Judge Hughes left a mark on Washington County legal history
Courtesy of Washington County Courthouse
This portrait of Howard W. Hughes hangs in the halls of the Washington County Courthouse. Hughes was a Washington County judge from 1929-43 until he was elevated to serve as a state Supreme Court justice.
Mike Jones
Howard and Katherine Hughes are buried in Washington Cemetery.
Courtesy of Washington County Historical Society
This political advertisement circulated in Washington County in 1944 when Howard W. Hughes unsuccessfully ran to keep his seat on the state Supreme Court.
The front page of the afternoon Washington Reporter on June 20, 1945, announced Howard W. Hughes had died that morning while working in Philadelphia.
This newspaper clipping from May 1929 announces that Howard W. Hughes was appointed judge in Washington County. Hughes had served as the county’s district attorney for seven years.
We always knew a Washington County judge once called our century-old house in Washington his home.
At least that’s the story my wife and I heard from the sellers when we closed on the “Arts & Craft-style” house on Acheson Avenue in the summer of 2014.
Over the next few years, we passed along vague details about this unnamed judge to friends and family when they visited, pointing to the courthouse’s domed rotunda that we can see from our front porch and imagining what he must’ve thought of that view.
But little did we know at the time the historical significance that our house’s long-departed resident had on the county and state.
So in late 2018, I got a little curious. With the encouragement of my good friend and Observer-Reporter colleague Scott Beveridge, along with some help from the friendly workers at the Washington County recorder of deeds office, we were able to painstakingly track the property’s owners over the past century.
While we were already aware that the house had been built in 1920 – we were planning a 100th birthday bash for it this year until the pandemic struck – we learned that the original parcel in the brand new William Christman subdivision sold for $1,050 to Clarence and Lida Stevens in 1919. This was a surprise to us because we were told a judge had built the house, but no one by the name of Clarence Stevens ever served on the bench.
But the next deed gave us an important clue. On the last day of November in 1923, Mr. and Mrs. Stevens sold the house they had built to Howard W. Hughes and his fiancée, Katherine Verner, for $9,500.
This had to be him, right?
Fortunately, a portrait of every Washington County judge since its founding in 1781 hangs on the second floor of the courthouse, so I figured it should be easy to pick him out of a lineup. But I soon realized that many of the photos had vanished from public view when I began my search. However, there was no reason for alarm since the courthouse staff was restoring and reframing them in a maintenance room downstairs.
In one of those picture frames was a regal-looking man with grey hair and spectacles by the name of H.B. Hughes. Was this him? He served on the bench from 1920-23, so it was somewhat lining up with our theory.
But the middle initial was wrong. The deed for our house’s previous owner had the middle initial of W, not B, so I wondered if the difference could have been a reference to William instead of Bill.
My question seemingly was answered a couple of minutes later when I stumbled on another photograph with the name of Howard W. Hughes, whose record showed he held a seat on the Washington County bench from 1929-43. It was fascinating to look at the aged photograph of the judge with slicked-back hair and piercing eyes. This had to be him.
The only problem was the date barely lined up for Hughes to serve as judge while living in our house. At the time, Hughes had been Washington County’s district attorney, I later learned, only to be appointed judge in May 1929 when the court required an extra seat. Records revealed he and Katherine sold the property a month later for $1 to John and Ethel Manson. I’ve never been able to find out why they practically gave our house away to the Mansons. Still, the Hughes family relocated to a mansion on LeMoyne Avenue, a popular destination for lawyers, doctors and judges.
So the tale about a judge living in our house was partially true, but not quite as fantastical as we’d imagined, with Hughes spending most of his time living here while working as the county’s prosecutor. And I thought that was the end of the story until I began researching Hughes in our newspaper’s archives and learned what a remarkable legal career he built after leaving our abode.
According to the Washington County Historical Society, Howard Wingett Hughes was born in Washington on Aug. 18, 1891, to Workman and Hannah Hughes. He attended grade school in Washington and Charleroi and graduated from Washington & Jefferson College in 1911 before earning his law degree at Harvard University three years later, according to the historical society. He was hired as assistant district attorney in Washington County but resigned from that position to fight with the army in the Great War in 1918. He came home a year later and returned to work as an assistant prosecutor and eventually served as county solicitor.
When the district attorney’s position became available in 1922, Hughes was appointed to that office as a compromise pick between the county’s judges. He and Katherine bought our house on Nov. 30, 1923, and they were married eight days later. They had one daughter named Mary in 1925.
Hughes ran as a Republican and won election to a full term in 1924. He spent another five years as prosecutor until Republican Gov. John Fisher appointed him to be judge when the bench was expanded. Hughes continued in that role for 14 more years and eventually was elevated to president judge.
Soon, Hughes would make history as the first Washington County resident to serve on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, according to newspaper records.
The death of state Supreme Court Justice William M. Parker in August 1943 led to a vacancy that Gov. Edward Martin needed to fill immediately. It didn’t hurt that that Hughes was “a close friend and neighbor” of Martin, making him a natural selection, according to newspaper archives.
“It’s a great pleasure to appoint a life-long supporter and a man in whom I have such great confidence as citizen, lawyer and judge,” Martin told reporters. He added that Hughes never had a legal decision overturned by an appellate court, indicating “he has one of the finest records on any court in Pennsylvania.”
At 52 years old, Hughes took his seat on the state Supreme Court on Dec. 30, 1943. But his time on the high court was short-lived, as he was required to run for election in November 1944. He lost to Democratic candidate Charles Alvin Jones and left the court on Jan. 3, 1945, less than 53 weeks after being elevated to the prestigious position.
He rebounded from that defeat by immediately taking the job as solicitor general for the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad. But his life was cut short on June 20, 1945, when he “dropped dead … on a street” in Philadelphia shortly after leaving his hotel, according to a newspaper report in that city. A nurse and two doctors who saw him slumped over attempted to resuscitate him, but he was pronounced dead – apparently of natural causes – upon being brought to a local hospital. He was just 53.
“His death was completely unexpected and came as a great shock,” the Washington Reporter wrote in its afternoon edition hours after he died.
His body was taken by train back to Washington, where it was greeted by political supporters and rivals alike, including his close friend Gov. Martin, who served as a pallbearer, according to published reports.
Hughes was laid to rest at Washington Cemetery. Katherine, who lived another 23 years, is buried by his side.
We always knew there was a remarkable story behind one of the previous occupants of our home. But we never could have imagined that we lived under the same roof as a man who had such a tremendous political and legal impact on Washington County and Pennsylvania.