Published: May 19, 2008 04:19 pm            

John Watson: James Hogg — First native-born Texas governor

In 1838 Colonel Joseph L. Hogg immigrated to the Republic of Texas from Alabama. The Colonel helped write the constitution of 1845. After the Mexican war the Hogg family settled on the Mountain Home Plantation, two miles southeast of Rusk in Cherokee County.

On March 24, 1851, James Stephen Hogg was born in a large rambling log cabin on the plantation. James’ father died in 1862, during the Civil War, and his mother died a year later. Twelve-year-old James assumed his share of work on the plantation and continued his schooling. When the war ended much of the plantation was sold to pay taxes and buy food and clothing.

James began working as a printer at the Rusk newspaper and in other towns. He was both a newspaperman and a printer. He learned the printing trade at Rusk, where he and Horace Chilton set type side by side and worked on many editions of the paper, edited by Judge Dillard, on an old hand press. After leaving Rusk, Hogg came to Cleburne and worked for a time, but the paper where he was employed blew up, and he began a return journey to Rusk.

He started on foot but had not proceeded far when he was picked up by the driver of a wagon who kindly gave him a ride to Rusk.

He returned to Mountain Home when he was 19 to recuperate from a serious gunshot wound inflicted by a band of outlaws who had attacked him while he was helping the sheriff in Quitman.

As the wound mended James studied law. In 1870 he went to work for a newspaper in Tyler. He was admitted to the bar in 1875 and later became a successful politician.

James Hogg held his first public office in 1878 as county attorney of Wood County. He was later elected district attorney for the seventh judicial district. He became attorney general of Texas in 1886 and was re-elected two years later. He easily won the Democratic nomination for governor in 1890 and held the office from 1891 through 1895. Governor Hogg was the first native-born governor of Texas.

James Hogg was an imposing figure at 6 feet 2 inches and 285 pounds. The feisty governor was a popular advocate of the common citizen. He did much to strengthen public respect for law enforcement in general. He helped establish the powerful Railroad Commission, and he also sponsored anti-trust legislation.

After leaving the governor’s office he kept an active interest in government but held no other public office. He died in Houston on March 6, 1906, and is buried in Austin.

James Hogg and his wife, Sarah Ann, had four children. Their only daughter, Miss Ima (1882-1975), was well known as a philanthropist during her long life in Texas.

I first visited the Hogg Historical Site last year, and in later correspondence with Terrie Gonzalez, managing editor of the Cherokeean Herald, I learned that the present house is a late reconstruction, the original having burned in 1906. I went back this year to find more details. Marie Whitehead, owner of the newspaper, gave me access to her newspaper files, where I found the following information.

James Hogg’s children reclaimed 163 acres of the original plantation in 1940 and donated the land for a state park. Nothing remains of the old log cabin where Hogg was born. The structure burned shortly after Hogg’s death in 1906. A family cemetery is located on the property, and James Hogg’s mother and brother are buried there.

In the 1960s the state started working on plans to reconstruct the old home place. The state hired architect Stewart Lambert, who later designed the depot buildings for the Texas State Railroad Historical Park, to draw up plans for reconstructing the Hogg house.

Lambert spent time studying what was left of the foundation of the original house and looking over old pictures. He finally had the architectural plans ready and sent them to the Parks and Wildlife building committee in 1968.

Ima Hogg visited the old home place shortly after the reconstruction was finished.

When I asked Whitehead what Ima Hogg had to say about the reconstructed home, she said, “That is not written down anywhere that you can read it. I was told by Stewart Lambert, who was an employee of Parks and Wildlife, and also my friend Jean Grey Meyers, and her father, Eldridge Grey; they worked very closely with Parks and Wildlife. At the time this conversation was held with me, it was several years after the replica had been completed and Ima had been up and seen it. They said that she was visibly unhappy with the authenticity of the replication, that it did not at all match her memory of the way the home had looked.”

The house may not be an exact replica, but it does give you an idea of the type house that Governor Hogg lived in.

Note: Some of the early history of Governor Hogg came from the book, “A history of the Rusk Cherokeean, 1847-1973” by Marie Hall Whitehead, Bachelor of Science, presented to the faculty of the graduate school of Stephen F. Austin State University. This was her senior thesis at Stephen F. Austin State University. She went back to college after her daughters were grown and earned her bachelor’s degree.



John Watson is a Cleburne resident who can be reached at texastraveler@sbcglobal.net.

        

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