., in 1881, is the classic battle of the frontier. Three men died and two were wounded.

     There were three of the Earps, Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan. Wyatt was marshal of Tombstone. His brothers were deputies. With them was Doc Holliday, their friend and the most cold-blooded gunman in the history of the west.

     Their walk down the street of Tombstone, toward where the Clantons and the McLowerys stood, will live as long as there are men and guns.

     “Keeping their alignment, almost shoulder to shoulder, the Earps and Holliday came on with lethal momentum. As they drew near, they pulled their guns. Holding their weapons at a level before them, they halted within five feet of the Clantons and the McLowerys, so close that if the foemen had stretched out their arms, their finger-tips would have touched. They could look into the pupils of one another’s eyes.

     “You fellows have been looking for a fight, “said Wyatt Earp, “and now you can have it.”

     “Throw up your hands, commanded Virgil Earp.

     What happened in the smoke of flaming guns took less than 20 seconds of hatred and death.

     At the inquest it was estimated that 25 or 30 shots had been fired in less than a third of a minute.

     Spicer’s part as judge is described in Burns’ book on Tombstone:

     “The Earps were tried before Judge Wells Spicer in November . . . The Earps were acquitted. Judge Spicer reviewed the evidence in a long written opinion and justified the battle, holding that the Earps and Holliday had acted in performance of official duty as officers of the law.”

     It was Spicer’s opinion that the Earps had the authority to keep the peace in Tombstone. The Clantons and the McLowerys had violated that authority and one Clanton and two McLowerys had died.

     Spicer was not concerned with the feud between the Clantons and the Earps, nor that of Wyatt as town Marshall with the sheriff of Cochise county.

     He found the killings justified and so ruled in a directed verdict.

     There is no other record available as to where Wells Spicer lived, and died, after the Earp trial in Tombstone.

     But there seems little doubt that Wells Spicer, Tipton editor, county judge and attorney, was the man who sat in judgment of Wyatt Earp and set him free.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Taken from the April 19, 1956 issue of the Tipton Conservative

Search for Gold Took Wells Spicer to West, Was Judge in Arizona

     That Wells Spicer was the judge who acquitted Wyatt Earp in Tombstone, Ariz., was confirmed Friday by Mrs. H. R. Ripley of Tipton.

     Judge Spicer married Mrs. Ripley’s aunt, Abbie Jane Gilbert July 6, 1856, in Tipton. Three years later they moved to Salt Lake City, Utah. Shortly before 1880, Spicer went to Tombstone, at the time the gold rush started in southern Arizona.

     During part of his stay in Tombstone, he served as judge of Cochise county. It was during this time that he acquitted Wyatt Earp after the famous O.K. Corrall gun battle.

     Judge Spicer moved on into Mexico, still searching for gold. About 1890 he died in Mexico, and is buried there.

     Judge Spicer’s wife, Mrs. Ripley’s aunt, died in Chicago in 1924. Their only son died in California in the 1930’s. He had no children.