Napa County Biographies

C.D. Hughes

Transcribed by: Bonnie Phelan

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

 
Like so many others of the older citizens of Napa Valley, Mr. Hughes has had a 
life of unusual activity and incident, one that is well worth both the telling 
and the hearing. He was born in Gallatin County, Kentucky, in 1819, his father 
being a farmer of that section, and was raised and educated there. For six years 
of his younger life he acted as pilot on the Illinois River, but at the outbreak 
of the Mexican war enlisted and served in the American army. He saw active 
service during the whole contest; taking part in the battle of Buena Vista among 
others. It was after this battle that the Mexican commander used the words now 
become historical, that �it was the first time he had ever fought with men who 
did not know when they were whipped, for he had had the American forces defeated 
more then once.� Yet they fought on and won the victory against odds estimated 
at ten to one. In 1854, Mr. Hughes came overland to California by ox team, the 
journey from Independence, Missouri, to Chiles Valley in this county, his 
destination, occupying six months to the day. He came at once down to the Napa 
Valley and stayed until the spring of 1855. From there he went to the Putah 
Valley, and in 1857 to Spring Mountain with stock, where he remained until 1861. 
That being the time of the Washoe excitement, he teamed for a year from 
Sacramento to Carson City, finally in 1862 returning to the Napa Valley and 
taking stock back to Nevada. In 1863 he moved his cattle into Idaho and stayed 
until 1867. Coming back to California he went with a band of horses and mules to 
Oregon in the fall of that year. In the following spring he took them to Idaho, 
and in the fall sold out and once more returned to California. In 1869 Mr. 
Hughes went back to Kentucky and remained until 1872, taking to himself in the 
meantime, in 1870, a wife in the person of Miss-----Brown, herself a native of 
Kentucky. They came direct to St. Helena, when Mr. Hughes took a band of jacks 
and jennies up to Oregon. On his return he bought a ranch of 160 acres, which he 
still owns, in Chiles Canon, and put stock on it. For twelve years he remained 
in the stock business there, when the encroachments of settlers so limited the 
mountain ranges as to force him out of the business on anything but a small 
scale. He accordingly removed to St. Helena in 1882, and has lived here since in 
a comfortable residence on Kearney Street, surrounded by all the comforts of 
life amid a circle of warm friends. They have only one son, James Neil Hughes, 
born in 1870 and residing at home. Mrs. Hughes carries on the leading general 
millinery and dressmaking establishment on Main street, in St. Helena, being the 
oldest of its kind in town. She employs from six to twelve persons according to 
the season, and commands a large and fashionable trade.     
 
Memorial & Biographical History of Northern California The Lewis Publishing Co., 1891
Pages 804-805