Examples of the abrupt nature of life often pop up close together. Mendocino County has been no stranger to such occurences.
The town of Mendocino's history of dentists remained tainted for years following the relatively brief tenure of John Fleming Wheeler in the late 1870s. His lawless tale must be reserved for the time being in order to discuss one William Horace Hodghead. Admittedly, Hodghead was not a surname that conveyed immediate confidence from his potential dental clientele. William Hodghead was not his name when he entered the world in the first week of November, 1861, in Lexington, Virginia. His father, a farmer named Alex, spelled the last name as Hogshead, as had his father before him.
Who can blame William for altering the spelling to Hodghead. His father died when William had just turned nineteen. So the young man made his way west to California and the Mendocino Coast, where he worked in the woods for five years. To better his fortunes, in 1885 he traveled east to enter Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. At that place of higher learning William Hodghead earned his degree in dentistry. He returned to California, first practicing his trade in Ukiah for about a decade before hanging his shingle in Mendocino City in 1897. For the next eight years, “through diligence and conscientious work,” according to a coastal newspaper, “he succeeded in building a good business and accumulating quite a little prosperity.”
The same publication also described Dr. Hodghead as a man who “invariably had a word of cheer and encouragement” for all he met. “Everybody was his friend.”
About noon on a cold December 18, 1905, Dr. Hodghead stepped out his back door to gather an armload of wood from a pile stacked in his yard. A neighbor, Mrs. Silvia, observed him walk toward the wood pile then slump forward onto it. Mendocino's physician, Dr. Milliken, who usually occupied an adjacent office, was away at the time, so another neighbor, R.R. Armas ran and fetched Dr. Piersol. Though Dr. Piersol worked on the stricken man, nothing could be done. At an inquest that followed, both Dr. Piersol and Dr. Milliken agreed that death “was a plain case of apoplexy.”
Four days after Dr. Hodghead's sudden demise, Mendocino County Sheriff J.H. “Henry” Smith escorted forty-three year old Frank Willard into the chambers of Judge John Quincy White. Mr. Willard had a couple of years previously been arrested, put on trial then acquitted on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon. Earlier in 1905, Willard, in his tailored suit and sporting a well-coiffed Van Dyke beard, had been booked on the charge of carrying concealed weapons. That very morning he had been picked up again on similar charges as well as being deemed insane. Sheriff Smith took his knife and money, and asked him if he had a revolver. Willard replied in the negative.
At almost every arrest Frank Willard would claim that he plied the trade of special detective appointed by the President of the United States and the Governor of California. Unfortunately, no such appointments had actually been made, so Willard gained the reputation as a slightly tipsy, slightly crazy man, who, nevertheless, might be carrying a knife or gun.
The examination by Judge White concluded and the spectators left the room, leaving Judge White, Sheriff Smith and the under sheriff with the prisoner. Physicians had pronounced Willard insane and the judge ordered him committed to the state hospital. The accused rose and started to leave the room. Within a few feet of the door he whirled around, pulled a revolver from his hip pocket, and fired at Smith. The round struck the sheriff in the face and he fell to the floor, death more or less instantaneous.
Willard then fired on Judge White, just five or six feet distant. The bullet missed the jurist but struck the edge of an open door near him.
Willard raced downstairs and on outside the county courthouse, brandishing his gun. He ran east down Perkins Street, cut across a hop field, then crossed the Russian River, heading toward Vichy Springs. Two deputies, armed with Winchesters, used a delivery wagon and its team to hurry to the Vichy Road. They spotted their prey as he headed into a canyon and fired several shots in his direction. With the rounds ricocheting closer and closer around him, Willard threw down his revolver, raised his hands skyward, and surrendered.
A half dozen other officers of the law joined the original captors as they brought Willard back toward town. As they neared the city limits, an enraged mob met the officers and the wagon. One man grabbed hold of the lead horse pulling the wagon and was dragged for a hundred yards before disengaging. Others held ropes shaped into nooses, while many in the crowd hollered for the officers to hand over Willard to their swift justice. The fugitive whimpered, whined and cried aloud for protection. The lawmen, with weapons drawn, threatened to shoot anyone who interfered.
Under these threats, Willard was returned to the courthouse, but the officers had to withstand many a punch thrown at them by the mob before they could secure their prisoner inside the jail. A dozen or so prominent citizens of Ukiah stood at the courthouse door shouting to the mob to let justice play out and citing the prisoner's mental state. “He's only drunk,” proved the only intelligible reply from the throats of the mob.
Once the mob lost sight of Willard inside the jail and the lawmen and leading citizenry stood firm, they quieted, slowly dispersed, and the possibility of a lynching disappeared with them. Later, Willard was removed to the state hospital at Talmage to await trial.
Sheriff Smith was just under fifty years of age. He had spent almost all his life in Mendocino County, with decades of law enforcement experience. He filled out an unexpired term as Mendocino County Sheriff in 1897, then won election to the office on his own merits in 1898, and re-election in 1902. According to local papers and the San Francisco Call, Smith “was one of the most popular officials the county ever had.” He left behind a wife, grown children, elderly parents, and two brothers to grieve his sudden death.
Less than two months later the Healdsburg Enterprise reported, “Henry Willard, a brother of Frank Willard, the half-breed, who shot and killed Sheriff Smith a few weeks ago, was shot and fatally injured by Jim Meyers, in Meyers & Cantrell’s saloon at Hopland. Henry, like his brother, Frank, is known as a bad man, and it is claimed that the two shot and killed their stepfather some years ago. Since the conviction and sentence of Frank Willard, Henry has been drinking heavily. Monday evening he came to Hopland and going to the saloon started a rough house. Meyers drove him away, but he returned shortly afterward, and as he reached as if to draw a gun, Meyers blazed away at him, firing three shots, all of which took effect.”
Frank Willard was found guilty of murder at trial. He was hanged until dead at San Quentin on June, 14, 1907.
Other signs of justice acting slowly and injustice suddenly at malcolmmacdonaldoutlawford.com
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