In 1850, Hub traveled overland to California to seek his fortune in the gold rush. His sister, Melissa, joined him and married Dr. Pierce Bye Fagan. Not as lucky as Melissa's husband, Hub returned to Iowa, where he became interested in politics. In 1857 married Anna Maria Patrick, the niece of Des Moines' founding father, Thomas Mitchell, who in around 1844 became Polk County's first permanent English-speaking settler and its first sheriff. He also served as legislator. Their only child, a son named Seward, died at the age of three.