Relative Hopes To Bury Ike Clanton At Tombstone

TUCSON - For 109 years, Joseph Isaac "Ike" Clanton - forever associated with Old West lawman Wyatt Earp - has been buried in an unmarked grave along Eagle Creek in southeastern Arizona's Greenlee County.

Now, a distant relative who thinks he has found the grave hopes to prove the remains are Clanton's and wants them reburied in Tombstone.

"It wasn't marked. It was in a remote location. We knew what we were looking for and the location of what we were looking for," says Terry Clanton, who declines to pinpoint the site, fearing vandals.

"I'm very happy. We're almost positive of it," says James Browning, a retired professor from The Citadel and gravesite historian whose research led to their discovery.

Ike Clanton ran from the gunfight at Tombstone's OK Corral as a feud with the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday, their dentist pal, erupted in gunfire. The confrontation on Oct. 26, 1881, left Clanton's younger brother, Billy, and friends Tom and Frank McLaury dead, and launched Earp to legend status.

Terry "Ike" Clanton, a distant cousin from Whittier, Calif., insists Ike ran because he had no gun and Earp told him to fight or get out.

On June 1, 1887, more than a hundred miles north, Ike's luck ran out. He was shot in the back on a ranch near Eagle Creek by Jonas Brighton, a detective hired by area ranchers to get rid of rustlers.

Terry Clanton wants Ike's remains next to those of Billy and their father, Newman Haynes "Old Man" Clanton, in Boothill Graveyard. Tombstone's clerk-manager has told him to forget it, but Terry Clanton hopes city officials will reconsider.

Browning bases his opinion that the grave is Ike Clanton's on his field research. He wrote a book that details grave sites of more than 1,000 individuals "who gained some fame or notoriety in the West."

"I'm very skeptical of it," said Kevin Mulkins, a Tombstone historical buff from Tucson.

So is another Old West history enthusiast and photographer, Gary McLelland of Glendale. "It seems to me, there's not enough proof. . . . I would say I wouldn't bet any money on it right now."

Ike Clanton was not wanted but was suspected of being a cattle rustler, his cousin admits, and was shot trying to ride away from Brighton.

Ike's father was shot to death in 1881 in Mexico. Two years after the OK Corral, Ike and another brother, Phin, exhumed his remains and buried them next to Billy.

Jay Van Orden of the Arizona Historical Society said if that's why Terry Clanton really wants to re-inter Ike Clanton, "those are good motivations."