John W. Hughart, BiographyPorter County biographical sketches . . . .
Transcribed biography of John W. Hughart
JOHN W. HUGHART. A native of Porter county and a scion, in the third generation, of one of the well known and representative pioneer families of this favored section of Indiana, John William Hughart has well maintained the high prestige of the honored name which he bears and is one of the prominent exponents of the agricultural and stock-growing industries in his native county, besides which he is secretary of the Valparaiso Creamery Company, to the affairs of which important concern he now gives the major part of his time and attention. Mr. Hughart has been actively concerned with various lines of enterprise that have fostered civic and material progress, was for a long term of years a successful contractor and builder, and has been influential as a broad-minded and public-spirited citizen. He has maintained his home in Valparaiso since 1892, and is one of its representative business men and popular citizens -- one who well merits the high esteem in which he is held in the community.
John William Hughart was born on the old family homestead in Center township, this county, on the 13th of October, 1859, and is a son of Henry D. and Elizabeth Jane (Fulton) Hughart, the former of whom was born in Virginia and the latter in Center township, Porter county, Indiana. Henry D. Hughart was a son of David and Nancy (Dover) Hughart and was a boy at the time of the family removal from the Old Dominion commonwealth to Indiana in 1835. The parents first located in Liberty township, Porter county, where they passed the first winter in a primitive log house in the midst of the dense forest. In the following spring David Hughart established his family on the old homestead in Center township, where he obtained a tract of wild land and reclaimed a farm from the forest. He was a man of strong individuality and indefatigable industry, and it was his to contribute appreciably to the development and upbuilding of Porter county, where both he and his wife continued to reside until their death, their names meriting enduring place on the roll of the sterling pioneers of this section of the state. On the old homestead mentioned Henry D. Hughart was reared to maturity, the while he availed himself of the meager advantages of the pioneer schools. He became one of the representative farmers and stock-growers of Center township and was a man whose sterling attributes of character not only retained to him unqualified popular esteem but also made him an influential factor in the community. He was summoned to eternal rest in the month of June, 1890, at the age of fifty-six years, and his widow, now seventy-five years of age (1912), is one of the loved pioneer women of the county which has been her home from the time of her birth, the place of her nativity having been in the vicinity of Flint Lake, Center township, where her father, Abraham Fulton, established his home in the early pioneer epoch. Henry D. and Elizabeth Jane (Fulton) Hughart became the parents of three children, of whom the subject of this review is the eldest and the only son; Nettie is the wife of Alonzo H. Lehmkuhl and they reside in Saunders county, Nebraska; and Cordelia, the younger daughter, died when about thirty-five years of age, the wife of John Lehmkuhl.
John W. Hughart was reared to the sturdy discipline of the old homestead farm which was the place of his birth and which he now owns, the same comprising three hundred and thirteen acres and being one of the valuable places of the county. He is indebted to the public schools for his early educational advantages and he continued to be associated in the work and management of the home farm until he was about twenty-one years of age, when he entered upon an apprenticeship at the carpenter's trade. He became a skilled artisan and continued in the work of his trade about twenty years, within which he gained distinctive success as a contractor and builder. He erected many a farm residence in his native county, as well as a number of excellent dwellings in the city of Valparaiso. He has also been identified with other lines of enterprise, notably that of contracting in the construction of gravel roads, and through these various associations he has done much to further the development of his native county into one of the most attractive in the entire state. In partnership with John McGillicuddy he constructed many miles of gravel road in the county, and in the meanwhile he has been continuously and successfully identified with the great basic industry of agriculture, under the benign influences of which he was reared and of the attractions of which he has ever been appreciative, the while he has brought to bear the best scientific methods and the most modern accessories in carrying forward the various details of farm work.
In politics Mr. Hughart is found aligned as a stalwart supporter of the cause of the Democratic party, and he is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Both he and his wife are members of the Presbyterian church. Mr. Hughart is one of the principal stockholders in the Valparaiso Creamery Company and has been its secretary since 1892, when he removed from his farm to Valparaiso.
On April 24, 1895, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Hughart to Miss Anna Anderson, and they have one child, Bernice Elizabeth, who is in the third grade of school. Mrs. Hughart was born at Marshall Grove, Porter county, September 24, 1869, and is a daughter of John and Eliza (Anderson) Anderson, both of Scotch-Irish lineage. Mr. Anderson established his home in Porter county, Indiana, in the early '40s and was long numbered among the representative farmers of Pleasant township, where he continued to reside until his death, at the age of seventy-five years, his widow still maintaining her home in Pleasant township. Of their children six, two sons and four daughters, attained to maturity and are now living.
Source: Lewis Publishing Company. 1912. History of Porter County, Indiana: A Narrative Account of its Historical Progress, its People and its Principal Interests. Chicago, Illinois: Lewis Publishing Company. 881 p.
Page(s) in Source: 777-779
This biography has been transcribed exactly as it was originally published in the source. Please note that we do not provide photocopies or digital scans of biographies appearing on this website.
Biography transcribed by Steven R. Shook