High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Derastus Clapp (May 1, 1792 – June 1, 1881) was head of the first city detective bureau in the United States, located in Boston, Massachusetts. He was appointed to the office of constable by the elderly Mayor Josiah Quincy in 1828, and was reappointed every succeeding year to 1874. In 1848, he was promoted to be one of the first detectives in the city. Clapp is most noted for his role in the arrest and prosecution of John White Webster for the murder of George Parkman.