JOSEPH L. HUGHES                                  

The Baldwin Ledger, Friday, Feb. 25, 1916, Pg. 1

Vol. XXXIII, No. 28

Joseph L. Hughes.

  Highland county, Ohio, January 29, 1837, died in Wellsville, February 16, 1916, aged 79 years and 18 days.

  When ten years old he moved with his parents to Knox county, Ill. near Galesburg, where he lived until he had reached the age of 19, when he came to Kansas.  In 1859 he returned to Illinois, where he was married on Feb. 12, 1859, to Catherine Harshberger, who survives.  Immediately after their marriage they came to Kansas, settling on a farm two miles northeast of Wellsville, which Mr. Hughes homesteaded.  Later he sold this place for $400, and moved to Black Jack, and still later to the farm north and west of town which he pre-empted.  Mr. and Mrs. Hughes lived on this place until five years ago, when they divided their property, giving each of the six children an eighty acre tract.

  During the war times Mr. Hughes teamed between Ft. Leavenworth and Fort Scott and at the time Quantrell made his raid barely escaped the Missourians.

  In the spring of 1862 a company was made up in this vicinity, and Mr. Hughes joined it, enlisting in the Second Missouri Battalion, at Harrisonville, Mo., April 15th, and served under Lieut. Nugent and Maj. A. H. Deane.  He was at Independence on August 11, 1862, when Quantrell and Price’s men surprised and killed and captured many of the Union soldiers.  Mr. Hughes and about 60 others escaped at that time, and shortly afterwards he was mustered out of the service.

  Mr. Hughes was the last of his immediate family.  Senator J. B. Foraker, was a cousin.

  Mr. Hughes was the last of his 29 grandchildren and 29 great-grandchildren survive.  Three children are dead, Verna, Freddie and Frankie.

  The surviving children are Mrs. Melissa Seyler, Mrs. Roselia Kretsinger, M. A. Hughes, J. L. Hughes, Jr., C. W. Hughes, and Mrs. J. H. Todd all of Wellsville.