Gen 4: The John Benedict Hughes Family

Grandmother Mary Smith nee Hughes and my Father’s Grandparents: JB and Margaret Banks
Bon Homme Co. South Dakota – 1875-1905

The Hughes Ranch stands today as it did a century ago, seven plus miles north of Tyndall, South Dakota. It was home to Uncle John Hughes and his sister Aunt Frances. There are 15 people in this photograph, visible to a magnifying glass!

 

Imagine growing up in the Dakota Territory in 1886 thru 1900. The Hughes ranch was a modest enterprise. A small but sturdy home stood amid the cattle corrals, pasture, corn and wheat fields.

The nearby village of Tyndall in Bon Homme County was little more than a wide spot on a dirt path, a Cowtown in which the railroad came to a momentary rest as it crossed a vast nation. The Hughes clan did not know it at the time, but the railroad was on its’ way to changing the nation. The east coast was soon connected to San Francisco and Seattle by way of the rail. Goods and passengers no longer had to travel by ocean voyage around South America and the infamous Straits of Magellan. The wheels came off the stagecoach and ended up as lawn ornaments and coffee tables.

At the age of 20, Mary Hughes (1885-1972) acquired her college degree at South Dakota State Normal College in Springfield. Normal colleges were established in the 1800s for the expressed purpose of training people to become teachers. At that time in our nation’s history people believed education was vital to the growth of democracy. The voice of the common man was as important to the rule of law as the voice of the aristocrat and monied interests. Such a notion has always been under attack by those among the ‘Haves’ who view the ‘Have Nots’ as gutter litter barely suitable for labor. The 2010 Supreme Court decision, Citizens United, ended a century of debate and assigned the right to rule to the wealthiest ‘One Percent.’ In return the common man was given the right to carry a gun into a McDonalds and any public school of his or her choosing. The Immoral Minority (our ‘one percent’) considered it a good trade off. Education was vital to JB Hughes. He built the first school in Bon Homme County. His 8 children completed college.

With her license to teach in hand, Mary Hughes soon found herself alone. In 1909 she spent the summer teaching in Lawton, ND, where she taught farm boys, twice her size. Having helped raise her four brothers, Mary could handle anything. She figured that if she could beat up the bigger boys she could handle the job. She was fifty miles from the Canadian border and decades away from enjoying a burger at Tim Hortons. Just to put things in perspective in terms of ‘remote,’ I Googled Lawton, ND. I found a present-day village of 30 people living in 17 homes all within one square mile of God forsaken prairie. The village was founded in 1902 and at that time had 210 citizens. It was in Ramsey County that Mary Hughes met and soon married Leb Smith.

Grandmother Mary Smith (nee Hughes) is with sibling members of her father’s Hughes family. From Left to right: Dr. Leo J. Hughes, Sr Magdalene Hughes, Helen Vance nee Hughes, Frances Hughes, John Hughes and Mary Smith (nee Hughes). ‘Nee’ implies maiden name. Five of the six were college graduates. John worked the ranch right up to the day he died, age 81.

Leo, ‘Maggie’ and Helen were the children of John Benedict Hughes and his second wife, Anna Marie Clavin. Frances, John and Mary were the offspring of JB and Margaret Banks. At the time of this photo eight of the children of JB Hughes had passed away.

As an aside: I only met him once, but I remember Grandmother Mary’s brother, great uncle John, very well. We sat on his back step watching the sun set over his fields. He handed me a quarter and asked me to grow it. He then looked at his cigarette and told me his doctor had advised him that “Someday these will kill me.” Sure enough, he eventually passed away.  My favorite image of the ranch is that of my two sisters, Chris and Shelley, playing in a horse trough that John had cleaned and filled with refreshingly cold water. It was as close to a swimming pool as anyone in our family had ever owned. It was a hot day and the water was delightful, I am told.

The JB Hughes ranch in Tyndall began with a 160-acre homestead claim, an 80-acre preemption claim and a 40-acre timber claim along the Missouri river.  JB hauled supplies from Yankton to Fort Randall where the Pickstown Dam is presently located. The house and barn that JB built are still standing.  Once construction was finished JB returned to Minnesota married Margaret Banks and returned to South Dakota.

Margaret was not JB’s first wife. Records indicate that JB was previously married to Flora Allen.  Their union of five years (1877-1882) ended with her death and resulted in no children. While there were two Allen families residing in McHenry County IL during JB’s childhood, the census records do not indicate a young woman named Flora or Florence.  Little is known of Flora Allen. Whether she met JB in Tyndall, SD and married there or traveled as his wife with him to South Dakota, we simply do not know. And it is all history now. And life moves on!

Mary’s father JB (John Benedict Hughes) took advantage of a spur of the rail system and became an early version of the ‘Great American Commuter,’ shipping cattle to the Chicago market on the Chicago/Milwaukee Railway. He accompanied the cattle to protect his investment and insure that he got a decent price. While in Chicago he stayed at the luxurious Palmer House and on one occasion enjoyed the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.1889.

Dakota Territory Map

This map, maintained in the Library of Congress, shows Tyndall in Bon Homme County, Yankton to the right and railway lines crossing the territory. The remainder of the map carries the message “Opened for Settlement by the Treaty of 1889.”

My grandparents were living on the cutting edge of oblivion. They were off the grid before it was trendy to be living off the grid.  Most of our ancestors preferred ‘living on the edge.’

It is just a tad bit ironic that the railroad so vital to JB’s success as a cattle rancher was also the cause of his death.  He died a most tragic and violent death in 1911. The Tyndall Tribune (December 1911) conveyed the news to the public as follows:

“Jesse Bradberry drove his engine south from Tyndall Sunday (December 10), just after dinner.  He was running light, pulling a caboose.  As he came through a low cut and bore down upon the McPherson crossing, a team came running down the road from the west, driven by a man.  Bradberry was close to the team before he saw it.  The team saw the train and tried to swing out of the way of the engine.  This they succeeded in doing but the pilot caught the front wheel of the rig and the man was either thrown or tried to jump clear of the engine.  He was caught by the pilot and thrown from the track.  The unfortunate man, who proved to be Jack Hughes, lived about 20 minutes.  The train came to a stop in about 4 car lengths.  Part of the crew stayed with Hughes while the train was hurried to Tyndall for medical aid.  Dr. Black was taken back on the train to the scene of the accident and Dr. Berry, who missed the train, was hurried to the spot by auto.  It was too late, however, as nothing could be done for the victim of the accident.

It seems that Mr. Hughes and his family were on their way home from Tyndall, where they had attended church.  They had just crossed the crossing going west when one of the parties’ hat blew off. The women folks got out of the rig and Mr. Hughes went back after the hat.  The team had been acting badly, and when they were turned around, they became still more unruly, running away.

Jack Hughes was one of Bon Homme County’s pioneers, having lived in Albion precinct ever since that locality was first settled.  His many friends will be grieved to hear of his untimely demise.”

My grandmother, Mary, was all of 26 years of age when her father passed away. She was now an orphan but in the first year of her life as the wife of Lebanon Smith and mother of a newborn Marjorie, the first of my aunts, my father’s sister.

JB’s second wife, Anna Marie Clavin, carried on after his death, providing for four children between the ages of 4 and 9 years of age.  She was identified only as a “Seamstress from Ireland.” It appears that she was born in 1872 in Mullingar, West Meath County, Ireland (50 miles to the west of Dublin). How one gets to Tyndall from Mullingar is beyond me.

Anna’s four youngsters, fathered by JB, grew to adulthood and remained in touch with Mary and the children of JB’s first wife Margaret Banks. His widow Anna was 41 years of age at the time of JB’s passing and moved into Tyndall where she ran a boarding house on Broadway Street.  She died in 1935 in Pennington County SD.

Anna Marie Clavin proved to be a kind and loving woman to the children of JB’s first marriage. While Mary referred to her step mother as the “Auld Lady” she appreciated her and owed the ‘Auld Lady’ a deep debt of gratitude.  It was with Anna Marie’s help that Grandmother Mary Hughes was able to secure a high school and college education. Mary’s mother, Margaret Banks, had died giving birth to a stillborn Agnes in 1897.  As the oldest in the family, Mary became the caretaker of her five younger siblings.

The arrival of Anna Marie in the Bon Homme County household made it possible for Mary to leave home and venture off to New Ulm, Minnesota where she attained her high school diploma in two years’ time. She lived in New Ulm with her grandmother Catherine Banks nee Burns.

Mary returned home as a high school graduate.  She was met at the railroad station by JB and he told her they would be staying at a hotel that night as he could not physically drive to Tyndall.  While waiting in a local pub for the train to arrive JB had made it very clear to all who would listen that he was a staunch supporter of William Jennings Bryan, a Nebraskan politician who battle on behalf of the frontier farmer. JB’s progressive viewpoints were not full appreciated. The political conversation got out of hand. A man came at him with a chair and hit him harder than a mule kick to the gut.  The Dakota farmer actively campaigned for William Jennings Bryan in Bryan’s bid for the White House against William McKinley in 1896 and 1900.

Great Aunt Frances Hughes and Grandmother Mary Hughes Smith shared their memories in a journal page that follows. Please enjoy and come back after you read through their recollections. I will add a little more to these details with other evidence of our Irish ancestors. I’ll be on the back deck looking for otter and inspecting scat to determine if a recent visitor was a wolf or coyote. If you are looking for signs of civilization, it’s about thirty miles to the west of here.

“When my father came to Dakota Territory at age 18 in 1872, Aunt Tess kept house for him. Dad stayed at Uncle Ed’s home which was called a halfway house. Aunt Tess did the cooking. Uncle Ed’s house was one mile or so west of the farm (in Bon Homme County, South Dakota). Dad married Margaret Banks in 1882. She was from Hartland MN. When they came to Dakota Territory after being married, Dad asked the conductor of the train (trains came to Tyndall in 1879) to let them off a mile and a quarter from his home (the farm). South Dakota became a state in 1889. Dad’s sister, Katie Burns nee Hughes, lived at Woodstock, Illinois.  Dad met Margaret Banks there when he was visiting Aunt Katie.  Margaret Banks sister was ‘Bid’ (Bridget) Banks Fitzgerald (Mrs. Michael Fitzgerald). Aunt ‘Bid’ and husband Michael had eight children: James, Mary, Katherine, Edward, Nell, Margaret, Frank and Bernie, all of Hartland MN or New Richland MN.”

“Dad (JB) attended Rush Medical School, Chicago, IL for one year. He went to Dakota Territory in a covered wagon in 1872 with Uncle Ed.  He staked a claim in Bon Homme County and planted trees in 1882 on the farm seven miles from Tyndall. He was Clerk of Courts 1908-1910. His brother Ed was deputy.”

Granny and Aunt Frances have thrown a lot of names into our heads and the names are meaningless without faces. I can add a bit of info and hope that it won’t add to any confusion.

— Aunt Tess was JB’s sister Teresa Saville nee Hughes (1861-1956). She was born in Woodstock Illinois and moved to South Dakota. The US Census of 1900 reveals that she lived for a short time in a mining camp known as Crop Mine, in the Black Hills of Pennington County, South Dakota. She married Henry Saville and they spent the latter decades of their lives in Wilmington, Delaware. One of the few in our family history to make it ‘Back East.’

— Uncle Ed, aka Edward Hughes Jr (1849-1919), JB’s brother, was born in Hartland IL and migrated to South Dakota, where he married Kate McElroy and spent his adult life in Stanley County near Pierre, in the center of the state.

— Katie Hughes (1850-1903) married John Henry Burnes in McHenry Co IL.

The author of Katie Burnes’ 1903 obituary, posted in The Ellendale Eagle, presents what has to be one of the more tragic accounts found in our family history, at least in terms of one’s medical demise. Katie was my father’s great aunt. Notice she is always referred to as Mrs. John Burnes or Mrs. Burnes, never by her own name.

“The sad news was announced Tuesday of the death of Mrs. John Burnes, which occurred at six o’clock that morning at her home at Beaver Lake. Mrs. Burnes had been an invalid for a great many years. She suffered a disease which baffled the most skilled physicians to name. The worst symptom was difficulty in swallowing when taking food, which increased from year to year till at last an operation was necessary to provide a means to introduce food to the stomach artificially. This was performed at the Rochester hospital a year ago last March (1902), a silver tube being placed in the patient’s side and since that time she has taken food by none other than this means. Mrs. Burnes has borne her affliction cheerfully. She was an intensely devout woman and took a great deal of comfort in contemplating the future existence which the Master had promised to such as she. Surrounded by children and her husband, who tenderly smoothed the pathway of existence more thoughtfully, with greater love, as each year drew it nearer to the end, her life was made as pleasant as her misfortune would allow. An autopsy was held by Drs. Andrist, Bachelder and Adair and it was found that no organic disease existed, the trouble being from paralysis of some nerves of the throat.”

“The deceased leaves behind her husband, seven children: Edward of North Dakota and J. S. Thomas, John Jr., William, Maggie, and Annie of this place; five brothers: Peter Hughes of Harvard, Ill., and Thomas, John B., Edward, and Michael Hughes of Tyndall, S. D.; one sister, Mrs Tessie Seville, who lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The funeral was held from St. Aiden’s church, Bath, today at 10 o’clock a.m., Rev. Fr. Fox officiating. Kate Hughes was born in Hartland, Ill., Nov. 20, 1849. From there she moved with her parents to Harvard, Ill. In that city she was married Feb 26, 1874 to Mr. John Burnes, and they at once left for Berlin, Steele County, MN, where Mr. Burnes had prepared a home, and there she was living at the time of her death.”

In an earlier passage, Grandmother Mary and Frances Hughes mentioned the fact that their father JB met their mother Margaret Banks while he was visiting Aunt Katie in Woodstock IL. Woodstock was and is in McHenry County IL.  Census records over the course of the latter half of the 19th Century reveal Hughes households in Woodstock, Hartland and Harvard, all within McHenry County.