Harry N. Morse

Henry Nicholson Morse (c. 1835-1912), "bloodhound of the far west," was an Old West lawman. Elected September 2, 1863 served from 1864 to 1878, as the sheriff of the Alameda County Sheriff's Office of Alameda County, California. He was a Republican. He later founded the Harry N. Morse Detective Agency in California. One of his accomplishments was to help (along with his associate James Hume) identify Charles E. Boles as the perpetrator of the Black Bart stagecoach robberies. Other notable early California outlaws he helped bring to justice include Bartolo Sepulveda, Narrato Ponce, "Red-Handed Procopio, and Juan Soto. But Virginia's heart was firmly set. Morse climbed through a window of the Heslep home one night and carried her off. The couple wed in Oakland on September 14, 1855, before her father could intervene. Morse later went into business with Virginia's brother Philander Heslep, with whom he opened a flour mill in Hayward that was destroyed in the 1868 Hayward earthquake, causing both men a substantial financial loss.