One House’s Story: The Hogue Family

Every time I drive down Interstate 77 south of Newcomerstown I always notice this small farmhouse off to the east. I thought it was about time to tell some of this Oxford Township farmhouse’s history.

This branch of the Hogue family (sometimes spelled Hoge) immigrated from Scotland to Virginia in the early 18th century. It was the arrival of Isaac Hogue (1763-1838) and family to Belmont County, Ohio before 1806 that brought them to Ohio. Among the Hogue’s ten children was a Virginia-born son named Solomon Hogue (1789-1866). Solomon married Sarah Seaman (1795-1860) in Belmont County in 1813 and they started their own large family, ultimately including at least ten children by 1840. Solomon became a leading citizen of the small community of Somerton in Somerset Township, Belmont County.

One of Solomon and Sarah’s children was a son they named George Washington Hogue (1820-1904) and very little is known of his life prior to his marriage to Tuscarawas County born Martha Harris (1822-1888) in Guernsey County, Ohio in the fall of 1843. George and Martha’s first child, a daughter born in 1844, died only five years later though where is not clear. George and Martha moved briefly to Linn County, Iowa before 1850 where they, and their newborn son, are recorded on the 1850 census.

The Hogue family returned from Iowa around 1853 and, by the time the 1860 census was taken, were living in Oxford Township, Tuscarawas County. The Hogues did not have any other children after their son’s birth, so there was very little need for a large and spacious home to accommodate them. Their land included two tracts in 1875 totaling 110 acres in Oxford Township. They also owned a smaller, 13 acre parcel in Salem Township just north of one of their Oxford parcels. It was on one of their Oxford Township parcels that the Hogue family built their home.

The house on that parcel was of a form commonly referred to as National Folk and of a specific style called I-House Family. These homes were primarily the result of the spreading of the railroad system throughout the Midwest during the period from 1850 to 1890, bringing large quantities of building materials along with them. I-House forms like the Hogues’ tended to have a central doorway flanked by windows, with symmetrically laid out windows on the second floor as well. Chimney stacks were either set at either end or in the center of a gabled-roof. Porches across the front façade of the house were also common and, it would appear that the Hogue house has changed little since its construction in the second half of the 1800s.

The Houges’ son married his first wife in 1874 and the couple and their two children are recorded as all living in the same household as his parents in the 1880 census. Additionally, the family is mentioned in the 1881 History of Tuscarawas County, Ohio giving some details of their life and lineage. They were mentioned as being “farmers and stock raisers” and were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, but very little else is known about this period in the family’s life. One of the few newspaper mentions occurs in February 1888 when Martha’s death was reported.

The Hogues’ son, and his family, continued to live and work on the farm with his father after Martha’s death. George Hogue was 84 years old when he died in the fall of 1904. The official record listed his cause of death as “old age.” He was buried next to Martha in the East State Street Cemetery in Newcomerstown, Ohio. Their son inherited the farm and lived there until his death in 1918 after being kicked in the head by a horse. After his death his widow sold the property and its ownership passed out of the Hogue family.

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© Noel B. Poirier, 2023.