HUGHES: Henry Thomas, of New California and Spencer.
In the decate of the eighteen and fifties, (Thomas Hughes and his cousin), Henry Thomas Hughes, of the Hughes family of the lower Monongahela near Fairmont, western Virginia, and of the New Jersey family of the next preceding pages of this name, arrived with Thomas and commenced his part in the building of this county. Josiah, with his family, at first settled in Cassville (As Tanners Crossroads was then called), and from the youth of the nephew, Henry T., then unmarried, it is inferred that he made his home with the uncle for about one year and until he met Miss Rebecca C. Peebles, a Virginia lady, then visiting the Reverend Joseph Wright, the first Baptist preacher of the village and surrounding country, whose wife, Martha Peebles Wright, was her sister.
Such was Rebecca's charm and Henry T.'s love that he returned to Virginia with her, or followed soon, and they were married at her home in the "Old Dominion." These young people -- Henry T. having been born November 28, 1828 -- at once returned here and purchased an "improvement" located on Left Fork of Reedy Creek about a mile above the then promising village, Reedyville. Just how long they lived there we can not say; Henry T. Hughes had taken a law course as part of his education and had been admitted to the bar; he was also a practical surveyor and his work in either vocation brought him much to the Town of Cassville. We find by a plat of a survey of the town, made by him, dated 1852, that at this date the town was incorporated as the Town of New California, a facetious name, the bestowing of which we are persuaded he did not like, because he was a man of the finer tastes. We are justified from circumstances in saying that he took a leading part in the propaganda and formation of the new county~-Roane. He was right there at Reedyville among the strong men of the northern part of the proposed new county and companion in activities with John P. Thomasson, Albert O. Ingraham, Mordecai J. Thomasson and others active in maneuvering for the new county; however, on the 23rd of June, 1856, Henry T. Hughes must have been a resident of New California, for on that date he bought from Alexander West, Jr., all the lands owned by Alexander, Jr., a tract of ninety acres lying to the south of the turnpike, surveyed and platted out a large addition of lots adjoining the first tier of lots fronting on Main Street. On the ninetY-aCre tract he built a substantial home, locating it on the knoll overlooking the Runnion mill; this was a weather~board and frame house, white with green shutters, easily known as the residence of one of the countys notables, especially for some ten years next after the Civil War. This house has passed through the hands of several notables since: Sheriff P. A. Tallman, Deputy Sheriff A. J. Bowyer, Deputy Sheriff 1. I. Riley, and now remodeled is the property of Deputy County Clerk Anderson M. McKoWn.
Henry Thomas Hughes was elected and served as Roane County's member in the House of Delegates of the State, tenth session, convened at Charleston, year 1872.
The children of Henry T. and Rebecca (Peebles) Hughes, whose names we can give here are: David William Hughes and JameS Stark Hughes, both at this time (1926) business men residents of San Diego, California; Irena Ann, wife of Charles Bee, a resident business man of parkersburg, West Virginia; H. Clark Hughes, a prominent resident business mnn of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Jennie B., widow of H. Frank Goff, deceased, former sheriff of Roane County, long a resident of the City of Spencer. Her children, two sons and one daughter: Henry T. Goff, now a young lawyer trying it in the City of New York, and Raymond Goff, a business man of the city, not long ago married, and Miss Ruby, living with the mother in Spencer.
Source: History of Roane County, West Virginia, 1774-1927 William H. Bishop, Esq. p 560-561
Submitter: Sandy Spradling, November 28, 1999
