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John Harris Behan ( 1845 – 1912 ) was, for 21 months of a two-year term (Feb. 1881 to Nov. 1882), the Sheriff of Cochise County in the Arizona Territory . This newly-created county, of which Behan was the first sheriff, included the town of Tombstone . Immediately previously, Behan had served three months as undersheriff for the southern area of Pima County which included Tombstone, succeeding Wyatt Earp in this position. Behan is known for being county sheriff at the time of the Gunfight At The O.K. Corral , and the Earp Vendetta ride. Behan was either born in Essex County, Vermont April 1845, or in what is now Kansas City, Missouri on October 23, 1845 (a confirming primary source is needed for this information, as secondary sources conflict). Behan came to the Arizona Territory from San Francisco in 1863, arriving first in Prescott, the territorial seat. In the territory he was involved in politics (he served a term in the Arizona Territorial legislature) and law enforcement, serving a term as sheriff of Yavapi County. In 1869 he married Victoria Zaff and had two children. Behan and his wife divorced in 1875 and Behan never remarried. Behan moved to Tombstone in September 1880, perhaps with knowledge that the area was about to be split off from Pima County , with Tombstone as the Cochise County seat. Behan worked for a short time as bartender in the Grand Hotel (a favorite of the cow-boys), and also bought part interest in the Dexter Corral with John Dunbar (the Dexter Corral, across Allen Street south of the O.K. Corral, would later figure as a brief stopping point for the cow-boys less than an hour before the O.K. Corral Gunfight ). Wyatt Earp had been appointed undersheriff of the southern/Tombstone section of Pima County (under Pima sheriff Charles Shibell) in July, 1881. In November, Wyatt Earp resigned after allegations of ballot box stuffing by the cowboy faction in San Simon Cienega precinct. The votes were crucial in re-electing Shibell by 46-vote margin. In the election Ike Clanton and Johnny Ringo had served as election officials for the San Simon precinct, and delivered a 103 to 1 vote for a democratic sheriff in a precinct later estimated to contain only 50 eligible voters. Eventually in April 1881 the San Simon results would be thrown out by the courts (resulting in the removal of Shibell and replacement by Bob Paul), but meanwhile Shibell had picked Johnny Behan to serve as Tombstone-area undersheriff and this position had already allowed Behan to move on. When the southern area of Pima County containing Tombstone was split off into the new Cochise County in early 1881, undersheriff Behan was appointed first Sheriff of Cochise County by Governor Fremont, and confirmed by the upper house of the Territorial Legislature, on Feb 10, 1881. Wyatt Earp would later say that he had promised not to campaign against the appointment (not election) of Behan, in return for an appointment by Behan as Behan's undersheriff. But after being appointed, Behan appointed another man, Southern Democrat Harry Woods, to the position. Popular understanding of the times portrays Behan, a county lawman, as a friend of Ike Clanton , William B. Brocious , Johnny Ringo , and a group of Mexican cattle importers, dealers, rustlers and fencers, known colloquially as "cow-boys or Cowboys." Some of the Cowboys were also active as rustlers in the U.S. side of the border, especially after mid-1880. (Honest ranch hands and dealers of the area after this began happening, tended to be called "drovers"). Behan did employ a number of cow-boys as sheriff's deputies and county tax assessors and collectors. Behan spent most of his term in office in personal and legal conflict with the Earps. Behan eventually lost his girlfriend, Josephine Marcus , to Wyatt Earp , although the details of this are lost, and Josephine is known to have spent time in San Francisco between leaving Behan and publically going with Earp. For a time in Tombstone Josephine Marcus signed her name as Josephine Behan, but no marriage document has been located. However, Josie would form a close bond with Behan's 10 year-old son Albert, and stay in contact with him through the rest of her life. Behan was a witness to the Gunfight At The O.K. Corral of October 26, 1881 . He physically attempted to stop this fight, but utterly failed to influence either faction. In particular, Frank McLaury refused to give up his pistol to Behan, saying he would only do so when the police chief Virgil Earp had been disarmed. The Earps then ignored Behan's warning that attempting to disarm the McLaurys and Clanton would result in violence, and also ignored Behan's probable misdirection (or lie) that the Cowboys already had been disarmed. Behan would later claim he'd only said that he'd gone down to disarm the Cowboys, not claim that he'd actually succeeded in doing so. On this fine point, lives would hang. Six months after the O.K. fight, and a few days after Morgan Earp 's assassination, a sheriff's posse led by Behan pursued the Earp posse in the Earp Vendetta Ride , but again failed to have any effect (except to drain county funds). During his less than two-year term Behan somehow banked $5,000, a sum which would be worth about 25 times as much today. Exactly where the money came from, remains a mystery. In September, 1882, after the Earp Vendetta Ride fiasco and a feud with his own deputy Breakenridge, public and legislative unhappiness with Behan resulted in his showing last on the ballot of possible sheriff nominees for his own party-- an unusual result for a seated sheriff. Behan thus lost the nomination, and was forced out of office at the natural end of his first term. Later in life, Behan served as the Deputy Superintendent (deputy warden) of the Yuma Penitentiary , causing former Tombstone resident and writer George Parsons to suggest Behan was on the wrong side of the bars. Behan also served in the Spanish American war. Behan died of " Bright's Disease " (immune-related renal failure) in Tucson, and is buried in a now-lost site in the Holy Hope Cemetery, in Tucson. SOURCE EXTERNAL LINKS
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