John H. Flood, Jr.

John Henry Flood Jr. (January 16, 1878 – March 29, 1958) was a mining engineer who worked as Wyatt Earp's unpaid personal secretary late in Earp's life, completing the only authorized biography of Earp. The language Flood used in the biography was overblown, florid and stilted so he was unable to find a publisher.

Earp's reputation For much of his life after the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Earp was the subject of a large number of articles disparaging his character. On April 16, 1894, the Fort Worth Gazette wrote that Deputy U.S. Marshal Virgil Earp and Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan had a "deadly feud". It described Behan as "an honest man, a good official, and possessed many of the attributes of a gentleman". Earp, on the other hand, "was head of band of desperadoes, a partner in stage robbers, and a friend of gamblers and professional killers... Wyatt was the boss killer of the region."

On December 2, 1896, Wyatt refereed the Fitzsimmons vs. Sharkey boxing match. He called the match in Sharkey's favor, even though Fitizsimmons had dominated the match and Sharkey was down. Newspaper accounts and testimony over the next two weeks revealed a conspiracy among the boxing promoters to fix the fight's outcome. Earp was parodied in editorial cartoon caricatures and vilified in newspaper stories across the United States.

On March 12, 1922, the Sunday Los Angeles Times ran a short, scandalous article titled "Lurid Trails Are Left by Oldentime Bandits" by J. M. Scanland. It described Wyatt and his brothers as a gang who waylaid the cowboys in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. It said that the Earps were allies of Frank Stilwell, who had informed on them, so they killed him, and that Earp had died in Colton, California.

The article galvanized Earp. He was tired of all the lies perpetuated about him and became determined to get his story accurately told. When the Welsh family moved to Los Angeles, the Earps accepted an invitation to stay with them for a while in their top floor apartment until the Earps found a place to rent.

Starting in 1925, Flood attempted to write an authorized biography of Earp's life, based on Earp's recollections as told to Flood.

In 1990, Charlie Welsh's daughter, Grace Spolidora, was interviewed by a member of the San Bernardino Historical Society. She had been a teenager during the Earps' many visits to the family home near Needles, California and sometimes went to San Diego with them.

The manuscript was apparently typed by Flood, who was an expert typist.

An excerpt describes the OK Corral gunfight:

Quote|“Throw up your hands, Clanton!” “All of you.”

Crack!—–e-e-e-e-e-ING! “Uh!” and Morgan Earp went reeling, crashing into his brother Wyatt, at his left, while a trickle of red spouted form end to end of his shoulders as the bullet ploughed its way through. And a ring of smoke drifted into the lot from beneath the neck of Tom McLowery’s horse, the first shot of the day.

Crack! And McLowery’s horse went into the air, the flash from Wyatt’s gun streaking half way down the lot as Tom McLowery’s head appeared above the animals’ neck. With the blood spurting from a wound in its withers, the horse darted into the road… Boyer gave the original carbon copy of the typed manuscript to the Ford County Historical Society. When Earp died, Flood inherited many of his personal belongings. Flood in turn willed them to John Gilchriese.