Shelby  County,  Indiana
Biographies

rOBERT  HUGHES

          Robert Hughes   was of Welsh and German extraction.   By the paternal side he was descended from Welsh; by the maternal side from German ancestors.   His great grandfather on the paternal side was a Welsh quaker, who came over to Pennsylvania with William Penn in the year 1690, upon the occasion of Penn’s last visit to America.   Robert Hughes, thus descended, was born in Union County, Pennsylvania, on the 17th day of November, 1817, and hence last November was sixty-four years of age.   He was the third of seven children, five sons and two daughters, born to   Stephen and   Catherine Hughes.   About the year 1837 he emigrated with his family to Indiana.   He was then in his twentieth year.   Before removing to Indiana he had learned the trade of a wheelwright, and upon coming to this State he entered into employment with his elder brother,   John Hughes,   who was also a wheelwright.   Later a partnership was formed between these two brothers, and later still, their younger brothers,   Evan,   Stephen   and   George,  were united with them in the building of mills.
          They came to this State at a time most favorable to their craft.   There was then a demand all over the central and southern portions of Indiana for the erection of flouring mills.   The brothers erected mills at numerous points, among others at Indianapolis, Connersville, Metamora, Bowling Green, Wabash, Anderson and New Albany.  They built the first flouring mills erected at Indianapolis, and the first paper mill erected in the State of Indiana.  The last mill they built was the Cory Mill, in Hanover township, this county.  The brothers were good workmen, and well known throughout the State.  In 1862, his health failing, Robert Hughes quit his trade, and thereafter devoted his entire attention to farming.  He bought the farm where he resided at the time of his death in the year 1854, and since then he has been a resident of Shelby county, where he had formed a wide circle of acquaintances and friends.  Robert Hughes was of a progressive spirit.  He welcomed and aided new enterprises which promised the improvement of his county.  One of his long cherished hopes was the erection at Shelbyville of factories for the manufacture of agricultural implements.  He was scrupulously honest and upright in his dealings with his fellow men.  Though stern in face and character, he was kind and generous in heart, and he was ever found an obliging neighbor, a faithful friend, and a worthy citizen.  He had never connected himself with any church, but his life was chaste, his motives pure, and his character unstained by any word or deed.  The fourth day of this present month 30 days ago, he was united in marriage to Sarah Parkes, whom, with nine children the fruits of that union he now leaves to mourn his loss.  As has already been announced in the Volunteer, Mr. Hughes died on Sunday night, February 5, from the effects of a stroke of paralysis, with which he was first taken on the previous day.
The Shelby Volunteer, Shelbyville, Indiana,  Thursday, February 23, 1882
Contributed by Phyllis Miller Fleming

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