About Doc Holliday

Doc Holliday's birth name is John Henry "Doc" Holliday, but he preferred to be called Doc Holliday. Doc was born on August 14, 1851 in Griffin, Georgia. His parents were Henry Burroughs Holliday and Alice Jane Holliday. His mother died of tuberculosis in 1866, Doc was 14 at the time. His father married a new woman 3 years later and moved to Valdosta, Georgia. When Holliday was 19 he began dental school in Philidelphia. On March 1, 1872, he received the degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery from Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery. Doc opened a dental office with Arthur C. Ford in Atlanta.

Doc Holliday was very fast with a pistol and had accuracy less than perfect. He has gotten into 4 known pistol fights. Holliday had 17 arrests in his lifetime, only one was for murder.

In, The Arizona Daily Star: Interview with Virgil Earp, on May 30, 1882. Virgil Earp summed up his thoughts on Doc;

"There was something very peculiar about Doc. He was gentlemanly, a good dentist, a friendly man, and yet outside of us boys I don't think he had a friend in the Territory. Tales were told that he had murdered men in differ­ent parts of the country; that he had robbed and committed all manner of crimes, and yet when persons were asked how they knew it they could only admit that it was hearsay, and that noth­ing of the kind could really be traced up to Doc's account. He was a slender, sickly fellow, but whenever a stage was robbed or row started, and help was needed, Doc was one of the first to saddle his horse and report for duty."