Micajah Hughes
Micajah Hughes, of Liberty Township, president of the First National Bank of Hamilton, was born in Baltimore county, Maryland, on the 25th of January, 1807. He is the son of Elijah and Sarah (Muchner) Hughes, who were both natives of the same county, and removed to Ohio, settling in Liberty Township in 1815. Mr. Hughes followed the occupation of a blacksmith in Maryland, but after coming to Ohio, also embarked in farming. He was born November 4, 1777, and died August 8, 1849, and his wife died September 10, 1845, being born May 5, 1780. Micajah Hughes was educated in an old log school-house, in Liberty Township, located in Huntsville. He soon was initiated into farming, and in 1832, in company with Daniel, his oldest brother, bought a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, in Lemon Township, which they owned together until 1837. In the meantime they had bought another farm in the county, then dividing it. Micajah took the farm on which he now lives, of one hundred and twenty acres, and forty acres of woodland, two miles distant. Their partnership was dissolved in 1837, when Mr. Hughes married. His business from that time on has been to farm, trade in stock, and loan money.
He was one of the organizers of the First National Bank in Hamilton, in August, 1863, and has ever since been its president. The first meeting to form this bank was held on the day on which the battle of Gettysburg was fought, but the meeting at which the permanent organization took place was on the 6th of August. The capital was originally $50,000, of which Mr. Hughes owned one-tenth, but a few months after it was increased to $60,000, and in Janaury was made $100,000, its present capital. Mr. James Beatty was the first vice-president. The average dividend of the bank since its beginning has been sixteen and two-thirds per cent; the highest divident, twenty-four per cent, and the lowest, ten. The deposits now are over $700,000, mostly received from farmers.
The bank has been uniformly successful in its history, never having been obliged to close its doors or ask the least indulgence. Its stockholders are conservative money-lenders, who never receive favors from the bank or use its funds for their own purposes. In proportion to its capital it has the largest deposits of any bank in the State, except one in Cleveland and one in Cincinnati. Mr. Hughes now owns but one thousand dollars' worth of stock, just enough to qualify him to be president, by request of stockholders, though he formerly owned twelve thousand five hundred dollars of stock. He pays the largest personal tax in Butler County, being on upwards of eighty-seven thousand dollars, all his property being in this county, except ten lots in Louisville, Kentucky.
He was married on the 3d of March, 1837, to Miss Phebe F. Cassidy, born September 19, 1814, of Lemon Township, who was the daughter of John and Sarah Cassidy, farmers. Mrs. Hughes is still living, at the age of sixty-six. Nine children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Hughes, though but five are now living. The oldest, Mrs. Helen TAYLOR, was born May 23, 1839; Albert, born April 23, 1843; George W., born June 29, 1844; Joseph B., born November 21, 1848; Alexander C., born January 16, 1851, and died August 14, 1867, at Minneapolis, where he had gone for his health. He was a lawyer of Hamilton. Sarah L., born February 4, 1841, died November 9, 1871, was an accomplished scholar and writer. She possessed a high degree of literary skill, and her letters from Europe excited much attention. Alice M., born July 2, 1845, died July 1, 1861; Evelyn, born October 22, 1853, died November 1, 1853; Clarence E., born March 3, 1855, died September 11, 1864.
He has always been a Democrat, casting his first vote for Jackson, in 1828, and voting for the candidates of that party ever since. He has frequently been a delegate to the State Democratic Convention. He was a director of the Butler County Insurance Company for ten years, and was on of its organizers.
From A History and Biographical Cyclopædia of Butler County Ohio, With Illustrations and Sketches of its Representative Men and Pioneers, Western Biographical Publishing Company, Cincinnati Ohio, 1882.