American novelist
Hu Maxwell (September 22, 1860, Saint George, Virginia (now West Virginia) — August 20, 1927, Evanston, Illinois) was a local historian, novelist, editor, poet, and author of several histories of West Virginia counties.
Biography.
Maxwell was born on a farm near Horse Shoe Run in Tucker County, West Virginia, US. His father was Rufus Maxwell, first prosecuting attorney in the county, and his mother was Sarah Jane (Bonnifield) Maxwell, a school teacher. He attended county schools for a few months only and showed an early talent for versification, even before learning to write at age 14 years. His interest in geography lead his father to take him and his brothers to the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. After four years at the Weston Academy in Lewis County, he was appointed (1880) a cadet in the U.S. Naval Academy. He reportedly passed his matriculation exams but had a nervous breakdown owing to over strenuous studying and never entered. (He was said to have been a "loner" and "a sort of recluse", not suited to a career as a naval officer.)
Back in West Virginia he went into the lumber business, edited the "Tucker County Pioneer", and wrote two novels, "Rich Mountain" and "Llewellyn". He later taught school and wrote a never-completed manuscript, "The Conquest of the Ohio Valley". In 1882 and '83, he toured the southern and southwestern States and Mexico. In 1884, Maxwell published his "History of Tucker County, West Virginia" at Kingwood, West Virginia, the first work presenting the early history of the Cheat River Valley.
Maxwell married Anna H. Humphreys (of Fresno, California) on 8 December 1891 and they had four children: Selby Frederick (1894-1971), Marian (born 1895), Anna (1900-1902), and Alexander Wilson (1905-1975). As a forester and topographer for the Forest Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Maxwell prepared several publications dealing with forestry. He was also a frequent camping companion of President Theodore Roosevelt. Over the years, the Maxwell family resided, successively, in Morgantown, West Virginia; Washington, D.C.; and Evanston, Illinois.
In preparation for his more-than-1,000-page work "A Tree History of the United States" (1923), Maxwell visited every state in the Union at least once and examined 600 of the 680 tree species believed to exist in the country. In 1924 — aged 64 — Maxwell located and traced the old Indian pathway, the Seneca Trail, between Oakland, Maryland and Elkins, West Virginia — an immense physical effort of research requiring him to walk 150 miles.
Maxwell died at home in Evanston, Illinois, in 1927. He is buried in the Oak Grove Cemetery in Morgantown, West Virginia.