Bela Metcalfe Hughes (April 6, 1817 – October 3, 1902) was an American lawyer, businessman and politician. Hughes played an important role in connecting the American West to the rest of the country with stagecoach lines, as well as in the early legal development of Colorado.
Early life and education Bela Metcalfe Hughes was born on April 6, 1817, in Carlisle, Kentucky. This small town in Eastern Kentucky had been founded just one year before his birth, when John Kincart donated land to facilitate the relocation of the county seat from Ellisville, to the north. He was born to Rhoda Dent Hughes and her husband Andrew S. Hughes. Bela Hughes ancestry was Welsh on his paternal and English on his maternal side. His father Andrew S. Hughes was a lawyer and also served in the Kentucky Senate for many years.
Bela Hughes lived the first twelve years of his life in Carlisle, where he was educated in public schools. In 1829, Andrew S. Hughes moved his family to Liberty, Missouri, and opened law offices there and later also in Weston, Missouri. After finishing his school education, Bela Hughes moved back to his state of birth in order to attend Augusta College in Augusta, Kentucky. His studies were interrupted by his military service during the Black Hawk War, during which he served with the Missouri Volunteers. He graduated from Augusta College with a Bachelor of Arts. In 1838, after his graduation, Bela Hughes moved back to Missouri.
Pioneer in the Midwest Political career Bela Hughes was elected to represent Platte County in the Missouri House of Representatives in the 1844 elections. He was elected to a two-year term and served as a Democratic member during the 13th General Assembly. The 13th General Assembly first convened in the City of Jefferson, Missouri on November 18, 1844. On January 28, 1845, two months into his term, he resigned in a letter to Governor John Cummins Edwards. The Missouri Legislature incorporated the Missouri Historical and Philosophical Society on February 27, 1845, with Bela Hughes as one of its inaugural members.
Hughes resigned his seat in the state legislature in order to take office as Receiver of Public Moneys at the United States Land Office at Plattsburg, Missouri. He had been appointed by President John Tyler in January 1845. Hughes replaced E. M. Samuel on March 4, 1845.
At the time, Receivers of Public Moneys were officers of the federal government that collected money across the United States. In 1845, a Receiver was compensated with base salary of $500 () and a commission of one cent per Dollar accounted for. The commission could not exceed $2,500 ().
Hughes' term as receiver was supposed to end on January 13, 1849, and he was re-nominated in a letter to the United States Senate by President James K. Polk on January 3, 1849. Hughes' party, the Democrats, had just lost the 1848 United States presidential election to Whig nominee Zachary Taylor. The Democrats tried to re-install their officeholder in the Senate's lame duck period before Taylor would be sworn-in as president in March 1849. Hughes chose to resign instead stating that he "would not hold an office, which under the customs of parties, belonged to some Whig". His resignation was effective in May 1849.
Business career Developer In 1838, Bela Hughes bought swaths of land in Weston, Missouri, which had been founded just one year prior. He developed city streets and land plots and was successful in marketing the land to pioneers. Within one year the town's population grew to 300 and it became a significant transportation hub on the Missouri River. The town shipped more hemp than any other place in Missouri. In 1840, Hughes' cousin Ben Holladay joined him in Weston, where Holladay started his first businesses. Hughes and Holladay were important figures in Weston's early history and shaped the development of the town. Hughes sold his interest and left Weston in 1845, when he was appointed to office in Plattsburg.
In 1855, he was involved in a land development and banking firm in the Kansas Territory with Alexander William Doniphan, who was also a law graduate from Augusta College.
Attorney In 1841, Bela Hughes was admitted to the Missouri Bar. After resigning as Receiver at Plattsburg in 1849, Hughes moved to St. Joseph, Missouri to practice law there. In St. Joseph, he formed the law firm Woodson & Hughes together with Silas Woodson, a fellow Kentucky-born lawyer involved in the local Democratic party, who was later in 1872 elected to serve as 21st Governor of Missouri.
Hughes and Woodson were alleged to be involved in electoral irregularities in the Kansas Territory at the beginning of the violent civil confrontations called Bleeding Kansas. In May 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act had organised the Kansas and Nebraska Territories in the lands west of the Mississippi River. Congressional proponents of the act had assumed that Kansas would permit slavery while Nebraska would prohibit it and therefore preserve the balance between slave and free states. Immediately, immigrants supporting both sides of the slavery question arrived in the Kansas Territory to establish residency and gain the right to vote. In November 1854, thousands of armed pro-slavery men known as "Border Ruffians", mostly from Missouri, poured into the Kansas Territory and swayed the vote in the election for a non-voting delegate to Congress in favour of pro-slavery Democratic candidate John Wilkins Whitfield.
On March 30, 1855, the Kansas Territory held the election for its first territorial legislature. Crucially, this legislature would decide whether the territory would allow slavery. Just as had happened in the election of November 1854, "Border Ruffians" from Missouri again streamed into the territory to vote, and pro-slavery delegates were elected to 37 of the 39 seats. Bela Hughes and Silas Woodson were both mentioned in multiple testimonies in front of the congressional committee investigating the elections as well-known public figures from Missouri who were present at the election at Burr Oak precinct in 14th district of the Kansas Territorial legislature. Hughes or Woodson were not witnessed actually participating in the illegitimate voting on that day. Hughes personal stance on slavery is unclear. Silas Woodson, on the other hand, was actually well known as an abolitionist. At the 1849 Kentucky Constitutional Convention, Woodson was the only member to introduce language for the gradual emancipation of the state's slaves. During the Civil War, both Hughes and Woodson were Unionists.
Overland Stage Line On April 26, 1861, Bela Hughes was chosen as president and general counsel of the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company. He was at the time still a resident of St. Joseph, which was the eastern terminus of the company's Pony Express stagecoach line. In the years prior, the company had successfully operated the Pony Express as the fastest way to transmit information from east to west before the advent of the first transcontinental telegraph in October 1861.
With the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, the Butterfield Overland Mail line was destroyed by confederate forces in Texas, making the Overland line the only option for mail to California. Therefore, the Federal Government began to heavily subsidize the company. The volume of express mail continued to rise. However once the Pony Express stopped receiving government subsidies upon completion of the transcontinental telegraph, the business ran out of cash. Hughes was unaware of the company's financial problems when he accepted the offer to serve as its president. The company's contract expired in 1862. At that point Overland Mail put the contract up for bid and it was won by Bela Hughes' cousin Ben Holladay, who in prior years had loaned substantial amount to the company. On March 21, 1862, Holladay purchased the holdings of the C. O. C. & P. P. Express at public sale for $100,000 () and incorporated it into his firm the Overland Stage Company. Hughes was then appointed general counsel of the Overland Stage Company.
Holladay sold his stage routes to Wells Fargo Express in 1866 for $1.5 million () in cash and $300,000 () worth of Wells Fargo stock. This also ended Bela Hughes involvement in stagecoach lines.
Pioneer in Colorado In 1861, Bela Hughes first came to Colorado in his capacity as president of the Overland stagecoach line. Hughes surveyed the Berthould and Boulder Pass for possible routes and in the following years he also made frequent trips to Denver, which was at the time an important town along the stagecoach line. In 1866, Hughes moved his family to Denver, which was in the 1860s still a rather small town. The 1860 census had counted a population of just 4,749.
Business career
Railways
Denver Pacific Railway In 1862, Congress had passed the Transcontinental Railroad Act, which among other things, authorized Union Pacific Railroad to lay tracks westward from Omaha, Nebraska. In a major setback for Colorado, Union Pacific Chief Engineer Grenville M. Dodge recommended to build the Transcontinental Railroad further north through Wyoming. Julesburg was the only town in the territory included in the plan. In Colorado, reactions varied from disappointment to anger. Colorado territorial Governor John Evans declared that "Colorado without railroads is comparatively worthless."
In Denver, a town of around 5,000 people at the time, local merchants and businessmen were especially afraid of being left out of and decided to cooperate with the Kansas Pacific Railroad to assure a direct connection to the East of the country, while at the time building a branch line to the Transcontinental Railroad in Cheyenne. Denver's leading citizens, among them Governor John Evans, David Moffat, Walter Cheesman and Bela Hughes raised $300,000 () capital in one week. On November 29, 1867, the Denver Pacific Railway and Telegraph Company was incorporated under the general laws of the Territory of Colorado. Bela Hughes was chosen as the president of the new company. A sense of urgency existed for this Denver based corporation, due to the formation of a rival, the Colorado, Clear Creek and Pacific Railway (later the Colorado Central), by W.A.H. Loveland and citizens of nearby Golden, with the intention of linking that city directly with Cheyenne and making Golden the natural hub of the territory.
On June 24, 1870, the very first train arrived in Denver carrying 40 passenger across the line from Cheyenne. It was greeted by thousands of spectators. Two months later, in August 1870, the Kansas Pacific completed its line to Denver and the first train arrived from Kansas. With the completion of the Kansas Pacific line to Denver, the Denver Pacific became integral to the first transcontinental rail link between the east and west coasts of America. The Denver Pacific's rival, the Colorado Central line from Golden, was not completed until 1877. By this time, Denver had established its supremacy over its rival as the population center and capital city of the newly admitted State of Colorado.
The new network of Kansas Pacific and Denver Pacific competed heavily with Union Pacific (UP), which had formed an agreement to ship goods of the Denver Pacific line beyond Cheyenne for a reduced rate. UP refused to apply these lower price for goods that had been handled by Kansas Pacific. In 1872, Bela Hughes resigned as president of Denver Pacific in an unsuccessful attempt to solve this conflict by merging operations with Kansas Pacific. In 1879, the dispute finally ended, when Union Pacific incorporated the network of both Denver and Kansas Pacific.