Recently, I had an inquiry as to the knowledge that Pankey of Santa Ana might have concerning the Earp family, most famous of its members being the frontier marshal and gunman Wyatt Earp.

It develops that Pankey knew two members of the family quite well, Nicholas P. Earp, the father of the Earp boys, and one of his sons, Warren. He also knew Will Edwards, son-in-law of the elder Earp.

"I came to Santa Ana in 1873," said Pankey " and during the years that followed I had a ranch in what was then Gospel Swamp now called Greenville, and a bee ranch in the Temescal Canyon, in the hills about three miles south of Glen Ivy of today.

"At that time there were some adobe buildings around what at one time was the old Butterfield stage station in the Temescal canyon. The principal adobe was known as the old Greenwade place, where Greenwade, a son-in-law of old Jim Rubbotom who was an early settler near Pomona, was keeper of the station for the Butterfield stage line in the early '60s'

"Greenwade decided to kill himself and his wife and the two children. It was Christmas. He put strychnine In whiskey, and he and the daughter drank some. The wife had a glass poured out for her, but she was busy and did not drink it. The son saw his father put the poison in the whiskey, the boy, Chet, by name ran out of the house. Greenwade and the girl died, and were buried there, Later their bodies were moved away.

"When I had my bee ranch in the Temescal, the Earps lived in an adobe close to the Greenwade place. Earp looked after my place for me, and did some work. Warren and Will Edwards worked for me quite a bit. It was at my bee ranch that I killed a bear when some bears were after my bee stands,

"Warren worked for me some on my Gospel Swamp ranch, husking corn and doing some other work.

"The elder Earp was a very quiet man, but a very quick tempered man. and pretty much on the fight. However, I never had any trouble with any of them, and I never knew him to fight, but that was his reputation.

"Warren was the same kind of man. Once he had a fist fight in a saloon that was located on West Fourth street, between Sycamore and Broadway, in Santa Ana. Joe Damron, who was a brother of my first wife, and I were there with Warren. There was a man in town then named Winfield. I think he worked in one of the stores here. He had been drinking a little and was bragging around about how fast he was on the draw and how he would shoot, and he kind of got on Warren Earp's nerves. The first thing we knew, the two were fighting. They punched each other some, but the rest of them separated them."

The first Mrs.Pankey was the daughter of John Damron, who lived in Temescal for a time, then came to Santa Ana with his family. The Earp family moved to Colton when they left the Temescal. Wyatt and Virgil, both famous in Western history, were not in Temescal.

"I never saw Wyatt until years later." said Pankey, "when I met him at a fair at Escondido. He was then famous, it being after he had been an officer in the Middle West and in Arizona."

There has been so much written about the Earp family that it seems unnecessary to write more. The elder Earp for many years was president of the San Bernardino County Historical Society. The story of Wyatt Earp, is told in a number of books, including Stuart Lake's I "Wyatt Earp" and Burns' "Tombstone."

Warren Earp did not take part in the famous battle between Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil Earp and Doc Halliday on one side and Ike Clanton and his gang on the other at Tombstone. He does appear, however, in some of the other Tombstone events, and was with Wyatt in the famous fight in which Wyatt killed the outlaw, Curly Bill.

Warren was killed in Arizona by two cowboys in 1900. At that time he was employed by the Arizona Cattleman's Association.