Ohio County, West Virginia          Biography of Wright HUGUS

This file was submitted by CJ Towery,
E-mail address:  <ctowery@weir.net>

The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch.

This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit
organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved.

Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval
system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other
means requires the written approval of the file's author.

This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside
a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at

http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm

The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II,
page 227

WRIGHT HUGUS, an ex-serviceman and a prominent young lawyer at Wheeling is
a son of the late Judge Thomas J. Hugus, who long enjoyed a position of
special prominence at the bar of West Virginia.

The Hugus family is of Holland and French descent, and was established in
America shortly after the close of the Revolutionary war. The family located
in Southwestrn Pennsylvania. The grandfather of Wright Hugus was Jacob Hugus,
who spent all his life in Tyler County, West Virginia, where he owned a large
amount of farming land. The late Judge Thomas J. Hugus was born in Tyler
County, West Virginia, in September. 1.854, was reared there and completed
his college education when he graduated A. B. from Marietta College in Ohio.
Soon afterward he located at Wheeling, read law, and until his death in March,
1916, was busily engaged in his profession and for eighteen years of that
time was judge of the Criminal Court of Ohio County. He was an active
republican, a very earnest supporter of the Fourth Street Methodist Episcopal
Church, and is remembered by his professional associates and fellow citizens
as a man of exalted character.

Judge Hugus married Annie V. Wright, who is still living at Wheeling, where
she was born in 1859. Her father, John Wright, who was born near Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, came to Wheeling when a young man and was one of the founders
of the LaBelle Iron Works. He married Eleanor Madden, and both died at Wheeling.
The children of Judge Hugus and wife were: John W., connected with a large coal
company at Washington, Pennsylvania; William T., a resident of Wheeling and
manager of the Laughlin Mill of the American Sheet & Tin Plate Company at
Martin's Ferry, Ohio; Arthur C., secretary of the Center Foundry Company of
Wheeling; Eleanor. wife of Otto M. Schlabach, an attorney at law at La Crosse,
Wisconsin; Anne, wife of Mason Britton of New York City; Wright and Miss
Elizabeth, who is unmarried and lives with her mother at the old home at
Elmwood near Wheeling.

Wright Hugus was born in Ohio County, West Virginia, November 8, 1890, attended
the country school at Beech Glen, near Wheeling, later the Clay School, City of
Wheeling, and graduated from the Wheeling High School in 1909. He finished his
literary education in Dartmouth College at Hanover, New Hampshire, graduating
A. B. in 1913. From Dartmouth he entered Harvard University Law School, received
his LL. B. degree in 1916. Mr. Hugus is a member of the Sigma Chi college
fraternity. He also belongs to the English VT Law Club. He was admitted to the
West Virginia bar in the fall of 1916, practiced a few months before entering
the war, and since his return has been busy with a growing practice, largely
specializing in corporation law. He is attorney for the Wheeling Steel
Corporation and has his offices in the Corporation Building.

On May 11, 1917, Mr. Hugus entered the First Officers Training Camp at Fort
Benjamin Harrison, Indianapolis, received his commission as first lieutenant
of infantry, August 15th, and was then at Cambridge, Massachusetts, attending
the School of Trench Warfare under the supervision of French army officers
until October 1st. He was the transferred to Camp Sherman, Ohio, and assigned
to the Three Hundred Thirty-first Infantry. He was made assistant division
adjutant in February, 1918, and on June 8, 1918, sailed for France with
Headquarters Company of the Eighty-third Division. He was assistant personnel
adjutant of the Second Depot Division, A. E. F. and American Embarkation Center,
until June, 1919, stationed at LeMans. Thereafter he was personal adjutant of the
American Embarkation Center at LeMans until August 1, 1919, when he returned home
and was mustered out at Camp Sherman, September 4, 1919, as major, Adjutant
General's Department.

Mr. Hugus is one of the youngest members of the State Legislature, and yet during
the session of 1921 was one of the most effective workers in that body. He was
elected on the republican ticket to the House of Delegates in November, 1920.
During the session of 1921 he was chairman of the military affairs committee
and member of the judiciary, banks and corporations, railroads and enrolled hills
committees. Mr. Hugus was responsible for the introduction and secured the
passage of the hill reorganizing the National Guard of West Virginia. He also
introduced a bill raising the age of consent from fourteen to sixteen years,
and was prominent in the fight against the Gross Sales Tax Bill.

Mr. Hugus is a member of the Official Board of the Fourth Street Methodist
Episcopal Church, is president of the Wheeling District Epworth League Society,
a member of Wheeling Lodge No. 5, F. and A. M., is an eighteenth degree Scottish
Rite Mason in West Virginia Consistory No. 1, and is a member of the Wheeling
Country Club, University Club of Wheeling, vice president of the Wheeling
Council of Boy Scouts, and president of the Wheeling Tennis Club.