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Sheriff

Sheriff in Dry Springs, Arizona Territory in 1877.[1] (October 27, 1833 – March 26, 1895)[2]

A no-nonsense lawman, quick to act.[1]

On May 6, 1872, the bank in Dry Springs was robbed by four masked men. In fleeing, one of the men, Lefty Dolan, lost his mask and shot and killed a bank teller. Four eye-witnesses saw Dolan holding his gun with his left hand and saw his face. Seeking quick justice, they mistakenly identified local rancher Jedd Ferris, another left-handed man, and a newcomer to Dry Springs, as the culprit. The sheriff brought him and held him for trial. Ferris was wrongly sentenced to life imprisonment.[1]

Bret Maverick visited the sheriff in Dry Springs on March 15, 1877, hoping to get more insight into the case of Jedd Ferris. The sheriff remembered the case well, but could offer no help in freeing Ferris from prison without the support of Territorial Governor Anson P. K. Safford, who had already refused to pardon Ferris.[2]

In the early morning[1] of December 10 of that year,[2] Bret had trailed Whitey Brandon, one of the men that robbed the bank in 1872, to Ben Maxwell's Rocking Star Ranch barn. Bret was trying to force Brandon into signing a confession letter that would absolve Ferris of the charges against him but Maxwell, who had also been involved in robbing the bank, intervened and shot and killed Brandon. Maxwell then turned his gun on Bret, but the sheriff arrived at that moment and shot Maxwell before Maxwell could kill Bret. As Maxwell was dying from the sheriff's bullet, he asked for the confession letter and signed it himself.[1] The sheriff, having witnessed Maxwell's confession, made a statement to the Governor's office that resulted in the lifting of all charges against Jed Ferris and his release from prison.[2]

See: The Long Hunt