The passing of a pioneer sheriff
Edwin T. Dodge, a veteran of the California gold rush and early lawman who helped dismantle legendary highwayman gangs, has died at the Occidental Hotel.
Yesterday morning Edwin T. Dodge, one of the foremost farmers of the Swinomish country, died at the Occidental Hotel in this city of bronchitis, with which he had long been ailing. The deceased was an early pioneer on this coast, having come to California in Col. Stevenson's regiment in the year 1846, where he gained for himself the respect of his comrades for his good conduct and bravery. Subsequent to the discovery of gold and the admission of California as a State, he was for a long time engaged on the police force in Marysville and as deputy-sheriff of Yuba county, and while so engaged took a conspicuous part in the arrests of Tom Bell's and Joaquin Murrieta's bands of highwaymen, who for a long time were a terror to the people of that State. In 1858 he went from California to British Columbia where he was for several years engaged in a large and lucrative business. Leaving there in 1864, he located in this Territory on the Swinomish Flats, or rather on the flats at the mouth of the Skagit river, where he opened up a fine and extensive farm on which his family, consisting of a wife and two children, now are. Capt. Dodge was a kind husband and father, an upright business man and highly respected by a wide acquaintanceship. His remains will be taken to his family residence for burial on the place.
“Capt. Dodge was a kind husband and father, an upright business man and highly respected by a wide acquaintanceship.”
The transition from rough-and-tumble California gold fields to settling down on the Swinomish Flats mirrors the journey of many who sought to build a permanent, agrarian legacy in the Pacific Northwest after the boom years. His death at a hotel far from his homestead underscores how vulnerable these early settlers were to respiratory illnesses that were then common yet often fatal without modern treatment.
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