Biographies M
Hugh Martin
Hugh Martin (Martain) migrated to Muhlenberg in 1803 from Clark Co., Kentucky. He had migrated to Kentucky Co., Virginia, to the area that became Fayette Co., Virginia and later Fayette Co., Kentucky, in September 1779. Clark County was taken from Fayette. He had been in the Fayette County Militia in the Revolution and lived on a preemption on the Kentucky River.
Hugh was born August 27, 1759 in Augusta Co., Virginia, the son of William Martain Sr. and Agness Hodge. William came to America with his father and mother, Hugh and Sarah, in 1742 from Carnmoney, Antrim, Ireland, and settled in the Beverley Tract of Orange Co., Virginia, which later became Augusta County. The family was of French Huguenot extraction, being forced from France in the 1500s to Scotland and on to northern Ireland in the 1600s.
Hugh, son of William, married Mary McDonald in Augusta County in 1779 and migrated to Kentucky with his father, four of his brothers, two sisters and members of the McDonald family the same year. Mary was the daughter of Francis and Sarah McDonald of Augusta County. Hugh and Mary Martin had five sons and three daughters, who all married into prominent families in the Muhlenberg area.
The Martins and McDonalds were instrumental in the building of Bryan Station in Lexington, Fayette Co., Kentucky.
Hugh Martin was a staunch Presbyterian and was an elder at the Old Salem Presbyterian Church in Clark Co., Kentucky, in 1784, and also at the Greenville Presbyterian Church after coming to Muhlenberg.
Mary McDonald Martin died in 1823, and Hugh Martin died on April 31, 1824 in Muhlenberg County. They are buried in the Mt. Pleasant Cemetery which is now in the old Vogue Coal fields, Muhlenberg. Harold Rarden placed a Revolutionary War gravestone on Hugh's grave in 2006.
A Kentucky Historical Highway Marker on the Greenville Courthouse lawn pays tribute to Hugh and other Muhlenberg men who served in the Revolutionary War.
Written and contributed by Harold W. Rarden
Related: Mt. Pleasant Cemetery
Updated January 24, 2020