Henry P. Hughes

Henry Hughes was born in Fountain Prairie, Wisconsin, in August 1904.[1] He received his early education in Columbia County, Wisconsin, and then attended Oshkosh State Teachers College (now the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh). He went on to attend Marquette University and Georgetown University Law Center where he earned his LL.B. in 1927.[2]

He practiced law at an Oshkosh law firm from 1928 to 1934 and simultaneously served as city attorney in 1933 and 1934. In 1934, he was elected municipal judge for the city of Oshkosh. He continued in that office until December 1937, when he was appointed a Wisconsin circuit court judge by Governor Philip La Follette. Hughes presided over Wisconsin's 3rd judicial circuit, which then comprised Winnebago and Calumet counties.[3] He was subsequently elected to a full term as judge in 1938,[4] and was re-elected without opposition in 1944.[5]

Hughes first ran for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in the April 1946 election. He challenged incumbent justice Edward T. Fairchild, who by then had been on the court for 16 years. The election was surprisingly competitive, but Fairchild ultimately prevailed with 51% of the vote.[6]

Undeterred, Hughes ran again in 1947. This time, the incumbent justice, James Ward Rector, had just been appointed to the court and was running in his first election. Hughes alleged that Rector, who had been appointed from an administrative role as deputy state attorney general, did not have sufficient trial experience to warrant a seat on the high court. Hughes and Rector were both endorsed by prominent state Republicans, Rector was endorsed by Governor Walter Samuel Goodland (who died a month before the election), and Hughes was endorsed by recently-elected U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy. Hughes won 61% of the vote in the April 1947 election,[6] becoming the first person to defeat an incumbent Wisconsin Supreme Court justice in nearly 40 years.[7]

Despite being elected to a ten-year term, after just two years rumors began to circulate that Hughes was planning to quit the court. Initially it was rumored that he might be planning to challenge senator McCarthy in the 1952 Senate primary,[8] but ultimately, when Hughes announced his resignation in August 1951, he returned to his law practice, stating that he could not support his family on the salary of a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice (then $10,000 per year, or $117,000 adjusted for inflation to 2023).[9]

Hughes remained a prominent attorney in Oshkosh for the rest of his life. He died in a car accident in 1968 when his car struck a stationary school bus on Wisconsin Highway 26 in Nekimi, Wisconsin. Several children were also injured in the accident, but Hughes was the only fatality. Hughes was on his way home from the funeral of chief justice John E. Martin.[10]

Henry Hughes was the youngest of four children born to William Hughes (1870–1917) and Clara (née Hepp) Hughes (1872–1950).[10] He married Dorothy Callahan in 1930, they had four sons together.[10][11]

• Henry P. Hughes at Find a Grave