Newton Earp
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Newton Jasper Earp (October 7, 1837–December 18, 1928) was the eldest child of Nicholas Porter Earp, partriarch of the famous Earp family. While he was the little known half-brother of Old West lawmen Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp, Newton remained close to his father and half-siblings, alternately residing in California, Nevada and Arizona near other members of the Earp family.
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[edit] Early life and Civil War service
Newton was born in Ohio County, Kentucky, to Nicholas and his first wife, Abigail Storm (also spelled "Sturm" in family records). Abigail died at the early age of 26 on October 8, 1839 in Hartford, Kentucky and just eight months following the birth of their second child, daughter Mariah Ann Earp. Mariah subsequently died two months after Abigail on December 13, 1839. Now a widower and single father, Nicholas married local girl Virginia Cooksey, in July of the following year.
Separated by only three and five years respectively, Newton and half-brothers James and Virgil, were extremely close for their entire lives. While Wyatt was eleven years younger than Newton, they must have been somewhat close; Newton named his first-born son after his not-yet-famous younger brother. Morgan, and Warren, on the other hand, were much younger and never particularly close to their older half-brother. Newton married his first wife, Jennie (last name unknown), in 1854. There is no record of divorce, and she is known to have died no earlier than 1887. He married his second wife Nancy Jane Adam on September 15, 1865, three months after his return from the Civil War.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Newton enlisted in the Union Army, along with both James and Virgil on November 11, 1861. Newton served with Company F of the Fourth Cavalry, Iowa Volunteers, and was promoted to fourth corporal on January 1, 1865. James was badly wounded in a battle near Fredericktown, Missouri and returned home only months after his enlistment. Virgil and Newton served the entire war, fighting several battles in the east with Newton mustering out of the Army on June 26, 1865 in Louisville, Kentucky.
[edit] Later life
After marrying Nancy, in Marion County, Missouri, the newlyweds joined the Earps in Southern California, where most of the family had relocated. Once in California, Newton originally worked as a saloon manager. After the Earps returned to the midwest in 1868, this time in Lamar, Missouri, Newton took up farming. After another Earp family relocation to California, Newton became a carpenter, building homes in northern California as well as northwestern Nevada. Unlike his more famous brothers, he never entered into law enforcement.
Newton and his wife had five children: Effie May, born 6 May 1870 in Missouri; Wyatt Clyde, born 25 August 1872 in Kansas (married Virginia I. Tambert); Mary Elizabeth, born 25 August 1875 in Kansas and died before 1885; Alice Abigail, born 18 December 1878 in Kansas (married John E. Wells and later Robert E. Carson after Wells died); and Virgil Edwin, who was born 19 April 1879 in Arizona (married Grace J. Scott).
Wife Nancy Earp died on March 29, 1898 in Paradise, Nevada while Newton died in Sacramento, California, on December 18, 1928. He is buried in Sacramento's East Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.
