Josephine Earp

Who was Josephine Earp?

Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp was an American part-time actress and dancer who was best known as the wife of famed Old West lawman and gambler Wyatt Earp. Known as "Sadie" to the public in 1881, she met Wyatt in the frontier boom town Tombstone, Arizona Territory when she was living with Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan. She became Earp's common-law wife for 46 years.

Josephine was born in New York and moved with her parents to San Francisco as a child. Her Prussian Jewish parents were relatively well-off and she grew up with many advantages. As a teenager, she ran away and traveled to Arizona, where she had an "adventure", although the exact age she left home is not clear. Much of her life from about 1874 to 1882 is uncertain, as Josephine protected many details of her life, from when she left San Francisco and until she left Tombstone, Arizona, even threatening legal action later in life to keep information private.

She may have arrived in Prescott, Arizona as early as 1874. In a book about her life, I Married Wyatt Earp, she related events that occurred before she said she came to Tombstone in 1880. She may have lived in Tip Top, Arizona under an assumed name where she may have been a prostitute for a period of time. What is known for certain is that she arrived in Tombstone, Arizona in 1880 where she became a mistress to Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan. Even though he was Sheriff, Behan generally sided with certain outlaw Cowboys who were at odds with Deputy U.S. Marshal Virgil Earp and his brothers, Wyatt and Morgan. Josephine left Behan in 1881, sometime before the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, in which Behan played a key role. She returned to San Francisco in early 1882 and was joined by Wyatt Earp, with whom she remained in a common law marriage for 46 years.