Early Life
Johnny H. Behan was born in October 23, 1844 in Westport, Missouri in what is now Kansas City, the third of nine children of carpenter Peter Behan from County Kildare, Ireland, and his wife Sarah. Peter Behan, from County Kildare, Ireland, married Sarah Ann Harris, a native of Madison County, Kentucky, in Jackson County, Missouri on March 16, 1837. John Harris Behan was named for his mother's family and his maternal grandfather.
He moved west to San Francisco, working as a miner and a freighter. During the American Civil War Behan was a 19-year-old civilian employee of Carleton's Column of Union Volunteers in California. He fought in the Battle of Apache Pass on July 14–15, 1862 and in 1863 settled in Tucson where he found work delivering freight to military installations. In 1864 he served as a clerk to the First Arizona Legislative Assembly in Prescott, the territorial seat.
In 1865 he moved to Prescott, the new capital of the Arizona Territory, where he speculated in real estate and prospected for minerals. While prospecting along the Verde River February 28, 1866, he and a five other men were attacked by Indians. Behan helped fight them off and gained a reputation as a brave man. He also operated a sawmill. He was hired as an undersheriff by Yavapai County Sheriff John P. Bourke in 1866. Bourke had married German immigrant and widow Harriet Zaff in 1860, and her daughter, then 14 year old Victoria, who caught Behan's eye, as he married her three years later. He resigned as undersheriff to run for Yavapai County Recorder and won that office in 1868. Whenever he wasn't holding office he worked in various saloons or mines.
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