John Henry was from an established, old southern family. Blond, skinny is a rail, a man so slim that a friend of his in adulthood once said that any 15-year-old could best him easily in a fistfight. John Henry‘s father fought in the Mexican War and then was a major in the Confederate Army leading a group of Georgia volunteers. After his service for the south, the man moved John Henry and the family farther south to Valdosta, Georgia. There, John Henry’s dad became the mayor of the town. His mother passed away of tuberculosis a few months after the move. After receiving his high school education at the Valdosta Institute, John Henry applied for, was accepted by, and then attended dental school at the University of Pennsylvania. He finished his schooling a few months shy of 21 years old. In fact, the university withheld his credentials until his birthday because the law at that time said you had to be 21 to be a dentist. Degree in hand, John Henry turned to Georgia to open his dental practice and get on with life.

It was then that John Henry himself developed tuberculosis. It was a promising dental career cut short really before it ever began. His doctors in Valdosta gave him only a few months to live. However, one doctor suggested that if he would move to a warmer and drier climate, he might buy himself a few months. So, John Henry decided to go west. And, that’s what he did. He ended up spending most of his time out there in New Mexico and Arizona. Sure enough, the dry, warm weather in the American Southwest helped his tuberculosis but only to a point.

You see, he never was able to shake the fits of coughing that the tuberculosis had brought. And the last thing you’d want a dentist to do when he’s working on your mouth is to suffer a coughing fit. There was simply too much scarring on his lungs. They were not going to get better. So, unable to make a living at his chosen profession, John Henry decided to become a professional gambler. He also made money working as a dealer in gambling houses and in bars. Now, at that time, being a professional gambler was not a disreputable occupation. Not everybody could make a living at it. In fact, John Henry was quite good at gambling. It was said that he was a very difficult man to read. You couldn’t tell if he had a good hand or a bad one. And that’s important in poker.

John Henry also developed a reputation for having a short temper. Some people said it was because he was a southerner. However, more than likely, his pride simply did not like the way people reacted to him when he won at poker. Because he often won at the gambling tables, it was not uncommon for people to accuse him of cheating. John Henry did not take that lightly. According to sources who were there, John Henry left a string of injured, bruised, and, occasionally, dead men who accused him of cheating across several gambling parlors in the American Southwest.

He also found love out west. It was a girl named Mary Katharine. Truth be told, Mary Katherine made her living as a prostitute. However, she was well educated and turned to prostitution because, as she told John Henry, the work gave her a sense of power and control over her own life and destiny–something women at the time didn’t have much of. The two were pretty much intellectual equals, and, although the relationship was marked by sometimes vicious fights, they were devoted to each other for several years.

But, tuberculosis finally got the best of John Henry. Mary Katharine took care of him as he wasted away. On his deathbed, she reported that he looked down at his bootless feet and chuckled. “I never thought I would die with my boots off,” he said with a cough. He succumbed to the tuberculosis at the young age of 36.

Today, he is remembered for his prowess at gambling, and for his temper, and for his friendships with western legends Bat Masterson and the Earp brothers. He has been the subject of books and films, his character being portrayed dozens of times on TV and on the big screen. Of course, in real life, his friends didn’t know him as John Henry.

Because he had that dental degree everyone just called him Doc Holliday.