The city of Hubbard, Ore., accepted the Washington State Law Enforcement Medal of Honor on Friday on behalf of one of Spokane's earliest and, until recently, least-known police officers.

The medal was awarded last year to Ephriam Jackson Hubbard, who was the second Spokane police officer to be killed in the line of duty. No descendant of Hubbard could be found to receive the award at the time it was issued, but several descendants joined Mayor Don Phwing for Friday's ceremony at the Hubbard City Hall.

The relatives and the namesake community about 15 miles south of Portland were located as the result of a Spokesman-Review story in May about Medal of Honor recipient Robert Rusk, who became Spokane's first slain officer in April 1886.

The story mentioned officials' inability to locate descendants of Hubbard, who was shot to death by a prisoner's son a year after Rusk was killed in an ambush.

At the time, officials thought Hubbard's first name was Edward -- although he went by John or Jack -- but Salem, Ore., genealogist Clara Hubbard Foster recognized him as her second cousin, once removed.

Foster got in touch with Rae Anna Victor, a Spokane County Sheriff's Office communications supervisor who researches law enforcement history on behalf of the Jonas Babcock Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The Mead-based DAR chapter, which nominated Hubbard for the Medal of Honor, arranged Friday's presentation ceremony in cooperation with the Belle Passi Chapter of Canby, Ore.

Foster's and Victor's research indicates Hubbard was one of eight children of Charles and Margaret Hubbard, a couple who came West in 1847 and settled in Oregon's Willamette Valley.

The family settled on land that later became the city of Hubbard when Charles Hubbard gave it to a railroad to persuade the company to lay tracks through the area. Ephriam Hubbard, who was born about 1850, married next-door neighbor Mary Ann Boothe in 1872 and they had three young daughters when they moved to Dayton, Wash., where he worked as a teamster.

By 1882, Hubbard was one of two assistants to Spokane's first city marshal, Eugene B. Hyde.

In September 1886, he set out for the Badger Mountain area of Douglas County, near the Columbia River, to bring in a man wanted for murder in Missouri. Unable to find another police officer to accompany him on the bounty hunt, he went with fellow volunteer firefighter Frank Aiken.

With help from the Okanogan County sheriff, they captured suspect Thomas Paine without incident. Hubbard and Aiken were on their way back to Spokane with Paine when Paine's son rode up behind them near Grand Coulee and opened fire with a Winchester rifle.

According to Aiken, as reported by the Spokane Morning Review, Paine was the first to die from his son's fusillade. Then Hubbard was hit, first in the leg and then in the face.

Aiken thought Hubbard was dead, and escaped in a buckboard with two wounded horses.

A coroner's inquest later found that Hubbard died of a third bullet after getting up and trying to walk away.

He was buried in the Rescue Hose Company's lot at Fairmount Memorial Park in Spokane.

A published report in 1887 said Paine's son remained unmolested at the family ranch, where he lived in a fortress-like home and was always well-armed.

Another report said he surrendered voluntarily in 1890, but wasn't prosecuted because the only witness, Aiken, was dead.