Buried beneath a wooden and hand painted grave marker in the dry, dusty, and famed Boot Hill Cemetery in a rocky grave is William Floyd “Billy” Claiborne/ Clayborne and a mystery. 

Clayborne was born on October 21, 1860, in Yazoo County, Mississippi, and was known to be a miner, outlaw, gunfighter, and cowhand. However, he is largely remembered for surviving what was arguably the most famous shoot out in the Old West—the legendary Gunfight at the O. K. Corral in the desolate hamlet of Tombstone, Arizona, on October 26, 1881.  Clayborne did not survive the shootout by heroics and superior gunplay but by ducking into the C. S. Fly’s Boarding House and Photography Studio to hide out.  His Cochise County Cowboy companions, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers, however, were not so lucky and were killed in the melee against the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday. 

A little more than a year after the infamous shootout, Clayborne publicly accused gunslinger Frank “Buskskin” Leslie of killing his friend Johnny Ringo, whose death had remained a mystery and remained unsolved.  On November 14, 1882, just outside the Oriental Saloon, a drunk Clayborne confronted Leslie.  Clayborne shot the first volley from his rifle but missed.  Leslie quickly returned fire and struck Clayborne directly in the chest.  Clayborne’s last words allegedly were “Don’t shoot me any more, I’m killed.” Clayborne survived six hours after the incident and was laid to rest in the town’s Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone.

There are some who say there is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the man buried under that wooden marker is William “Billy” Clayborne of Yazoo.  There is a marriage record that a William Floyd Claiborne married Hattie Barnton on January 27, 1887, in Yazoo County, Mississippi, and that that same Claiborne appeared on the 1910 Census as a widower with his children.

Leslie did shoot and kill a man named “Billy”, but was it William Floyd “Billy” Clayborne?  Another mystery of the Old West not solved to everyone’s satisfaction.