Essex

HUGH, John & Samuel

Vermont Historical Magazine, No. XI, October 1867, pp 1032-1035
(extracted from a section on the history of Maidstone, Essex County, Vermont)

Among the earliest settlers of Maidstone [Essex County, Vermont] was John 
HUGH, who was born in 1737 in Musselborough, Scotland. He was only eight 
years of age when the celebrated battle of Preston Pans was fought in the 
same town, and well remembered his father's returning home after the battle 
was over. While in the company of four other boys of his own age along the 
banks of the Frith of Forth enjoying a holiday at the age of sixteen, he 
[John HUGH] with the others were enticed to go on board a small vessel lying 
not far distant. After they were on board they soon learned that they were 
captives to a press gang then in the employ of and sanctioned by the British 
government. They were soon placed on board of a man of war, and neither ever 
saw their home, kindred, or country again.

At this period the English were at war with the French, and the vessel was 
bound for the Colonies in America. After a stormy passage they made the port 
of Boston. By an understanding between the boys they affected to be well 
pleased with their new life and duties. They were furnished with soldiers' 
clothes and rations. After remaining on board for a sufficient time to quiet 
suspicion, one night when the sentinel was drowsy, they let themselves down 
the vessel's side by ropes and made their escape by swimming to the shore. 
Being entirely ignorant of the country and its inhabitants, they traveled by 
night through the new sparsely settled region and lay still during the day. 
But at length, pressed for food, they called at a farmer's house by the name 
of HARRIMAN, in Plaistow [County], New Hampshire. Here they were received 
with kindness, and acting under advice, they all changed their clothing and 
separated in order to evade being recaptured.

The subject of this narrative [John HUGH], from this time to the commencement 
of the Revolutionary War, made his home with his benefactor, and subsequently 
married Anna HARRIMAN, his daughter. He was in he War of the Revolution, and 
fought at the battles of Bunker Hill, Bennington, and Ticonderoga. From 
Plaistow he removed to Haverhill [County], New Hampshire, where he purchased 
a farm, and was the seventh family in that town. From here he removed to 
Newbury [County], Vermont, and bought a farm on the great Ox Bow. This place 
he sold subsequently, and took the whole pay in Continental money, which 
proved to be entirely worthless. From here he moved to Derryfield, now 
Manchester [County], New Hampshire, and from there afterward to Maidstone 
[County], Vermont, in March 1781. He purchased the place on which he lived 
and died, of Mr. LINSEY the year before, the same being now owned by D. H. 
and T. G. BEATTIE. At the time Mr. [John] HUGH moved to Maidstone the whole 
country was almost an unbroken wilderness. There were no roads of any kind, 
and the settlers had to make the tedious circuit of the river on the ice. 
The snow was very deep, and the weather intensely cold. The family suffered 
extreme hardships in getting through. After a clearing was made sufficiently 
large a small log house was built, then came he scarcity of provisions, the 
terror of Indians, and all the other privations, fears and hardships incident 
to the settlement of a new country in those days.

By the time some of the sons had grown up, and owing to their skill with the 
gun, and their experience in border life, they gave great offense to the 
Indians. The settlers never went into the woods to hunt for cattle, nor into 
the fields to work, but what they had firearms always at hand. In addition 
to the hatred the Indians bore to John HUGH and sons, they had a pecuniary 
motive in taking them prisoners, dead or alive, for a bounty was paid the 
Indians by the British government for all prisoners taken alive into Canada, 
and $5 for each scalp.

About this time a party of British Indians came in from Canada by way of the 
Connecticut River. They took several prisoners as they came along, and 
amongst them was James LUTHER. With a view of securing John HUGH and some of 
his sons, the party encamped just back of Mr. BEATTIE's orchard in the woods 
at that time, intending to make the attack the next morning at the break of 
day. As it happened by accident that morning Mr. [John] HUGH and his eldest 
son, John, got up very early intending to go over a line of sable traps which 
they had set, running directly west from the river some five miles. Thinking 
that their guns might want cleaning, they washed them out, and in order to 
dry them put in a charge of powder and fired them off. At this the Indians 
took alarm, supposing they were discovered and that a large force had 
collected to give them battle. Owing to this slight circumstance the HUGHs 
saved themselves from captivity, and perhaps their lives.

Anna HUGH was a noble woman, and bore the heat and burden of those early days 
of toil and self-denial with a true woman's fortitude. As an evidence of her 
kind heart, it is related that shortly after they came into the settlement, 
three captive men who had escaped from the Indians somewhere in Canada, and 
made their way alone and without food back and struck Connecticut River on 
John HUGH's farm. They were almost famished, having lived several days 
without food except the twigs and bark of trees. Mrs. HUGH immediately made 
a soup, and for hours fed them with a spoon in order to allay their hunger 
without periling their lives by a hearty meal. Two of these men were very 
large, and the other a small one. It was often said afterwards by the small 
man that, on the last day, the looks of his two large companions told him 
that unless they had food soon he would be the one first to be killed, in 
order to preserve the others.

John HUGH was a plain, sober, industrious man, and died respected by his 
friends and neighbors, 27 September 1814. His wife [Anna HUGH] died the year 
before, and both lie side by side in the little buying ground in the town 
[Maidstone, Essex County, Vermont].

It might perhaps be proper to add that he raised a large family of sons and 
daughters, namely John, Jesse, James, Joah, Samuel, Anna, Sally, and Dorcas, 
and most of them lived to an advanced age, all having passed away except 
Dorcas. The three last named sons, from 1810 to 1817, moved to the Genesee 
valley, New York. Here they and their descendants went into the forest, as 
their father did before them, and helped change it into one of the finest 
wheat growing sections in the world. Not long afterwards they engaged with 
others in the great enterprise of the day which, when completed, have made 
New York in truth the Empire State. These enterprises were her canals and 
turnpikes, and later her steamboats and railroads.

Like many other Westerners, without any reason therefor, the name of "HUGHES" 
was substituted for "HUGH," the true family Scotch name. Many of the 
descendants of these sons and daughters have moved still farther west and are 
now found in many of the northwestern states. Two of the sons of Joah, John 
M. HUGH, Esq., and Hon. Arthur HUGH, are among the most prominent public men 
of Cleveland [Cuyahoga County], Ohio. But the oldest son, John, adhering to 
the associations and local attachments of his boyhood, never left the woods 
and ranges where he had enjoyed the sports of hunting. Few men were more 
fond of a moose or deer hunt than he, and none ever enjoyed more the 
pleasures of camp life. The woods of the northern portions of Vermont, New 
Hampshire, and Maine, were all familiar to him, as the pastures, fields and 
meadow lands are to he thrifty farmer. His mind was well stored with hunting 
lore, Indian traditions and revolutionary incidents. The following was one 
of those early reminiscences. When a small boy, his father was a near 
neighbor of Gen. STARK. The General being absent in the war and help scarce, 
by permission of his father he went and worked for Mrs. STARK in the hayfield 
in company with herself, a son of about the same age as himself, the girls 
and two hired men. A few days before the battle of Bennington, while thus 
engaged a courier arrived in great haste and delivered to Mrs. STARK a letter 
from her husband, and with the rake leaning on her shoulder she read it 
aloud, which was to the following effect: "Dear Molly, In less than one week 
the British forces here will be ours. Send every man from the farm that will 
come, and let the haying go to hell." This was characteristic of the General.

Few men had such a general store of knowledge as John HUGH the younger. It 
was called from every source of knowledge. His memory was remarkable, and 
often people would come from a distance to gather from his great storehouse 
of information facts and incidents in connection with the early settlement of 
the country. He lived in the town of Canaan and died there at an advanced 
age some ten years since.

Samuel HUGH, the youngest son of John HUGH, lived at a time when there was 
occasionally school of a few weeks in the winter season. This however was 
limited by a few of what are now called elementary studies, such as spelling, 
reading, and writing, with the ground rules of arithmetic, geography in those 
days being rather too classical. Previous to the War of 1812 he was 
appointed Deputy Collector of the State of Vermont, and continued so until he 
was forcibly taken from his own home in Canaan by a band of ruffians from 
Canada and carried a prisoner out of the United States. The circumstances 
connected with this outrage was as follows: There were parties from Canada 
engaged in smuggling through property, chiefly cattle, from the States, and 
it is to be regretted that many of our citizens were then as now found who 
were anxious to give "aid and comfort to the enemy." It was a duty of the 
officers of customs to put a stop to this contraband business, and they did 
so, but not without the loss of several lives.

Hearing that a large drove of cattle was being started through by the 
smugglers, Samuel HUGH gathered together a number of men and pursued them. 
Among the number were Ephraim MAHURIN, Eleazer SLOCUM, William McALLISTER, 
and --- COGSWELL, and several others, all armed. The party did not succeed 
in overtaking the drove of cattle until they got over the line and had been 
delivered to the purchasers, who were also in force expecting a conflict. 
Samuel HUGH was a powerful man, over six feet in high and weighed over 200 
pounds. Two men by the name of MORRILL also powerful men attached him at 
once, and having knocked one of them down, the other was in the very act of 
snapping a loaded gun at HUGH's breast before he could use his own weapon 
again, when someone from the American party more expert fired his rifle and 
MORRILL fell dead. As several guns were discharged at the same time, it was 
never known to whom HUGH was indebted for his life.

In the melee another of the Canadian party was wounded. His name was also 
MORRILL and a brother of the one who was killed. There was also a third man 
by the same name, and was a nephew of the others. It was he who made the 
attack on HUGH as before mentioned. He had previously discharged his gun at 
him loaded with ball and buckshot. The charge passed through Mr. HUGH's 
clothing, but did no injury to his person. But about four weeks after the 
affair, in the dead of night, Samuel HUGH's house was surrounded by an armed 
party from Canada, together with their friends and sympathizers in the 
States, amounting to nearly 100 persons. He had just moved into a new house. 
The first intimation of their presence was the breaking in of almost every 
window. The family, consisting of Mrs. HUGH and a number of small children, 
were thrown into great alarm and distress, and clung around their natural 
protector. Seeing guns leveled at him from every direction, one of which was 
snapped at him but missed fire, he managed to free his person from his wife 
and children to prevent their being shot, for he had no doubt they came to 
murder him. This was unquestionably the object of some of them, but they 
were prevented by the more considerate and less guilty portion of the party.

Immediately all he sock and whatever property they could lay their hands on 
was taken and hurried off. Mr. HUGH himself was placed on a horse with his 
feet tied under the horse, and armed men walked on each side to guard him. 
This was in extreme cold weather in November 1814. The news spread like 
wildfire, and soon as a large party could be collected, which was not until 
the next day at noon, to rescue Mr. HUGH, they started in full pursuit. But 
before they got through the woods they found that they were too far behind to 
overtake he enemy, and returned.

Mr. [Samuel] HUGH was first taken to Stanstead. Here he sent across the line 
to David HOPKINSON his brother-in-law who then resided in Derby. On Mr. 
HOPKINSON's appearance he was arrested himself on some pretext and kept 
closely guarded by keepers three days, and could render no assistance. From 
Stanstead Mr. HUGH was carried to Montreal, thrown into prison and heavily 
loaded with irons. Here Morrill MAGOON, afterward notorious for his 
counterfeiting and other crimes for which he was executed, was his keeper. 
During his stay here, MAGOON intimated to him that for a certain sum he would 
secure his escape. This sum was subsequently raised and sent on, but before 
it came it was decided that Mr. HUGH could not be tried at Montreal, but that 
he must be send to Three Rivers. At the last named place he was tried, and 
on their failing to prove the homicide he was convicted by the Court of some 
minor offence and sentenced to be branded and imprisoned for three months. 
This conviction was to show the petty spleen the courts of Great Britain had 
against our government.

Again Mr. HUGH was loaded with chains and confined in a dark, loathsome cell. 
His sufferings from vermin and filth, with fare that Christians would have 
hardly offered their lowest brutes, soon reduced Mr. HUGH to a mere skeleton 
compared with what he was before entering a British prison. In addition to 
this, all manner of abuse and indignities were heaped upon him. Soon after 
peace was declared his friends got up petitions which were forwarded to the 
Governor of Vermont, and he procured what official papers were necessary and 
authorized Seth CUSHMAN of Guildhall to go to Canada and present them to the 
Governor General of that province. This had the effect to set Mr. HUGH at 
liberty, who returned to his family, having been imprisoned upwards of one 
year.

The legislature of Vermont granted to his [Samuel HUGH's] wife, Patty HUGH, 
$1,000. Such are some of the stirring events that characterized the lives of 
the patriots on the frontiers, who periled their lives and their property in 
behalf of the liberty of their country. Samuel HUGH died about eight years 
ago, as he had lived, an honored and patriotic man, respected and remembered 
by all who knew him.

More about John HUGH

Vermont Historical Magazine, No. XI, October 1867, p 1015

(extracted from a section on the history of Lemington, Essex County, Vermont)
John HUGH came to this town [Lemington, Essex County, Vermont] in 1786 from 
Maidstone [Essex County, Vermont]. He lived in Lemington several years, and 
then moved to Canaan [Essex County, Vermont], where he remained until his 
death. His brother, Samuel HUGH, came to this town [Lemington] in 1800. In 
1814 Samuel HUGH, in company with several other, went in pursuit of some men 
who were driving cattle from Vermont to the British. HUGH's party overtook 
the men just as they reached the boundary line between Vermont and Canada, 
and ordered them to desist and let the cattle go back, which they refused to 
do, whereupon some of HUGH's party fired on them and killed a man by the name 
of MORRILL and wounded one or two others. The rest of them retreated and 
HUGH's party drove the cattle back. About two months after the events above 
narrated occurred, a party of Canadians (among them the brother of the man 
that was shot) came out secretly from Canada and surrounded the dwelling 
house of [Samuel] HUGH about midnight. At a given signal the windows of the 
house were broken in, and the party rushed into the house and made [Samuel] 
HUGH a prisoner, and carried him to Canada, where he was confined about a 
year, when he was tried for murder and acquitted on the ground that MORRILL 
was engaged in unlawful business. - 1862

Submitted by Cathy Kubly