Tipton
Wells Spicer, who served as Justice of the Peace for the Earps’ preliminary hearing, also grew up in Iowa. His family moved from New York to Tipton when Wells was about nine years old, and there he grew to adulthood. He clerked for a local lawyer and was himself admitted to the Iowa bar in 1853. He also started and ran a successful local newspaper, the Cedar County Advisor, for four years before selling out. When he left Iowa, Spicer moved with his family to Utah Territory, where he worked practicing law and prospecting. Eventually, after separating from his wife of 20 years, he ended up in Tombstone. There Spicer took up journalism again as a reporter for the Arizona Daily Star and was admitted to the Arizona bar. He opened a law practice in 1880, and was later appointed Justice of the Peace of the First District Court. |
Spicer's time as Justice of the Peace ended in 1882, and he left Tombstone to prospect, but he went broke after investing everything he had in a silver mine that did not pay. He disappeared soon after, and his fate is still unknown.