My Genealogy Hound

ELIJAH HUGHS, an early settler of Ballard County, and an enterprising farmer, was born November 13, 1825, in Muhlenburgh County, Ky., and is the eighth of ten children (six boys and four girls), born to John and Rebecca (Cross) Hughs, natives of Virginia, the father of Irish descent. His grandfathers were William Hughs, who was a teacher, and William Cross, a farmer. John Hughs was a trader on the Mississippi River. Elijah Hughs was educated in the early dirt-floor schoolhouses of the country, and was reared on a farm; he came with his parents to Ballard County in a very early day, and settled in the community where he now resides, and where his father purchased 350 acres of land, on which he resided till his death, in 1853; his widow died in 1867, aged eighty-seven years. Elijah, in early days, engaged in the carpentry business, and lived with his parents till twenty-one years of age; he then engaged in various lines of business, and during the war had several trials with the guerillas. In 1863 he purchased the farm of 120 acres, on which he now resides. He was elected constable two terms, was in the government service one session of Congress in the folding department. He was married October 29, 1853, to Sarah J. Purcell, of McCracken County, Ky., a daughter of Samuel and Mary (Barkley) Purcell. He had born by this union seven children: Mary (deceased), Ida (deceased), Ida May, John W., Louisa B., Samuel and Sarah J. Mrs. Hughs is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Mr. Hughs is a Mason and a Democrat.