J.M. Kirkpatrick, Attorney Dodge City, Lodge Brother to Wyatt Earp
/I am finally at the end of a long journey so it seems. For over ten years I have looked for a picture of my great grandfather, J.M. Kirkpatrick. He was born in 1854 and went to Dodge City about 1873 or before. My grandfather seemed to think he came west at age 19 so that would have been 1873. He and his brother Edward who was a year or two older came to Dodge to work and since J.M. had passed the bar exam, he was an attorney and Edward had a furniture and mortuary store. Those types of stores usually went hand in hand in the western states.
He handled many cases in the Kansas Supreme Court and three for Bat Masterson, a famous lawman of the era and compatriot to Wyatt Earp also. Both he and Wyatt and my great grandfather belonged to the same lodge and knew one another well.
Attached to this blog, find my great grandfather's picture and some court documents where he represented Bat. He stayed on in Dodge after Wyatt and his brothers departed for Tombstone but I believe he may have been one of the 62 upstanding businessmen who signed a letter of support for Wyatt in his trial for killing the Clantons at the OK Corral. I am looking for that document at this writing.