Wayne Walton Hughes, grandson of John Wesley Hughes, received the following letter from Glen C. Hughes, John's older son:
When your grandpa [John] was 14 years old [in 1888 or 1889], he was at a baseball game. The batter let the bat slip out of his hand into the crowd and struck Dad in the temple and fractured his skull, he was at the point of death for days and days. He had to have a silver plate placed in his temple. So you see you and I came very nearly not being in this family! He stayed in Cainsville, Missouri (he lived on a farm) so as to be close to his Doctor at the home of Billy McDonald and I do know that he was related, I think an Uncle.
He was made of pretty good stuff, a Doctor informed him that he might have five years to live -- he survived the doctor by a country mile.
David Wayne Hughes, great-grandson of John Wesley Hughes, was told by his grandfather, Kelly Walton Hughes, how he remembered as a child how his father (John Wesley Hughes) planted a string of black walnut trees, running from the barn to the road. "He just walked along in a straight line and would drop a walnut on the ground and stomp on it with his heel, pushing it into the wet ground." The trees must have been planted between 1910 and 1915; they are still thriving, and are at least a foot in diameter. (1997)
The barn that John or his father, Hiram Hughes, built on his farm was still standing and in regular use until about 1994. At that time, the barn (full of hay bales) was struck by lightning, and burned furiously. It was replaced by a metal-sided, modern barn.