1.) Curtis served in War of 1812, and part of early Mormon history in Kirtland, Ohio. He suffered during the Missouri troubles when Mormons were being run out of the state.
Curtis had a "Patriarchal Blessing" in Nauvoo, which is the source of his birth information, but he left the main body of the Church after Joseph Smith's murder.
He and his sons then followed Sidney Rigdon's church faction to Pennsylvania where he died.
Curtis worked manufacturing wooden pegs for boats. West Elizabeth, Pennsylvania, was a boat-building city at that time.
2.) The following is an excerpt from daughter Marietta's biography written by Pamela Price:
Curtis and Lucy Clark Hodges were converted to the [LDS] Church in the early 1830s, and as a result moved from New York to Willoughby, Ohio. On April 10, 1834, not far from Kirtland Temple, which was then under construction, there was born to them a daughter whom they named Marietta. Marietta was one of the younger children in their large family. The Hodges moved with the Saints from Kirtland to Far West, Missouri, where they purchased a farm of three hundred and twenty acres.
When war erupted between the Saints and other Missouri settlers, Marietta's father and two of her older brothers helped defend the Saints in the Battle of Crooked River. Father Hodges was near Apostle David Patten when they were fired upon—both men were hit and fell. Brother Hodges was wounded in the side but lived. Apostle Patten died from his wounds shortly thereafter. Marietta was only four and a half at the time. However, the wounding of her father and the death of Apostle Patten made a sad and melancholy impression upon her bright, young mind.
On October 27, 1838, Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs issued an order which stated, "The Mormons must be exterminated or driven from the state" (RLDS Church History 2:217). The Hodges family fled along with thousands of other Saints and settled at Nauvoo, where they continued to be active in the Church. Marietta's brother, Amos, served as a traveling missionary for the Church.
Marietta attended the church services and Sunday school classes, and was baptized... She and the Prophet's son, Joseph III, were friends. Many years later Joseph III recalled, "I had had a childhood friendship with the daughter Marietta [Hodges] and others of the family" (Saints' Herald, July 30, 1935, p. 976).
Marietta was ten when Joseph and Hyrum were murdered. Her father took her to the Mansion House to view their bodies. Marietta later described her experience that day in an article entitled, "A Picture from Memory's Wall." She related:
Among those [mourners] . . . was the bent form of an aged man to whose band a little girl [Marietta], a child of some nine or ten summers, was clinging. As they came to the head of the coffins the man bent slowly down and tenderly raised the child in his arms that she might see more clearly the faces of the dead." (Journal of History 3:194, April 1910)
As they journeyed homeward Brother Hodges became so ill that he had to stop and rest. He talked of Joseph and Hyrum and said in an anguished voice: "0, that I ever should have lived to see this day!"
"But, father [Marietta answered], it will not be for long. We shall have Brother Joseph and Brother Hyrum with us again. The grave could not hold Jesus and it cannot hold them. How beautiful they looked this morning, and once I was almost sure I saw a motion of Brother Joseph's lips as though he were going to open them and speak to us."
"It was but imagination, child. His lips will never speak to us again and we shall see him no more until he comes with his Savior in the clouds of heaven to reign with him upon this earth. His work on earth is finished. Wicked men have taken his life. . . ."
"But he will [come to life] father, you will see!" and all the unchallenged faith of a child was in the dark and tearful eyes she raised to his face. (ibid.,195)
This tragedy was only the beginning of sorrows for Brother Hodges and his family. Three of Marietta's adult brothers were dead by July of 1845. A fourth had disappeared while in the custody of the Nauvoo police, and it was feared that he had been killed. Rumors and warnings were rampant that every member of the Hodges family was in danger of being assassinated. Those warnings can be read today in newspapers for that year, including the Warsaw Signal for July 16, 23, and 25, 1845; the Alton Telegraph and Democratic Review, July 1845 (volume l0), page 3; and the Burlington Hawkeye, July 23, 1845. The threat of assassination came because they were going to expose Brigham Young's involvement with a gang of robbers operating out of Nauvoo.
The Hodges Family's Tragedy
On the night of May 12, 1845, across the Mississippi River from Nauvoo in Lee County, Iowa, three robbers forced their way into the home of John Miller, a Mennonite minister, where he and his wife, two daughters, and their husbands were sleeping (Warsaw Signal, June 9, 1845). Iowa authorities allegedly tracked the robbers to the Mississippi River and supposedly picked up the tracks again in Nauvoo. Feelings between the Saints and the residents in surrounding areas had escalated due to charges that a band of robbers was operating out of Nauvoo under Brigham Young's direction. The blame for the murders in Iowa was quickly placed on two of Marietta's brothers, William (twenty) and Stephen (eighteen). To alleviate the prejudice and quiet the rumors that the Mormons were robbing their Gentile neighbors, Nauvoo law officials quickly surrendered the two brothers to the Iowa officers. When they were taken to Iowa, the tension between the Saints and the neighbors was greatly relieved.
Nauvoo police chief, Hosea Stout, explained in his diary that "the matter turned in our favor and they instead of being our enemies as the mob intended became our friends" (Juanita Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier—The Diary of Hosea Stout [University of Utah Press, 1964], 44).
William and Stephen were tried and sentenced to be hanged. After the trial, their brother, Irvine, went to Nauvoo to ask Brigham Young to intervene in their behalf. That night as he neared Brigham's home, which was heavily guarded by policemen, he was clubbed and stabbed to death. Marietta's brother, Amos, was arrested and placed in the Nauvoo jail, from which he disappeared.
It was reported that before going to their deaths at Burlington, Iowa, Stephen and William were going to make statements which would expose Brigham's connection with the gang of robbers. Between eight and ten thousand people gathered to hear their statements, but no such statements were made.
With Irvine dead and Amos presumed dead, William and Stephen apparently feared more reprisals against the family. They looked out upon the crowd and saw only one soul representing their family—their eighteen-year-old sister, Emeline. At their trial she had testified of their innocence, and at their deaths she stood bravely near the scaffold as they died. Emeline then took their bodies back to her sorrowing parents at Nauvoo, where they were buried.
In 1910, sixty-five years later, a Mrs. Mary Hines made a deposition that her husband, John P. Hines, had confessed to her before his death that he and George W. Martin and one other man had killed John Miller and his son-in-law, and that the Hodges brothers were not involved (Saints' Herald, March 2, 1910, p. 230). So history proved that Marietta's brothers were innocent—that they had been sacrificed!
Curtis and Lucy Hodges fled from Nauvoo, taking eleven-year-old Marietta, Emeline, and a son, who was perhaps a minor. This son was so guarded that his name and life's history are yet to be discovered. Brother Hodges took the remnant of his family to... Pennsylvania. According to Marietta's book, With the Church in an Early Day, another brother managed to reach them—but he was ill and died shortly. Soon Father Hodges, "broken and bowed with sorrow," also died—still testifying to his lonely, outcast family that the gospel was true.
MOTHER: Sybil __
FATHER: Curtis Hodges
WIFE: Lucy Clark
CHILDREN:
Sarah L. Hodges
Curtis Hodges, 1810–1845
Amos Hodges
Irvine C. Hodges
William Hodges
Stephen Hodges
Eliza Jane Hodges
Emeline Hodges
James Hodges, 1834–1846
Marietta Hodges
SOURCE: familysearch.org
FURTHER INFORMATION:
1. Citation for the photo of the 1812 Reference Card: United States War of 1812 Index to Service Records, 1812-1815, database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q29K-CGCS : 8 March 2021), Curtis Hodges, 1812-1815; citing NARA microfilm publication M602 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); roll 100; FHL microfilm 882,618.
2. U.S., Army, Register of Enlistments, 1798-1914
Name Curtis Hodges
Birthyear abt 1788
Birthplace New York, United States
Enlistment Age 26
3. The search of this small cemetery, now really just a small park, did not reveal his burial. The location is based on family papers, though could be an error. The description in "With the Church in an Early Day" matches very much the location overlooking the river.
Curtis had a "Patriarchal Blessing" in Nauvoo, which is the source of his birth information, but he left the main body of the Church after Joseph Smith's murder.
He and his sons then followed Sidney Rigdon's church faction to Pennsylvania where he died.
Curtis worked manufacturing wooden pegs for boats. West Elizabeth, Pennsylvania, was a boat-building city at that time.
2.) The following is an excerpt from daughter Marietta's biography written by Pamela Price:
Curtis and Lucy Clark Hodges were converted to the [LDS] Church in the early 1830s, and as a result moved from New York to Willoughby, Ohio. On April 10, 1834, not far from Kirtland Temple, which was then under construction, there was born to them a daughter whom they named Marietta. Marietta was one of the younger children in their large family. The Hodges moved with the Saints from Kirtland to Far West, Missouri, where they purchased a farm of three hundred and twenty acres.
When war erupted between the Saints and other Missouri settlers, Marietta's father and two of her older brothers helped defend the Saints in the Battle of Crooked River. Father Hodges was near Apostle David Patten when they were fired upon—both men were hit and fell. Brother Hodges was wounded in the side but lived. Apostle Patten died from his wounds shortly thereafter. Marietta was only four and a half at the time. However, the wounding of her father and the death of Apostle Patten made a sad and melancholy impression upon her bright, young mind.
On October 27, 1838, Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs issued an order which stated, "The Mormons must be exterminated or driven from the state" (RLDS Church History 2:217). The Hodges family fled along with thousands of other Saints and settled at Nauvoo, where they continued to be active in the Church. Marietta's brother, Amos, served as a traveling missionary for the Church.
Marietta attended the church services and Sunday school classes, and was baptized... She and the Prophet's son, Joseph III, were friends. Many years later Joseph III recalled, "I had had a childhood friendship with the daughter Marietta [Hodges] and others of the family" (Saints' Herald, July 30, 1935, p. 976).
Marietta was ten when Joseph and Hyrum were murdered. Her father took her to the Mansion House to view their bodies. Marietta later described her experience that day in an article entitled, "A Picture from Memory's Wall." She related:
Among those [mourners] . . . was the bent form of an aged man to whose band a little girl [Marietta], a child of some nine or ten summers, was clinging. As they came to the head of the coffins the man bent slowly down and tenderly raised the child in his arms that she might see more clearly the faces of the dead." (Journal of History 3:194, April 1910)
As they journeyed homeward Brother Hodges became so ill that he had to stop and rest. He talked of Joseph and Hyrum and said in an anguished voice: "0, that I ever should have lived to see this day!"
"But, father [Marietta answered], it will not be for long. We shall have Brother Joseph and Brother Hyrum with us again. The grave could not hold Jesus and it cannot hold them. How beautiful they looked this morning, and once I was almost sure I saw a motion of Brother Joseph's lips as though he were going to open them and speak to us."
"It was but imagination, child. His lips will never speak to us again and we shall see him no more until he comes with his Savior in the clouds of heaven to reign with him upon this earth. His work on earth is finished. Wicked men have taken his life. . . ."
"But he will [come to life] father, you will see!" and all the unchallenged faith of a child was in the dark and tearful eyes she raised to his face. (ibid.,195)
This tragedy was only the beginning of sorrows for Brother Hodges and his family. Three of Marietta's adult brothers were dead by July of 1845. A fourth had disappeared while in the custody of the Nauvoo police, and it was feared that he had been killed. Rumors and warnings were rampant that every member of the Hodges family was in danger of being assassinated. Those warnings can be read today in newspapers for that year, including the Warsaw Signal for July 16, 23, and 25, 1845; the Alton Telegraph and Democratic Review, July 1845 (volume l0), page 3; and the Burlington Hawkeye, July 23, 1845. The threat of assassination came because they were going to expose Brigham Young's involvement with a gang of robbers operating out of Nauvoo.
The Hodges Family's Tragedy
On the night of May 12, 1845, across the Mississippi River from Nauvoo in Lee County, Iowa, three robbers forced their way into the home of John Miller, a Mennonite minister, where he and his wife, two daughters, and their husbands were sleeping (Warsaw Signal, June 9, 1845). Iowa authorities allegedly tracked the robbers to the Mississippi River and supposedly picked up the tracks again in Nauvoo. Feelings between the Saints and the residents in surrounding areas had escalated due to charges that a band of robbers was operating out of Nauvoo under Brigham Young's direction. The blame for the murders in Iowa was quickly placed on two of Marietta's brothers, William (twenty) and Stephen (eighteen). To alleviate the prejudice and quiet the rumors that the Mormons were robbing their Gentile neighbors, Nauvoo law officials quickly surrendered the two brothers to the Iowa officers. When they were taken to Iowa, the tension between the Saints and the neighbors was greatly relieved.
Nauvoo police chief, Hosea Stout, explained in his diary that "the matter turned in our favor and they instead of being our enemies as the mob intended became our friends" (Juanita Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier—The Diary of Hosea Stout [University of Utah Press, 1964], 44).
William and Stephen were tried and sentenced to be hanged. After the trial, their brother, Irvine, went to Nauvoo to ask Brigham Young to intervene in their behalf. That night as he neared Brigham's home, which was heavily guarded by policemen, he was clubbed and stabbed to death. Marietta's brother, Amos, was arrested and placed in the Nauvoo jail, from which he disappeared.
It was reported that before going to their deaths at Burlington, Iowa, Stephen and William were going to make statements which would expose Brigham's connection with the gang of robbers. Between eight and ten thousand people gathered to hear their statements, but no such statements were made.
With Irvine dead and Amos presumed dead, William and Stephen apparently feared more reprisals against the family. They looked out upon the crowd and saw only one soul representing their family—their eighteen-year-old sister, Emeline. At their trial she had testified of their innocence, and at their deaths she stood bravely near the scaffold as they died. Emeline then took their bodies back to her sorrowing parents at Nauvoo, where they were buried.
In 1910, sixty-five years later, a Mrs. Mary Hines made a deposition that her husband, John P. Hines, had confessed to her before his death that he and George W. Martin and one other man had killed John Miller and his son-in-law, and that the Hodges brothers were not involved (Saints' Herald, March 2, 1910, p. 230). So history proved that Marietta's brothers were innocent—that they had been sacrificed!
Curtis and Lucy Hodges fled from Nauvoo, taking eleven-year-old Marietta, Emeline, and a son, who was perhaps a minor. This son was so guarded that his name and life's history are yet to be discovered. Brother Hodges took the remnant of his family to... Pennsylvania. According to Marietta's book, With the Church in an Early Day, another brother managed to reach them—but he was ill and died shortly. Soon Father Hodges, "broken and bowed with sorrow," also died—still testifying to his lonely, outcast family that the gospel was true.
MOTHER: Sybil __
FATHER: Curtis Hodges
WIFE: Lucy Clark
CHILDREN:
Sarah L. Hodges
Curtis Hodges, 1810–1845
Amos Hodges
Irvine C. Hodges
William Hodges
Stephen Hodges
Eliza Jane Hodges
Emeline Hodges
James Hodges, 1834–1846
Marietta Hodges
SOURCE: familysearch.org
FURTHER INFORMATION:
1. Citation for the photo of the 1812 Reference Card: United States War of 1812 Index to Service Records, 1812-1815, database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q29K-CGCS : 8 March 2021), Curtis Hodges, 1812-1815; citing NARA microfilm publication M602 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); roll 100; FHL microfilm 882,618.
2. U.S., Army, Register of Enlistments, 1798-1914
Name Curtis Hodges
Birthyear abt 1788
Birthplace New York, United States
Enlistment Age 26
3. The search of this small cemetery, now really just a small park, did not reveal his burial. The location is based on family papers, though could be an error. The description in "With the Church in an Early Day" matches very much the location overlooking the river.
1.) Curtis served in War of 1812, and part of early Mormon history in Kirtland, Ohio. He suffered during the Missouri troubles when Mormons were being run out of the state.
Curtis had a "Patriarchal Blessing" in Nauvoo, which is the source of his birth information, but he left the main body of the Church after Joseph Smith's murder.
He and his sons then followed Sidney Rigdon's church faction to Pennsylvania where he died.
Curtis worked manufacturing wooden pegs for boats. West Elizabeth, Pennsylvania, was a boat-building city at that time.
2.) The following is an excerpt from daughter Marietta's biography written by Pamela Price:
Curtis and Lucy Clark Hodges were converted to the [LDS] Church in the early 1830s, and as a result moved from New York to Willoughby, Ohio. On April 10, 1834, not far from Kirtland Temple, which was then under construction, there was born to them a daughter whom they named Marietta. Marietta was one of the younger children in their large family. The Hodges moved with the Saints from Kirtland to Far West, Missouri, where they purchased a farm of three hundred and twenty acres.
When war erupted between the Saints and other Missouri settlers, Marietta's father and two of her older brothers helped defend the Saints in the Battle of Crooked River. Father Hodges was near Apostle David Patten when they were fired upon—both men were hit and fell. Brother Hodges was wounded in the side but lived. Apostle Patten died from his wounds shortly thereafter. Marietta was only four and a half at the time. However, the wounding of her father and the death of Apostle Patten made a sad and melancholy impression upon her bright, young mind.
On October 27, 1838, Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs issued an order which stated, "The Mormons must be exterminated or driven from the state" (RLDS Church History 2:217). The Hodges family fled along with thousands of other Saints and settled at Nauvoo, where they continued to be active in the Church. Marietta's brother, Amos, served as a traveling missionary for the Church.
Marietta attended the church services and Sunday school classes, and was baptized... She and the Prophet's son, Joseph III, were friends. Many years later Joseph III recalled, "I had had a childhood friendship with the daughter Marietta [Hodges] and others of the family" (Saints' Herald, July 30, 1935, p. 976).
Marietta was ten when Joseph and Hyrum were murdered. Her father took her to the Mansion House to view their bodies. Marietta later described her experience that day in an article entitled, "A Picture from Memory's Wall." She related:
Among those [mourners] . . . was the bent form of an aged man to whose band a little girl [Marietta], a child of some nine or ten summers, was clinging. As they came to the head of the coffins the man bent slowly down and tenderly raised the child in his arms that she might see more clearly the faces of the dead." (Journal of History 3:194, April 1910)
As they journeyed homeward Brother Hodges became so ill that he had to stop and rest. He talked of Joseph and Hyrum and said in an anguished voice: "0, that I ever should have lived to see this day!"
"But, father [Marietta answered], it will not be for long. We shall have Brother Joseph and Brother Hyrum with us again. The grave could not hold Jesus and it cannot hold them. How beautiful they looked this morning, and once I was almost sure I saw a motion of Brother Joseph's lips as though he were going to open them and speak to us."
"It was but imagination, child. His lips will never speak to us again and we shall see him no more until he comes with his Savior in the clouds of heaven to reign with him upon this earth. His work on earth is finished. Wicked men have taken his life. . . ."
"But he will [come to life] father, you will see!" and all the unchallenged faith of a child was in the dark and tearful eyes she raised to his face. (ibid.,195)
This tragedy was only the beginning of sorrows for Brother Hodges and his family. Three of Marietta's adult brothers were dead by July of 1845. A fourth had disappeared while in the custody of the Nauvoo police, and it was feared that he had been killed. Rumors and warnings were rampant that every member of the Hodges family was in danger of being assassinated. Those warnings can be read today in newspapers for that year, including the Warsaw Signal for July 16, 23, and 25, 1845; the Alton Telegraph and Democratic Review, July 1845 (volume l0), page 3; and the Burlington Hawkeye, July 23, 1845. The threat of assassination came because they were going to expose Brigham Young's involvement with a gang of robbers operating out of Nauvoo.
The Hodges Family's Tragedy
On the night of May 12, 1845, across the Mississippi River from Nauvoo in Lee County, Iowa, three robbers forced their way into the home of John Miller, a Mennonite minister, where he and his wife, two daughters, and their husbands were sleeping (Warsaw Signal, June 9, 1845). Iowa authorities allegedly tracked the robbers to the Mississippi River and supposedly picked up the tracks again in Nauvoo. Feelings between the Saints and the residents in surrounding areas had escalated due to charges that a band of robbers was operating out of Nauvoo under Brigham Young's direction. The blame for the murders in Iowa was quickly placed on two of Marietta's brothers, William (twenty) and Stephen (eighteen). To alleviate the prejudice and quiet the rumors that the Mormons were robbing their Gentile neighbors, Nauvoo law officials quickly surrendered the two brothers to the Iowa officers. When they were taken to Iowa, the tension between the Saints and the neighbors was greatly relieved.
Nauvoo police chief, Hosea Stout, explained in his diary that "the matter turned in our favor and they instead of being our enemies as the mob intended became our friends" (Juanita Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier—The Diary of Hosea Stout [University of Utah Press, 1964], 44).
William and Stephen were tried and sentenced to be hanged. After the trial, their brother, Irvine, went to Nauvoo to ask Brigham Young to intervene in their behalf. That night as he neared Brigham's home, which was heavily guarded by policemen, he was clubbed and stabbed to death. Marietta's brother, Amos, was arrested and placed in the Nauvoo jail, from which he disappeared.
It was reported that before going to their deaths at Burlington, Iowa, Stephen and William were going to make statements which would expose Brigham's connection with the gang of robbers. Between eight and ten thousand people gathered to hear their statements, but no such statements were made.
With Irvine dead and Amos presumed dead, William and Stephen apparently feared more reprisals against the family. They looked out upon the crowd and saw only one soul representing their family—their eighteen-year-old sister, Emeline. At their trial she had testified of their innocence, and at their deaths she stood bravely near the scaffold as they died. Emeline then took their bodies back to her sorrowing parents at Nauvoo, where they were buried.
In 1910, sixty-five years later, a Mrs. Mary Hines made a deposition that her husband, John P. Hines, had confessed to her before his death that he and George W. Martin and one other man had killed John Miller and his son-in-law, and that the Hodges brothers were not involved (Saints' Herald, March 2, 1910, p. 230). So history proved that Marietta's brothers were innocent—that they had been sacrificed!
Curtis and Lucy Hodges fled from Nauvoo, taking eleven-year-old Marietta, Emeline, and a son, who was perhaps a minor. This son was so guarded that his name and life's history are yet to be discovered. Brother Hodges took the remnant of his family to... Pennsylvania. According to Marietta's book, With the Church in an Early Day, another brother managed to reach them—but he was ill and died shortly. Soon Father Hodges, "broken and bowed with sorrow," also died—still testifying to his lonely, outcast family that the gospel was true.
MOTHER: Sybil __
FATHER: Curtis Hodges
WIFE: Lucy Clark
CHILDREN:
Sarah L. Hodges
Curtis Hodges, 1810–1845
Amos Hodges
Irvine C. Hodges
William Hodges
Stephen Hodges
Eliza Jane Hodges
Emeline Hodges
James Hodges, 1834–1846
Marietta Hodges
SOURCE: familysearch.org
FURTHER INFORMATION:
1. Citation for the photo of the 1812 Reference Card: United States War of 1812 Index to Service Records, 1812-1815, database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q29K-CGCS : 8 March 2021), Curtis Hodges, 1812-1815; citing NARA microfilm publication M602 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); roll 100; FHL microfilm 882,618.
2. U.S., Army, Register of Enlistments, 1798-1914
Name Curtis Hodges
Birthyear abt 1788
Birthplace New York, United States
Enlistment Age 26
3. The search of this small cemetery, now really just a small park, did not reveal his burial. The location is based on family papers, though could be an error. The description in "With the Church in an Early Day" matches very much the location overlooking the river.
Curtis had a "Patriarchal Blessing" in Nauvoo, which is the source of his birth information, but he left the main body of the Church after Joseph Smith's murder.
He and his sons then followed Sidney Rigdon's church faction to Pennsylvania where he died.
Curtis worked manufacturing wooden pegs for boats. West Elizabeth, Pennsylvania, was a boat-building city at that time.
2.) The following is an excerpt from daughter Marietta's biography written by Pamela Price:
Curtis and Lucy Clark Hodges were converted to the [LDS] Church in the early 1830s, and as a result moved from New York to Willoughby, Ohio. On April 10, 1834, not far from Kirtland Temple, which was then under construction, there was born to them a daughter whom they named Marietta. Marietta was one of the younger children in their large family. The Hodges moved with the Saints from Kirtland to Far West, Missouri, where they purchased a farm of three hundred and twenty acres.
When war erupted between the Saints and other Missouri settlers, Marietta's father and two of her older brothers helped defend the Saints in the Battle of Crooked River. Father Hodges was near Apostle David Patten when they were fired upon—both men were hit and fell. Brother Hodges was wounded in the side but lived. Apostle Patten died from his wounds shortly thereafter. Marietta was only four and a half at the time. However, the wounding of her father and the death of Apostle Patten made a sad and melancholy impression upon her bright, young mind.
On October 27, 1838, Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs issued an order which stated, "The Mormons must be exterminated or driven from the state" (RLDS Church History 2:217). The Hodges family fled along with thousands of other Saints and settled at Nauvoo, where they continued to be active in the Church. Marietta's brother, Amos, served as a traveling missionary for the Church.
Marietta attended the church services and Sunday school classes, and was baptized... She and the Prophet's son, Joseph III, were friends. Many years later Joseph III recalled, "I had had a childhood friendship with the daughter Marietta [Hodges] and others of the family" (Saints' Herald, July 30, 1935, p. 976).
Marietta was ten when Joseph and Hyrum were murdered. Her father took her to the Mansion House to view their bodies. Marietta later described her experience that day in an article entitled, "A Picture from Memory's Wall." She related:
Among those [mourners] . . . was the bent form of an aged man to whose band a little girl [Marietta], a child of some nine or ten summers, was clinging. As they came to the head of the coffins the man bent slowly down and tenderly raised the child in his arms that she might see more clearly the faces of the dead." (Journal of History 3:194, April 1910)
As they journeyed homeward Brother Hodges became so ill that he had to stop and rest. He talked of Joseph and Hyrum and said in an anguished voice: "0, that I ever should have lived to see this day!"
"But, father [Marietta answered], it will not be for long. We shall have Brother Joseph and Brother Hyrum with us again. The grave could not hold Jesus and it cannot hold them. How beautiful they looked this morning, and once I was almost sure I saw a motion of Brother Joseph's lips as though he were going to open them and speak to us."
"It was but imagination, child. His lips will never speak to us again and we shall see him no more until he comes with his Savior in the clouds of heaven to reign with him upon this earth. His work on earth is finished. Wicked men have taken his life. . . ."
"But he will [come to life] father, you will see!" and all the unchallenged faith of a child was in the dark and tearful eyes she raised to his face. (ibid.,195)
This tragedy was only the beginning of sorrows for Brother Hodges and his family. Three of Marietta's adult brothers were dead by July of 1845. A fourth had disappeared while in the custody of the Nauvoo police, and it was feared that he had been killed. Rumors and warnings were rampant that every member of the Hodges family was in danger of being assassinated. Those warnings can be read today in newspapers for that year, including the Warsaw Signal for July 16, 23, and 25, 1845; the Alton Telegraph and Democratic Review, July 1845 (volume l0), page 3; and the Burlington Hawkeye, July 23, 1845. The threat of assassination came because they were going to expose Brigham Young's involvement with a gang of robbers operating out of Nauvoo.
The Hodges Family's Tragedy
On the night of May 12, 1845, across the Mississippi River from Nauvoo in Lee County, Iowa, three robbers forced their way into the home of John Miller, a Mennonite minister, where he and his wife, two daughters, and their husbands were sleeping (Warsaw Signal, June 9, 1845). Iowa authorities allegedly tracked the robbers to the Mississippi River and supposedly picked up the tracks again in Nauvoo. Feelings between the Saints and the residents in surrounding areas had escalated due to charges that a band of robbers was operating out of Nauvoo under Brigham Young's direction. The blame for the murders in Iowa was quickly placed on two of Marietta's brothers, William (twenty) and Stephen (eighteen). To alleviate the prejudice and quiet the rumors that the Mormons were robbing their Gentile neighbors, Nauvoo law officials quickly surrendered the two brothers to the Iowa officers. When they were taken to Iowa, the tension between the Saints and the neighbors was greatly relieved.
Nauvoo police chief, Hosea Stout, explained in his diary that "the matter turned in our favor and they instead of being our enemies as the mob intended became our friends" (Juanita Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier—The Diary of Hosea Stout [University of Utah Press, 1964], 44).
William and Stephen were tried and sentenced to be hanged. After the trial, their brother, Irvine, went to Nauvoo to ask Brigham Young to intervene in their behalf. That night as he neared Brigham's home, which was heavily guarded by policemen, he was clubbed and stabbed to death. Marietta's brother, Amos, was arrested and placed in the Nauvoo jail, from which he disappeared.
It was reported that before going to their deaths at Burlington, Iowa, Stephen and William were going to make statements which would expose Brigham's connection with the gang of robbers. Between eight and ten thousand people gathered to hear their statements, but no such statements were made.
With Irvine dead and Amos presumed dead, William and Stephen apparently feared more reprisals against the family. They looked out upon the crowd and saw only one soul representing their family—their eighteen-year-old sister, Emeline. At their trial she had testified of their innocence, and at their deaths she stood bravely near the scaffold as they died. Emeline then took their bodies back to her sorrowing parents at Nauvoo, where they were buried.
In 1910, sixty-five years later, a Mrs. Mary Hines made a deposition that her husband, John P. Hines, had confessed to her before his death that he and George W. Martin and one other man had killed John Miller and his son-in-law, and that the Hodges brothers were not involved (Saints' Herald, March 2, 1910, p. 230). So history proved that Marietta's brothers were innocent—that they had been sacrificed!
Curtis and Lucy Hodges fled from Nauvoo, taking eleven-year-old Marietta, Emeline, and a son, who was perhaps a minor. This son was so guarded that his name and life's history are yet to be discovered. Brother Hodges took the remnant of his family to... Pennsylvania. According to Marietta's book, With the Church in an Early Day, another brother managed to reach them—but he was ill and died shortly. Soon Father Hodges, "broken and bowed with sorrow," also died—still testifying to his lonely, outcast family that the gospel was true.
MOTHER: Sybil __
FATHER: Curtis Hodges
WIFE: Lucy Clark
CHILDREN:
Sarah L. Hodges
Curtis Hodges, 1810–1845
Amos Hodges
Irvine C. Hodges
William Hodges
Stephen Hodges
Eliza Jane Hodges
Emeline Hodges
James Hodges, 1834–1846
Marietta Hodges
SOURCE: familysearch.org
FURTHER INFORMATION:
1. Citation for the photo of the 1812 Reference Card: United States War of 1812 Index to Service Records, 1812-1815, database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q29K-CGCS : 8 March 2021), Curtis Hodges, 1812-1815; citing NARA microfilm publication M602 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); roll 100; FHL microfilm 882,618.
2. U.S., Army, Register of Enlistments, 1798-1914
Name Curtis Hodges
Birthyear abt 1788
Birthplace New York, United States
Enlistment Age 26
3. The search of this small cemetery, now really just a small park, did not reveal his burial. The location is based on family papers, though could be an error. The description in "With the Church in an Early Day" matches very much the location overlooking the river.
Family Members
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