History
The first sheriff in the Oregon Territory was William Livingston Holmes who was elected to the position in 1845 and served until 1852. Holmes was the first of 32 sheriffs in the county. William C. Dement was elected as the second sheriff, holding office for nearly one year before resigning. He later served on the Oregon City Commission in 1861. When Dement left, Holmes was appointed to serve out the term until Septimus Heulat, a man with a long law enforcement background, was elected sheriff.
Almond Holcomb followed Heulat with two one-year terms. When he left, he became Justice of the Peace in Oregon City in 1860. Lewis Day was sheriff of Clackamas County for only one year followed by John Towson Thomas, who was elected to a two-year term from 1860 to 1862. William P. Burns served for six years after being elected in 1862. Before taking over as sheriff, he was Oregon City marshal. John Myers, former Stanislaus County, California, sheriff from 1856 to 1860, was elected to the Clackamas County position in 1868 and was sheriff for two years. Arthur Warner followed Myers when he was elected sheriff in 1870 and was sheriff of the county until 1872.
Absalom Fouts Hedges became the county's 1lth sheriff when he was elected to the office in 1872. His term lasted two years until John T. Apperson was elected in 1874. Apperson resigned on May 11, 1878. Thomas M. Miller was appointed to take Apperson's place for two months. Pillsbury was elected and served from July 1878 to 1882. Adolphus Schoeps was elected sheriff in 1882, serving until 1884. William Knight was elected in 1884, serving for four years. William W.H. Samson served until the election of Charles W. Ganong. Ganong was a blacksmith who made the county's first Oregon Boot, a metal inmate detention device. As sheriff he served a two-year term from 1892 to 1894. He was followed by Eli Cook Maddock, who was elected to a two-year term. George W. Grace served a two-year term from 1896 to 1898. John J. Cooke was sheriff of Clackamas County from 1898 to 1902.
The next sheriff was John R. Shaver who was killed in the line of duty. Shaver was murdered by an escaped prisoner named Smith while conducting a homicide investigation in Woodbum on April 29, 1906. Robert Breckenridge Beatie was appointed to take Shaver's place and was then elected twice. Ernest T. Mass was elected sheriff in 1911 and served for four years, followed by William J. Wilson, who was the first of three sheriffs to spend more than 10 years in office. Mass was back again in 1925, serving as sheriff until 1941. He was followed by Noble Fred Reaksecker, who was Clackamas County sheriff until 1957.
Joseph Everett Shobe was elected sheriff five times, spending 20 years in the position. Before he took office in 1957, Shobe was an Oregon City policeman from 1935 to 1941 and a Clackamas County sheriff's deputy from 1941 to 1957. John R. Renfro, a former deputy, served a four-year term after Shobe left office. He returned to being a deputy with the department after his term ended in 1981. Paul McAllister, a former trooper with the Oregon State Police, was elected to a four-year term but resigned after serving only two years.
Bill Brooks, was appointed to fill the vacancy left by McAllister in 1983. Brooks was elected to the position in 1984 and again in 1989. The sheriffs since Bill Brooks have been Ris Bradshaw, H. Pat Detloff, and the current sheriff, Craig Roberts, elected in 2004.
Read more about this topic: Clackamas County Sheriff's Office
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)