HISTORIC RUGBY, TENNESSEE

Uffington House-A Living History Project

Thomas Hughes' mother, Margaret, and her teenage (and motherless) granddaughter Emily, crossed the ocean from England to the East Tennessee wilderness in May, 1881. Uffington House, named for a family home on the Isle of Wight, became their Rugby home until Madame Hughes' death at age 90 in 1887.

Margaret Elizabeth Wilkinson Hughes was one of Rugby's most important citizens. She gave up an interesting social and cultural life in London, where she was aquainted with Dickens and Tennyson, to support her son's new colony in the wilderness. 'Madame' Hughes, as she came to be called, played an active role in the community's life. She was the guest of honor at many important ceremonies such as the opening of the Thomas Hughes Library in 1882. She started the Ladies Church Working Society and was its president for several years. She had a playground built for the children of Rugby and was a frequent hostess to visitors and colonists. Both she and Emily established a small farming operation and extensive vegetable, flower and shrub gardens throughout their farmstead.

Historic Rugby's archives contain more than 200 letters written from Uffington House by Emily and Margaret, revealing the day-to-day life of the Anglo-American colony. They describe the daily housekeeping and dining customs, social and cultural activities, landscaping, farming and gardening details, observations on visitors from around the world and successes and failures of the early colonists. Just one of Emily's many self-taught accomplishments was photography. She developed her pictures in the Uffington House kitchen, struggling with the early chemicals and paper. The historic pictures below are Emily's, found in a trunk in Ireland with some of her letters to a friend.

Seven-gabled Uffington House stands little changed today, with its huge trees and sweeping views across the Clear Fork River. Recently purchased by Historic Rugby, Uffington offers the most exciting potential in the Rugby Colony National Register Historic District for an exceptionally accurate restoration and living history interpretation.

Historic Rugby is raising funds and working to restore the home and grounds. The home will be refurnished as it was in the 1880s. When opened, Madame Hughes, Emily, and other family members will show visitors around the house and grounds, as voice actors on audio players, allowing an authentic step back in time to 1880s Rugby. Visitors will also be able to wander the entire three-acre grounds, the stable and farmyard with animals like those Emily raised, historically documented flower and vegetable gardens and even the spring and bathhouse where Uffington residents bathed. The restored 1930s Potato House from a later farming period will introduce visitors to a 125-year overview of Uffington and its history.

Margaret Hughes is the only family member buried at Rugby's Laurel Dale Cemetery. Young Emily had to leave Rugby after her Granny's death, but lived a long, interesting life, dying in Kenya, S. Africa, in 1939.