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.