Hough - George
Source: H. W. Beckwith History of Montgomery County, Indiana (Chicago: HH Hill, 1881)
GEORGE HOUGH, insurance and loan agent, Crawfordsville, was born in Muskingum County, Ohio, June 6, 1814, and is a son of John and Frances (Luckey) Hough, whose parents were natives of Virginia. John Hough, the great- great-grandfather of George Hough, was one of the immortal Mayflower's crew. The Houghs were Quakers or Friends, therefore were not actively engaged in the revolution. However, the house of George's grandfather was a hospital for the American soldiers, and was always full. All his crops, and any other property in his possession, he gave toward abetting the freedom of the united colonies.
Benjamin Hough, brother of John Hough, the father of George, surveyed the State of Ohio for the government. So the Houghs have been prominent in the country's annals.
Mrs. Frances Hough died in 1844, in Hamilton County, Ohio. She was a member of the Presbyterian Church. Her husband, John Hough, went to Illinois, and there died while visiting. He was buried at Hamilton, Ohio. During his life he had been a whig, and at the time of his death, 1858, was a republican. George Hough, subject of this sketch, left home at the age of sixteen, and became a clerk in a Cincinnati wholesale dry- goods house, where he remained seven and a half years. He was then employed three years in another house of the same kind. Leaving Cincinnati, he engaged in the dry-goods trade in Liberty, Missouri, for four years.
Mr. Hough then returned to Hamilton, Ohio, and was variously employed. He built a reservoir covering 4,000 acres of land in Ohio, for the Miami canal. For two years he engaged in hotel business. About 1854 he came with his wife's stepfather, Stephen Ingersoll, to Crawfordsville, who built an addition to the Ristine hotel and kept thus until 1856, when it burned, Mr. Hough losing everything. He then wrote or clerked for different parties for two or three years to gain a livelihood. In 1861 he went to the south with a stock of goods, and at the close of the war engaged in the grocery and commission trade, in Memphis, until 1866. He then returned to Crawfordsville, where he bought grain for a time. He was then appointed revenue assessor and also was made clerk and paymaster for the contractors of the Indianapolis, Bloomington & Western railroad. Since that time he has been mostly engaged in clerking for different fiMrs. He is following insurance, real estate and loan business, and is notary public. He represents, with his son-in-law, W. R. Fry, good companies in insurnace, and is doing a thriving business in the other branches of their work. Mr. Hough was married in 1842, to Caroline M. Williams, of Hamilton, Ohio, a native of Cincinnati. They have three daughters: Fannie, Mrs. W. R. Fry Emma, now Mrs. H. 0. Fairchild, of Wisconsin, and Hannah, at home. Mr. Hough voted first for Harrison, in 1840, and has walked in the whig and republican ranks ever since. He has often spent pleasant visits at Gen. Harrison's, and the general has frequently occupied Mr. Hough's bed. Mr. Hough has traveled in eleven states. Mr. Fry, his son-in-law and partner in business, spent three years in the civil war, and is well known in Montgomery County. - typed by kbz