Family Background
Nicholas Porter Earp's parents were Walter (b. 1787, Montgomery County, Maryland – d. January 30, 1853) and Martha Ann Early (b. August 28, 1790, Avery County, North Carolina – d. September 24, 1881). Nicholas was named for an early circuit-rider in Kentucky. They were of English and Scotch-Irish descent.
Walter was a school teacher, a Justice of the Peace in Monmouth, Illinois and a Methodist Episcopal preacher. He was a fifth-generation Marylander and the fourth great-grandson of Thomas Earp, Sr. (1631–1720), an Ulsterman who emigrated from the barony of Fews in County Armagh, Northern Ireland to Maryland. Walter's son, Josiah Earp (b. 1761, Montgomery County, Maryland), fought in the American Revolution and was present at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia in 1781. His company was ordered to guard the prisoners taken at the surrender, who were housed at Fredericktown.
Nicholas was a Methodist and a Republican. He originally intended to become a lawyer like his father before moving his law practice and his family from North Carolina to Kentucky, where he took up farming. He was also a cooper and sheriff.
Wyatt's maternal grandparents were James Cooksey and Elizabeth Smith. The Cookseys were an English American family, and settled in eastern Virginia in the early 1700s.
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