Hughes, Eliza C., 1817-1882
Biographical Note
Eliza C. Hughes was born to Thomas and Mary von Odenbaugh Hughes in 1817 in Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia). She graduated from the Penn Medical University at Philadelphia in 1860. In April of the same year, she joined her brother Alfred Hughes at his homeopathic medicine practice in Wheeling to focus on obstetrics, women's health, and children's health. She was one of the earliest women to practice homeopathic medicine in Virginia and West Virginia. During the American Civil War, she was briefly arrested for initially refusing to take an oath of allegiance to the Union in August 1862. Hughes set up her own practice in Wheeling in January 1863, after her brother moved out of town. She died in May 1882 in Wheeling.
Sources:
U. S. Federal Census, 1850-1860
History of the Upper Ohio Valley, With Family History And Biographical Sketches, Vol. I (Madison, Wisc.: Brant & Fuller, 1890), pp. 332-335, 581-582, available online from HathiTrust, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/012288589, accessed Feb. 17, 2025.
"Dr Eliza Clark Hughes", Findagrave.com, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/131670475/eliza_clark_hughes, accessed Feb. 17, 2025.
"Notice. Alfred Hughes, M. D. Eliza C. Hughes, M. D.", Daily intelligencer (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]), 27 April 1860, p. 2, available online from the Library of Congress's Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026845/1860-04-27/ed-1/seq-2/, accessed Feb. 17, 2025.
"Arrest of a Secession Lady", Daily intelligencer (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]), 18 Aug. 1862, p. 3, available online from the Library of Congress's Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026845/1862-08-18/ed-1/seq-3/, accessed Feb. 17, 2025.
"Miss Eliza C. Hughes, M. D.", Daily intelligencer (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]), 27 Jan. 1863, p. 2, available online from the Library of Congress's Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026845/1863-01-27/ed-1/seq-2/, accessed Feb. 17, 2025.