Book description
Elected for two-year terms, frontier sheriffs were the principal
peace-keepers in counties that were often larger than New England
states. As officers of the court, they defended settlers and protected
their property from the ever-present violence on the frontier. Their
duties ranged from tracking down stagecoach robbers and serving court
warrants to locking up drunks and quelling domestic disputes. The
reality of their job embraced such mandane duties as being jail
keepers, tax collectors, quarantine inspectors, court-appointed
executioners, and dogcatchers.
Larry D. Ball, professor at Arkansas State University, has published
extensively on frontier law-and-order.
