John Hoge Ewing

Who was John Hoge Ewing?

John Hoge Ewing was a Whig member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.

John Hoge Ewing, son of William Porter Ewing and Mary Conwell Ewing, was born near Brownsville, Pennsylvania in 1796. In 1814, he graduated from Washington College in Washington, Pennsylvania. He studied law, was admitted to the Bar in 1818, and commenced practice in Washington, Pennsylvania.

He practiced law for only two years when he was awarded a contract to construct the National Pike's road-bed between Brownsville and Hillsborough, Pennsylvania, which was completed in 1820. Ewing never returned to the active practice of law, but instead engaged in a variety of business and agricultural pursuits.

On November 2, 1820, Ewing married Ellen Blaine, daughter of James Blaine, Esq., and aunt of James Gillespie Blaine, the Republican presidential candidate in 1884. The Ewings had ten children before Ellen Blaine Ewing died in 1840 from complications following childbirth; in 1845, John Hoge Ewing married Margaret Brown, with whom he had two children.

Ewing was a trustee of Washington College from 1834 to 1887 and of Washington Female Seminary from 1846 to 1887.