Young, Hugh Franklin (1808–1888)

Hugh Franklin Young, son of Hugh and Sarah Steele Young, was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, on November 3, 1808. In 1824 he moved to Mississippi, where he joined the local constabulary in fighting bandits and pirates on the Mississippi River. He married Frances Hampton Gibson in Clarksburg, Tennessee, in 1836, and they had two sons – Willliam H. Young and Newton A. Young. Young moved during the late 1830s to Boonesville, Missouri, and in 1840 to Clarksville, Texas. Young joined the Texas militia and in 1843 was a member of the Snively expedition. He served also in the Mexican War as a colonel in the militia. Following the death of his first wife, Young married Sarah A. Rainey in 1846 and they had a son, Frank E. Young, born in 1850. Young became chief justice of Red River County in 1848 and in 1853 moved his family west to Sherman, where he served as the chief justice of Grayson County. He owned seven slaves at the time of the Census of 1860. During the Civil War he was a reserve brigadier general of state troops and was a procurement agent for the Confederacy. After the war he moved to San Antonio, where he set up a transportation system to Monterrey, Mexico. During the 1870s, he and his sons, William and Newton, operated the West Texas Law and Land Office in San Antonio. He died in San Antonio on September 8, 1889, and was buried in the Confederate Cemetery there.