Newton Earp

Newton Jasper Earp (October 7, 1837 – December 18, 1928) was the eldest child of Nicholas Porter Earp, patriarch 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, residing in Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, California, Nevada and Arizona near other members of the Earp family.

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 age 26 on October 8, 1839 in Hartford, Kentucky just eight months after the birth of their second child, daughter Mariah Ann Earp. Mariah then died two months after Abigail on December 13, 1839. Now a widower and single father, Nicholas married local girl Virginia Cooksey in July 1840.

Separated by only three and five years respectively, Earp and half-brothers James and Virgil, were close for their entire lives; Newton named his first-born son (born on August 25, 1872) after his not-yet-famous younger brother, Wyatt, and his second son (born April 19, 1880) after his younger brother Virgil. Morgan and Warren on the other hand, were much younger and never particularly close to their older half-brother.

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.

Post Civil-War
Sometime after Earp's return from the American Civil War, he married Nancy Jane (Jennie) Adam. After marrying Jennie in Marion County, Missouri, the newlyweds joined his father Nicholas and the other Earps in Southern California, where most of the family had relocated. Once in California, Newton originally worked as a saloon manager. After Newton and Jennie returned to the midwest in 1868, this time in Lamar, Missouri, Earp took up farming. Their first child, Effie May, was born on May 6, 1870 in Philadelphia, Missouri. Their second child, Wyatt Clyde, was born on August 25, 1872 in Kansas. The birth of Wyatt was followed by Mary Elizabeth, born also August 25, in Kansas, 1875; Mary Elizabeth later died at 10 years of age in 1885. Alice Abigail was born on December 18, 1878 in Kansas and then Virgil Edwin around 1879, also in Kansas.

Later life
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 law enforcement.

Newton's five children later married and raised families of their own: Effie May married Elias Erdman; Wyatt Clyde married Virginia I. Tambert; Alice Abigail married Warren Hurt in 1896, John Wells in 1898, and then Robert Carson after 1900; Virgil Edwin married Grace J. Scott. Both Earp's daughter Effie May and wife Jennie died on March 29, 1898 in Paradise Hill, Nevada, also known as Paradise Valley, while Newton died thirty years later in Sacramento, California, on December 18, 1928. He is buried in Sacramento's East Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.