Serendipity sometimes lends a hand to make local history much more interesting, and then offers yet another hand to make it more accurate.

Back in 1987, the Collins family donated an unusual Victorian photograph album to the Little White School Museum in Oswego. Instead of a conventional book-like album, this one was designed like a Rolodex mounted on an ornate cast-iron pedestal. The tin body of the thing was covered with red flocking, while the pedestal was painted black. The images, all 5x7 cabinet photos, were held in metal frames and were accessed by turning the knobs on the side, flipping through the photos one by one.

As I cataloged the 35 photos in 1996, I came across the portrait of an African-American couple taken in Yorkville, which surprised me. I tried to figure out how this portrait got carefully saved along with all the other photos of white Collins family members, friends and neighbors, but then I noticed the GAR pin on the man’s lapel, and it suddenly dawned on me what I might be looking at. And sure enough, on the back was written in pencil, “Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Hughes.”

I’d become familiar with Nathan Hughes back in 1976 during the Bicentennial, when we included his story in the history of Kendall County we published. One of my friends, Rick Brinkman, wrote the chapter on the Civil War, and he found Hughes’ story to include. And a great story it was, too.

Hughes was born a slave in Kentucky but escaped and headed north into Illinois, although he had to leave his family behind. When the U.S. government decided to recruit and field African-American military units during the Civil War, Hughes enlisted in the 29th U.S. Colored Infantry, a regiment comprised mostly of young black men living in Illinois. Eventually, 178,000 African-Americans served as infantry, cavalry, artillery and engineers.

Hughes’ outfit, the 29th U.S. Colored Infantry, participated in Grant’s (unsuccessful) attempt to trap Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia before it reached the fortifications around Richmond, then in the disastrous “Battle of the Crater” in the Richmond fortifications at Petersburg, Virginia, as well as battles at Boydton Plank Road and Hatcher’s Run.

As Victor Hicken confirmed of the 29th’s war in “Illinois and the Civil War”: “This was hard soldiering.”

During the Battle of the Crater, Hughes was shot in the upper left leg near his hip. He must have been a tough guy, however, because unlike so many of his wounded comrades sent to Union hospitals, he recovered, though it was just in time to march and fight (and be wounded again, in the hand) with the 29th all the way to Appomattox Courthouse, where he was on hand for Lee’s surrender.

After he was mustered out of the U.S. Army, Hughes came back to Illinois and then determined to head back to Kentucky to track his family down. Which he did, bringing his three children to Kendall County, his wife having apparently died. He farmed along Minkler Road south of Oswego, raised his family and married twice more, the last time on Oct. 27, 1883, to Jane Allen.

Hughes was a respected member of the Minkler Road farming community, a good friend of pioneer orchardist Smith Minkler, and an active member of the Yorkville Grand Army of the Republic post, where he served as an officer. Minkler, in fact, was so fond of Hughes that he directed that Hughes drive Minkler’s body to the Cowdrey Cemetery for burial after his June 1895 funeral ceremony.

Nathan Hughes died in 1910, living long enough to see his grandchildren become the first black students to graduate from high school in Kendall County.

So finding that photo of Hughes in a totally unexpected place was a big deal for those of us down at the Little White School Museum. And the big deal got bigger in 2012, when a friend called me to ask why I’d never told him we had a historical treasure down at the museum. He’d come across a story about the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield acquiring the only known photograph of a veteran of the 29th U.S. Colored Infantry. It turned out to be another original print of Mr. and Mrs. Hughes’ portrait.

We called the folks down in Springfield and exchanged notes, and sent them some more complete biographical information on Nathan Hughes and his life and times here in Kendall County. The one thing we couldn’t help with, however, was the exact date the photograph was taken. We knew it had to be sometime between April 1893, when Sigmund Benensohn bought Charles Sabin’s Yorkville photography studio, and August 1901, when he sold it to Charles Jessup. And we suspected it might have been done to celebrate the Hughes’ 10th wedding anniversary – but it was only supposition.

Then one day in November last year I was going through Kendall County Record microfilm looking for some historical tidbit I can’t even remember any more, and there, right in the Yorkville news column on July 19, 1893, was this bit of information: “Artist Benensohn is making some extra fine pictures of Fox river scenery with his new view camera—an instrument that cost nearly $150. His river and street views are wonderfully fine and make us more proud than ever of our picturesque village. Take a look at his show-case in front of the Hobbs block. His portraits of Comrade and Mrs. Nathan Hughes are true to the life, and show how excellent is Benensohn’s work in every line of photography.”

And just like that, another local historical mystery was solved, and we were able to add another fact about the life and times of Nathan Hughes. It is particularly relevant as we observe the day when we honor all the nation’s veterans, especially those who fought for the freedom of all during those grim Civil War years and who championed creating Decoration Day, the ancestor of today’s Memorial Day.

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