Jane Hughes was born around 1843 in South Carolina to John and Martha Hughes. Her father was a planter who owned $33,000 of real estate and $41,000 of personal property by 1860. She grew up and attended school in Edgefield District, South Carolina. He fiercely supported secession. “South Carolina,” she wrote, “has always been considered a state for talk & nothing else. Now, that the crisis has arried, I hope she will secede, & thereby show that she can act as well as talk…If Carolina does not secede, I, for one, would be ashamed of what I am now so proud—that I am a native of our gallant & high spirited little state.”

 

She never married, and she remained in her parents’ household. Her father died in 1871, and her mother passed away in 1886. She belonged to the Edgefield Methodist Church, and a local writer praised her “genial spirit.” She died near Edgefield, South Carolina, on May 30, 1911.

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