Luke Hughes

LUKE HUGHES, one of the oldest settlers of Mineral township, Cherokee County, is the owner of a fine farm of 160 acres situated in section 9, township 32, range 24. He was born in 1829 in Ireland, and is a son of Michael and Fannie (Stiles) Hughes.

The parents of Mr. Hughes came with their children to America in 1848. The mother died the age of 52 years, but the father survived to the age of 90. They had 11 children, and five members of this vigorous family still live, namely: Luke, Mary, Ann, Jane and Margaret.

The subject of this sketch accompanied his parents to Pennsylvania, where he soon found employment in the Whitney iron foundry, and spent three years there, engaged in the manufacture of car wheels. He then went to Wisconsin and worked at blacksmithing and foundry work for a time, after which he was employed at his trade in St. Louis for about 1O years. Then he removed to Wyandotte, Kansas, and three years later worked on a new railroad then being constructed from Olathe. Here he was employed until the line was completed when he settled on his first farm,—the 160 acres on which his son Michael is located, and which the latter now owns as a gift from his father. In 1887 Mr. Hughes traded property for his present farm of 160 acres, and has resided upon it ever since.

In 1858, Mr. Hughes married Ann Costello, and they have had 11 children, the survivors of the family being Fannie, Michael, Daniel, Joseph and Edward. James died December 31, 1903. Considering the many disadvantages under which Mr. Hughes labored during the earlier years of his children, and the unsettled state of the country, each received a good mental training and is well settled in life.

Few men are better qualified to relate the occurrences of the pioneer times in Mineral township than Mr. Hughes. Gifted with an excellent memory, and having been associated with so many of the township's early enterprises, he can bring to the mind of the visitor very vivid scenes of the struggles, hardships and final accomplishments of those who first occupied these rolling prairies, after the Indian had been banished farther West.

History of Cherokee County Kansas and its representative citizens, ed. & comp. by Nathaniel Thompson Allison, 1904, transcribed by students from USD 508, Baxter Middle School, Baxter Springs, Kansas, 12-26-96.