Few police officers in California can boast of the record of Michael Sheehan, sheriff of San Mateo county. A list of the important captures made by Sheriff Sheehan in the sixteen years he has been a peace officer, would include some of the most desperate men who are in the State Prisons today serving for daring crimes not only committed in this county but in every county of the state.
Sheriff Sheehan was constable of the Second Township for twelve years and refused to again become a candidate although urged by the residents to enter the race for Sheriff. In these years the Second Township was the terror of criminals who seldom stepped over the border before they were apprehended by this alert constable.
As sheriff, Mr. Sheehan has built up one of the strongest organizations in that office in the history of the county. He has secured a cooperation between the constables, the police departments of the different municipalities and the Sheriff’s office that has been the dream of all sheriffs.
Perhaps Sheriff Sheehan’s greatest service for the county has been as a probation officer. He handled probation matters for eight years so efficiently that he was again appointed after being elected sheriff; but the press of his duties forced him to resign.
Michael Sheehan was born in Ireland on February 2, 1861. Of the thirty-two years he has spent in California, thirty were passed as a resident of the Second Township. Mr. Sheehan belongs to the Knights of Columbus, the San Mateo lodge of Elks, the Foresters and the Eagles.