Hugh was born on August 12, 1830, in
Elizabethtown, Kentucky, to Sarah Cummings and Jacob Hodgen LaRue. When he was about nine-years-old, Hugh's family headed west to settle in
Lewis County, Missouri, which was still mostly wilderness and inhabited by hostile natives. Not long after, Hugh began dreaming of settling his own family in California. So in the Spring of 1849, before news of the
California Gold Rush had made it to Lewis County, Hugh joined an expedition going west, across the
Great Plains, by way of the
Oregon Trail. and was the president of State Agricultural Society. He later ran for state senator in 1888, but was defeated. A few years later he was elected railroad commissioner from Northern California and served as the president of the board for four years. Hugh was also a member of the local
Masonic Lodge and the
Sacramento Society of California Pioneers, in which he served as president for a few years shortly before his death in 1906. Hugh is buried in the Masonic Lawn Cemetery in Sacramento. ==See also==