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Note: From the Roseburg News-Review, Friday, November 22, 1940, page 1: "JESSE G. HODGES PASSES ON AT 76. FORMER ROSEBURG POLICEMAN, SON OF OREGON PIONEERS, EARLY DAY STAGE DRIVER. Jesse G. Hodges, 76, resident of Douglas county for 30 years and former member of the Roseburg police department, died at his home, 1048 Corey avenue, early this morning following a long period of ill health. Born at Grand Ronde, Oreg., January 4, 1864, son of Calaway and Elizabeth Hodges, pioneer settlers of eastern Oregon, he moved with his parents to Spokane, Was., at the age of 15 years. At the age of 19 years he began driving stage between Spokane and Couer d'Alene, Idaho, and was the first driver on the line established Catholic Mission and Wardner, Idaho. At the age of 24 years he abandoned the stage line and engaged in horse racing. Married to Emma R. Lewis at Trent, Wash., December 24, 1888, he and Mrs. Hodges celebrated their 52nd wedding anniversary last Christmas eve. In the spring of 1892, Mr. Hodges moved his family to Medford, Ore., where for 18 years he engaged in farming. In June of 1910 he moved to Douglas county and operated a farm in Scotts valley until 1915, when he established residence in Roseburg. He served as a member of the city police force during and immediately after the wold war. He was member of the Masonic and Elk lodges. Surviving are his widow and the following sons and daughters; Terance D., Clarence J. and Everett L. Hodges, of Roseburg; Jesse J., Thomas M., Mildred Hughes and Edna Walker, all of Eugene, and Mary Cronk, Weiser, Idaho. He leaves 21 grandchildren and two greatgrandchildren. Funeral services will be held at the Roseburg Undertaking Parlors at 10 a.m., Saturday, Rev. H. P. Sconce officiating. The service will be closed by the Masonic lodge. The body will be taken to Medford for interment in the I.O.O.F. cemetery Saturday at 3 p.m."
from an e-mail sent 22 May 2003 by Hope Bronson <Hopelina@aol.com>
1920 Census--Counted with him are wife Emma, and children Jesse J., Everett L., Mary E., Edna J. and Thomas M. Jesse is a town marshall.
1930 Census--Counted with him are his wife, Emma; Ruth, daughter-in-law; Leland, grandson (these 2 were also counted 3 days earlier w/ Everett Leland Hodges in Portland); Raymond Cronk (son-in-law); and Mary Cronk, daughter.
He says his father was born in NC, and mother, MO!!
From the News-Tribune - Roseburg, Oregon - Thursday, November 17, 1932
"RAMBLINGS of the News-Review" by Craig Jenkins
"Crossing Jackson street at Cass yesterday, I met Jesse Hodges in front of the bank there, talking with several friends about prohibition, its trials and tribulations. It was their unanimous opinion that it was at present a scrambled up mess. Jesse has been in Roseburg for the past twenty-two years, and for most of that time has been deputy sheriff, serving in the criminal department and under many different administrations. In that length of time he has become rather familiar with the problems of prohibition. And he has his own ideas. However, this isn't going to be a story on the either the evils or benefits of spiritous liquors. It has to do with Jesse's earlier history, as furnished me some weeks ago by Sam Evans. Sam, as you all know, was born in the west, and has lived all but about three years of his life in Douglas county. He takes a vast interest in all that pertains to pioneer history, and is possessed of a tremendous store of information. His story, obtained in an interview with Mr. Hodges several years ago, follows:
"I was born in old La Grande in 1864," said Jesse Hodges, who has now retired from active life and lives in west Roseburg. "My father was at that time engaged in packing into the mines in eastern Oregon and southern Idaho. Mining supplies were hauled by wagon from Umatilla landing on the Columbia river to La Grande and Baker City and from there carried by pack mules to the various camps in the mountains. My father's name was Calloway Hodges. He was born in Indiana in 1828. He crossed the plains in 1847 with his father who settled in Benton county on a section of land where the town of Wells now is. "Father went to the mines in California in '48 and stayed about a year and was taken sick and returned to Oregon and took up a piece of land and later traded his right in the land for a sawmill and later traded it off and moved to southern Oregon and took a claim in what is now known as Coles Valley. Later he traded his right to this land to a man named Burton for a band of horses. Burton was to keep the horses until the following spring. Father went to California and when he returned for his horses Burton had been killed by the Indians, and as father had nothing to show his ownership for the horses he lost everything. "My mother was born in Missouri in 1839. Her name was Lizzie Belieu and her father was a Methodist preacher. He crossed the plains in 1845 and took up a claim in the Rickreal district of 640 acres. He went to the mines in California and in the fall of '49 on his way back home, died and was buried on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. "In the party with my mother crossing the plains was a young man who said he was going to kill the first Indian he saw. He was told to put such notions out of his head, and no more was thought about it, but the day he saw two squaws he shot and killed one of them. The other went to the Indian camp and told of the killing and soon a party of warriors rode up and said if the man who did the killing was not surrendered to them they would attack the train. There was nothing to do but give the man up and he was taken and turned over to the Indians and the squaws skinned him alive. "Out in what is now southern Idaho, Stephen Meek, a brother to the famous Joe Meek, came to the party and told them he could guide them over a better route directly to the Willamette Valley, and many left the original train hoping to escape the dangerous trip down the Columbia from The Dalles to Fort Vancouver. "That was where they made their big mistake for Meek did not know anything about the route only what he had been told by trappers. Soon they were wandering around in the deserts of eastern Oregon and many sickened and died. The feeling against Meek was so strong many were in favor of hanging him and he deserted. "The dead were buried and campfires built over them and wagons driven over them to hide them from the Indians who would dig up the bodies to get the clothes. "It was on this trip gold was found in a small creek and many nuggets were brought in as curiosities, as no one knew what it was, never having seen gold in this shape before. No one since has succeeded in finding the place where this gold came from but many expeditions have gone out from the Willamette Valley in search of it. This was the famous Blue Bucket mine. "What was left of the train reached The Dalles two weeks after the the train they left in southern Idaho got in. "Father and mother were married in the Willamette Valley but I have forgotten the year. They lived for a while in San Jose, California. There were so many Mexicans there they both learned to speak Spanish. About 1861 they moved to Lewiston, Idaho, and father had a pack train to Bannock and Virginia City, Montana, across the Bitter Root mountains. He made money but was in constant danger of being murdered for it, because this was in the times of Henry Plummer, Boon Helman, Bob Zachary, and their gang of cutthroats that would kill a man for five dollars, and everybody was in terror of them until the miners formed a vigilante committee and hanged the lot. "About 1878 he moved to Spokane where there were only two stores and a sawmill. Father took a job hauling freight from Walla Walla to Spokane and I drove a six-horse team. I couldn't put the harness on the horses but I could drive them all right. "I shall never forget one trip when coming out from Walla Walla we reached Lyons ferry on the Snake River. A boy, a friend of mine, named Marion Griffith, driving four horses to a wagon loaded with freight, drove onto the ferry boat, followed by an old man driving a team to a spring wagon. The river was high and the current swift. When they were about in the middle of the river the front apron dropped down. The ferryman tried to change the guy ropes and come back. When the current struck the ferry with both guy ropes of equal length the boat was sucked under and men, horses, and wagons were swept down the river and never seen again. "About this time the Northern Pacific railroad was being built and Spokane was getting to be a lively town. Father had quite a lot of stock and it was my job to keep track of them. One day while looking for some horses along the Snake river I saw an Indian standing on a rock fishing. A young fellow with me pulled his revolver and shot the Indian dead. It was as cold-blooded a murder as was ever committed. A squaw with the Indian recognized me and of course thought I was to blame, in a way, as I was with the fellow that did it. She told the other Indians, without a doubt. "Not long afterward when hunting stock I saw ten Indians come riding out of some timber and spread out trying to cut me off. They had me hemmed in a bend of the river and I had to fight the lot or swim the river, so I jumped my horse in and made for the other side. The Indians commenced shooting and the bullets splashed water all around me but I got out without a scratch. "The Indians gave a lot of trouble if they found a white man out alone and wouldn't hesitate to kill him. "One tried to run a bluff on old man Drumheller. Drumheller was a big stockman and was driving a bunch of wild range steers across the bridge at Spokane. A big buck Indian was about the middle of the bridge and the cattle were afraid and would not pass him. The Indian refused to get out of the way and the old man rode up and with his cattle whip gave him such a lashing that he got off. Then the Indian went up to his camp, stripped down to a breech clout, put on his war paint, got his rifle and took his stand on the bridge, waiting for Drumheller to return, no doubt intending to kill him. The sheriff got word and sent a deputy to arrest the Indian. The deputy asked another man and me to help him. We strolled along and when we got within reach of the Indian we grabbed him. He was covered with his war paint though and was "slick as an eel" and as hard to hold. But we got him in the lockup finally. The Spokane Indians were a mean, surly lot, not at all like the Couer d'Alene Indians. "The Spokanes would have made more trouble than they did but they never forgot their defeat at the hands of Col. Wright in 1858 when they were soundly licked, 900 head of their horses captured and killed and some of their prominent men hanged. They had been murdering small parties of miners for years and thought they were strong enough to tackle the United States army, but Wright showed them they were wrong. "I lived in about a mile of where Wright killed their horses and used to haul bones from there for my chickens. "In 1885 the government brought Chief Joseph and his tribe back from the Indian Territory. I drove a wagon helping to move them from Spokane to Fort Spokane. Joseph rode with me and was a very agreeable old fellow. He had a boy that thought he was a great wrestler and kept wanting to wrestle with me, so I finally tried him and threw him. He wanted to try again Indian style but as I didn't know anything about that I refused. "In 1883-84 I packed from Evolution to Delta and Eagle City in Idaho. In the spring of '84 I drove a stage from Old Mission to Murry, thirty-five miles. "In 1885 the Bunker Hill mine and the Sullivan mines were discovered and I ran a "saddle train" from the Old Mission to Wardner, seventeen miles, using twenty-five to thirty horses, one trip a day. "The first trip into Wardner the town consisted of two large tents, one a saloon and the other a eating house run by Tom Errin. Late that spring a wagon road was made from the old Mullen road to Wardner nd I drove the first wagon that ever made a track in Wardner. "I stayed in Wardner until a narrow gauge railroad was built into Wallace. I then put on a stage carrying seventeen passengers and Made two trips a day until 1888. "I married Emma Lewis on Christmas eve, 1887, at Trent, near Spokane. "In 1888 I bought a farm near the Spokane bridge and raised stock for four years. In 1892 I sold out and bought a farm near Medford and bought and sold ranches until I came to Douglas County where I have lived ever since."
Transcribed by Ken Robinson, greatgrandson of Jesse G. Hodges, the narrator.
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