San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department - History

History

When San Bernardino County was established in 1853, its first Sheriff was a Mormon, Robert Clift, who served until 1857. On January 12, 1856, a volunteer militia unit known as the San Bernardino Rangers was organized under the command of Captain Andrew Lytle to aid the Sheriff in suppressing raids by Indians and the gangs of outlaws like the Flores Daniel Gang that plagued the County. Sheriff Clift left for Utah that year and was followed in office by Joseph Bridger who held the office until 1859.

Valentine Herring was next as Sheriff until the fall of 1860. Herring was replaced by Charles W. Piercey who held the office until he resigned in October 1860 to run for the State Assembly. Anson Van Leuvan served as Sheriff from 1860 to 1862. He had difficulties enforcing the law in Belleville and the other boom towns of the Holcomb Valley gold rush and with the turbulence caused in the County by the secession crisis and the beginning of the American Civil War. Eli M. Smith elected in the fall of 1861, was known for his pursuit of a gang of horse thieves who had been operating in the county for several months stealing horses made precious by the wartime need for horseflesh. On one occasion Sheriff Smith rode into an outlaw camp, recovering a herd of stolen horses and arresting three thieves. By the end of his term in office he had convicted 18 men of horse theft and sent them to prison. Sheriff Benjamin F. Mathews served from 1863 to 1864.

George T. Fulgham was Sheriff from 1864 to 1869. In September 1865 the outlaw James Henry of the Mason Henry Gang and his gang of rustlers, robbers and murderers were in the county, camped out near San Bernardino. Sheriff George T. Fulgham and his posse led by John Rogers (a gang member sent to town to obtain provisions and captured after drunken boasting), found and surprised Henry camped in Railroad Canyon, (then called San Jacinto Canyon), about twenty-five miles from town. At sunrise on September 14, 1865, the posse approached cautiously but Henry awoke and fired three shots, striking one posse member in the foot. Henry died in a hail of gunfire, sustaining 57 wounds. His corpse was taken back to town, photographed and his body was displayed to the public in Old West fashion.

Some of the other men holding the office of Sheriff in the early years were, Newton Noble (1869–1873), J. C Curry (1873–1877), William Davies (1877–1879), John C. King (1879–1882), J. B. Burkhart (1882–1884), Nelson G. Gill (1884–1885), Edwin Chidsey Seymour (1888–1892), James P. Booth (1892-1894), Charles A. Rouse (1894–1895), John C. Ralphs (1902–1915), J. L. McMinn (1915–1918).