One of the very earliest white settlers in Greene County was Thomas Hughes, who emigrated from Donegal with his wife, Bridget O’Neill, to Virginia. One of his descendants, Thomas Hughes, wrote the memoirs of his family in 1880, in which he said: “The motive that sent our first ancestor to this country from his native Irish home was of this character, _i. e._, a desire for religious freedom; he was a devout Catholic.” “Settling,” he continues, “in the valley of Virginia, in Loudoun County, before the year 1739, Thomas Hughes, son of Felime or Felix, and his wife, with his brother Felime or Felix, all from Inver, in Donegal, Ulster, first laid the foundations of his family in this country.” “Thomas Hughes was a noted hunter, and in one of his expeditions into the backwoods, which lasted for several months, he spent some time in what is now Greene County, Pennsylvania, the soil and general appearance of which pleased him so well that he determined to make his future home there. This he did in 1771, and was one of the very first white settlers in that country. He located where Carmichaelstown now stands, but several years afterwards exchanged farms with a party named Carmichael, and called his new place Jefferson, after his old county in Virginia.” His nephew, Felix Hughes, also settled in Pennsylvania, where he erected a fort or blockhouse as protection against the Indians and wild animals. It was a building of only one story and a half, of hewn logs and rough boards, and as an instance of the primitiveness of the period when this Irish pioneer settled in this locality, this building was looked upon as “an elegant house!” His wife’s name was Cinthia Kaighn (or Kane). In 1780, he set out with others to Kentucky to look up lands, but the party was attacked by Indians while descending the Ohio and, after a narrow escape, Hughes returned to Greene County, where he spent the remainder of his days. He and his father were buried in Neill’s burying ground, near Carmichaelstown. Their descendants are still found in considerable numbers in Greene and Fayette counties, Pennsylvania. A prominent Irish Catholic who settled early on Sherman’s Creek, was Henry Gass. He and his brother erected log cabins on Indian lands in Perry County, but were dispossessed from there in 1750, when they located at Falling Springs. Patrick Gass, who was born in the latter place in 1771, and who is said to have been the first white man to make an overland trip to the Pacific, is presumed to have been a son of Henry Gass. The original name, of course, was Prendergast.