James Hendricks I

*This article is about James Hendricks I, the Echo character. You may be looking for his descendant, James Hendricks III from The Smoke Room, or his son, James II.*

## Physical Description

### Gender

Male

James Hendricks I was the founder of the town of Echo. He became rich after finding gold and founding the successful Hendricks Mining Company. After being accused of sodomy with his friend and business partner John Begay in 1875, James moved to the West Coast where he founded Hen's Ice Cream. James Hendricks I died in 1891 of an insect bite, leaving behind a family line including James Hendricks III and Carl Hendricks.

## Appearance

James is never shown in-person but based on his portrait, his silhouette in Carl's route, and the features that he passed on to his descendants, he was presumably a tall and muscular ram with large horns.

## Story

### Early life and founding Echo

James was born in the year 1825 to an immigrant family from Eire. He had a father named Martin and two sisters named Jane and Martha. The family experienced prejudice in their new country and suffered severe abuse from Martin, who many suspected of killing Martha when she was just five years old. Martin was a plumber who was frequently exposed to lead piping, which may potentially explain some of his irritable and violent behavior. James left home at age fifteen, promising Jane that he would find a way for both of them to escape their father.

In the 1850s, James traveled out west during the gold rush and became acquainted with a desert fox native to the Meseta tribe named John Begay. The two became close and John helped James to lay claim to the mine when he eventually did strike gold in 1852. After the founding of Hendricks Mining Company thousands of people flocked to the area and it became Echo, named after the nearby canyon.

### Life in Echo, crimes, and relationship with John

The enormous success of Hendricks Mining Company made James very rich, and he built a large mansion on a hill to live in. Inspired by the castles of Eire, James seems to have had grand ambitions for the house; his grandson James III says his vision would have amounted to the creation of something more akin to a citadel than a manor. James I frequently expanded the building, creating numerous secret passages and even strange traps in the process, but ultimately left much of the work unfinished and never passed the complete floor plans on to his descendents.

James' wealth allowed him to support his sister Jane by sending her a yearly sum of money, although he never sent any to his parents. In 1860 he married a woman named Emma and eventually had five children: James II, Thomas, Genevieve, Carol, and Martha.

At an unknown point, James' friendship with John became romantic. The relationship between the two was illegal at the time as well as extramarital, and so their status as lovers had to be kept secret. To this end, James either built or bought a cabin in the woods just past Echo Canyon where John often stayed while James was with his wife and family or away on business.

While keeping up his seemingly reputable façade, James also spent an unknown amount of time systematically kidnapping, sexually abusing, and murdering boys from the Meseta tribe. He used a dungeon in his sprawling mansion to sequester them away so his crimes went unnoticed, and his prestige in the town kept him well above suspicion.

James eventually brought John to his mansion, where he stayed in a secret room. In 1875, John stumbled across the mansion's dungeon and learned about his lover's crimes. Horrified, John publicly accused James for his role in the disappearances. James turned the story around by accusing John of the crime in turn, and James' wealth and power ensured that the townsfolk took his side. The citizens of Echo lynched John, and James was released but fled Echo to escape the shame of being publicly labeled a sodomite.

In 1877 Echo was badly depopulated by a mass hysteria event possibly related to the betrayal of John by James and James' subsequent coverup.

### Later life, death, and legacy

After leaving Echo In 1878, James began living in solitude somewhere on the West Coast. He started an ice cream business called Hen's Ice Cream in the 1880s, which would go on to become wildly successful many decades later. He died in his villa of an unusual insect bite in 1891. James' descendants inherited his ice cream company, his vast wealth, and his mansion in Echo, which passed through the generations to eventually become the home of Carl Hendricks and his family, although it also seems to have partly or entirely burned down and been rebuilt at some point.

Many years later, Carl's mother Trisha Hendricks uncovered a lockbox containing letters exchanged between James and John while the former was in jail, revealing that James had pinned his crimes on John. Despite this revelation, Trisha's research was never widely publicized and James' atrocities remained hidden.

The ghost of James lingers in the Hendricks mansion during the events of Echo, although the degree to which the apparition is truly James' spirit or a 'copy' made by a greater power is unclear. The spirit influences Carl and causes him to 'sleepwalk' on various occasions, leading to him ending up in the mansion's crawlspace on the day of his surprise birthday party across most routes.

### William's Route

William briefly alludes to the story of James and John, and explains to Sam that even in 1915 the scandal still hangs over the Hendricks family. Notably, the murders are pinned on John in the version of events that Will is familiar with, indicating that James was successful in burying any evidence of his crimes. In place of the truth, the lingering controversy surrounding James I relates instead to the rumored sexual relationship between him and John, and James' perceived failure to move more quickly to expose his lover.

Later, Will visits the Hendricks mansion and observes the large painted portrait of James I hanging in the foyer, which he eventually discovers has hinges and conceals a hollow space. He also learns that James III, inspired by his grandfather's ambition, has devised a series of additions onto the house.

### Carl's Route

Shortly before the events of Echo, the spirits of James and John were brought back by an unknown entity and forced to play a "game" regarding the truth of James' crimes and John's innocence. Without bodies of their own, James and John possess their descendants, with James taking over Carl's body. Throughout the latter part of the route, James uses his influence over Carl to protect his legacy by destroying or obscuring evidence of his guilt in the Meseta child kidnappings, while John's spirit in Jenna attempts to bring the truth to light.

In Carl's bad ending, James fully takes control over Carl and kills Jenna to dispel John before burning down the mansion and all the incriminating evidence within it. As the mansion burns, however, James is pulled out of Carl by the spirits of the Meseta children he murdered and consigned to an unknown fate.

In the good ending, with Chase's encouragement Carl is able to fight against James, and eventually seems to suppress his influence completely.

### Other Routes

James Hendricks I is mentioned by Mayor Moore on Saturday of Flynn's route, during the meeting at City Hall about what is causing Echo's worsening hysteria. While searching for a justification to pin the madness on Chase, Mayor Moore brings up James Hendricks I, who like Chase also committed the 'sin' of sodomy and lived during one of the town's previous mass hysteria events.

James is indirectly mentioned during Cliff's route should Sam choose to follow Cliff and Murdoch into the mysterious cabin the expedition party discovers in the woods near Echo. Upon entering the cabin, Sam stumbles across an apparition of John Begay who speaks to him as though he were talking to James, seemingly repeating a memory of a conversation held between the two. In Murdoch's route, Dahlia mentions an unsubstantiated rumor that James Hendricks I exhumed John Begay's body and removed it from Echo's cemetery, for unknown reasons.

Throughout The Smoke Room, James Hendricks III occasionally refers back to his family history as well, seemingly taking pride in James I's work in founding both Echo's mining operations and Hen's Ice Cream Company. He keeps a large painting of James I in a place of prominence in his foyer.

## Relationships

### John Begay

James and John were once business partners and lovers, with James relying on John for his knowledge of the region and John being hopelessly devoted to James and helping him expand his influence and business. James however was often an inattentive partner, and kept John on the periphery of his life despite his loyalty. When John threatened to expose James' crimes, James was willing to frame John and ultimately orchestrate his death in order to save himself and protect his own reputation. Their spirits are bitterly opposed to one another, and James shows no remorse for betraying John.

### Chase Hunter

While James is possessing Carl, Chase seems to become an object of his desire and they have a brief sexual encounter. James nonetheless treats Chase brusquely and dismissively, and in the bad ending of Carl's route James shows he is very willing to kill Chase to further his goals.

### Carl Hendricks

Carl is convinced that his house is haunted, and the persisting paranormal influence of James and his victims is likely the cause of the unease that he feels when alone in the mansion.

In Carl's route James attempts to use Carl for his own ends, but Carl describes it as empowering and initially enjoys the confidence that James' spirit grants him. When James is forcibly removed from Carl's body after taking complete control, however, whatever remains of Carl's personality seems badly diminished, indicating that James only ever intended to overwrite Carl and replace him.

## Gallery

A portrait of James shown in the promotional art for the twenty-first build of The Smoke Room.A partial background from The Smoke Room, showing the same portrait as it appears from the foyer of the Hendricks mansion.