Person:Elias Hughes (2)

Land Records

• 1790, Harrison County, Virginia: Deeds of lease and release from Elias Hughes to Laurence McCann are dated April 19th and 20th, 1790. For 60 pounds McCann obtained a tract of land on the west side of the West Fork, containing 194 acres and 28 poles, "adjoining the land Thomas Hughes now lives on and part on the tract Elias Hughes now occupies," together with two lots in "Hughestown, one lot. containing 5 acres and the other 1 acre. Acknowledged and recorded at the April Court, 1790. (Harrison Co. Deed book Mo. 1, pp. 300-501.)

Records in Virginia

• 1772: Early Explorers in the Valley of the Little Kanawna: Long before white men found their way to the valley of the Little Kanawha Indians wandered through it in making their visits to distant tribes east of the mountain and west of the Ohio River. No one knows who the first white visitors were, nor when they came. One false tradition followed by several local historians states that Jesse Hughes, Elias Hughes and William Lowther, who in 1772, passed down the river from about the site of Glenville, were its earliest white explorers. But Christopher Gist and his assistants saw the lower part of the valley as early of 1751, and French hunters and fur traders probably say it still earlier. [Pioneer West Virginia, pg. 34]

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9} Elias Hughes, in Haymond, Henry. History of Harrison County, West Virginia: from earliest days of northwestern Virginia to the present. (Morgantown, West Virginia: Acme Publishing, 1910)
   376.

   Elias Hughes.
   Elias Hughes was born on the South Branch of the Potomac, his birth occuring sometime before Braddock's defeat in 1755.
   He first appears on the public stage as a soldier participating in the battle of Point Pleasant in 1774, in which he took an active part. He was the last survivor of that conflict and lived seventy years after it was fought.
   He next appears in Harrison County where for many years he was engaged as a scout, watching the Indian war parties and giving notices of their approach to the settlers of the Monongahela Valley, and in this capacity he was of great service to the frontier by his activity and knowledge of Indian war-fare.
   He pre-empted 400 acres of land in 1770 on the West Fork River near the mouth of Hacker's Creek.
   Hughes' father, and others of his kindred, and a young lady to whom he was much attached were murdered by the Indians. These acts of barbarity made him ever after an unrelenting and merciless enemy of the Indian race and he never spared one of them when opportunity occurred.
   The Indian troubles having ceased by the treaty at Greenville in 1795, Hughes' services not being longer required, he entered into the employment as a hunter for a party of surveyors in Ohio, probably under the direction of John G. Jackson, Deputy Surveyor under Rufus Putnam, Surveyor for the United States Government.
   Hughes was attracted by the fine appearances of the land on Licking River and concluded to locate on it, so in 1797 with his wife and twelve children, his nephew John Ratcliff with his wife and four children on foot and pack horses started west and settled on what is called the Bowling Green on the banks of the Licking four miles East of the present City of Newark. This colony of twenty one souls was the first permanent white settlement in the present County of Licking, State of Ohio.
   In 1801 four horses were stolen by two Indians from Hughes and his neighbors. They were followed and overtaken and though his companions endeavored to pursuade [sic] Hughes to spare their lives he strenuously objected, his old hatred for the race was too great to be overcome and the horse thieves paid the penalty.
   Although about sixty years of age he served in the war of 1812, as also did three of his sons, one of whom died from disease.
   He died in 1844 at about the age of ninety years and was buried with Military honors.
   For many years he was a pensioner and during the latter part of his life he was afflicted with blindness.
   Hughes was a quiet unassuming law abiding citizen, of a good disposition and had the respect of his neighbors. He was reasonable on all subjects but that of Indian warfare. He was a true child of the frontier and never forgave the savages for their merciless war on helpless women and children.

2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3} 22. ELIAS HUGHES, in Hackerscreek.com.

   Elias Hughes, a son of Thomas Henry and Susannah (Baker) Hughes,
   was born about 1757 in what is now Hardy County WV and died December 22,
   1844 near Utica, OH. (Many historical documents call him "Ellis"). He
   married Jane Sleeth about 1780. Jane, a daughter of Alexander Sleeth,
   died in 1827.
   Elias was a frontier scout and Indian fighter. He came to
   Harrison County VA (WV) in 1770. In 1772, he was one of the first
   explorers of the Little Kanawha River Valley in present day WV. He
   was in the battle of Point Pleasant in "Lord Dunmore's War." A
   payroll for Captain William Lowther's Company of Va militia credits
   Elias with 132 days service in Lord Dunmore's OH campaign in 1774.
   The 1782 census of Monongalia County VA (WV) lists Elias and his
   family in that county. In 1796, Elias became a hunter for a surveying
   party in present day Licking County OH. In 1797, he moved to the
   Muskingum River in OH and lived for a while at present Zanesville,
   OH.
   On April 6, 1798, Elias and his family began the trek to Licking
   County, OH. When the first militia was raised in that county in
   1802, Elias was elected Captain. In the War of 1812, he was a Captain
   of Militia and was commissioned a Lieutenant in Colonel Rennick's
   Mounted OH Volunteers. ...