The Hubbard family, consisting of Silas (father), Juliana (mother), Charles (son), and Hannah (daughter), moved to Bloomington, IL from Buffalo, NY in 1855. Silas opened his own medical practice in the city on Front Street between Main and East Streets. Their son Elbert was born in Bloomington on June 19, 1856. In 1857, the Hubbard’s moved about 10 miles north of the city to Hudson, where they eventually built a house in town that is still standing today and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Silas continued to practice medicine and was the only doctor in Hudson at the time. The family would have three more daughters: Daisy, Mary, and Honor. Silas and Juliana would live at their home in Hudson until 1900 when they moved to East Aurora, NY to be closer to their children.
Elbert Hubbard would grow up to be the most well-known figure in the Hubbard family. Elbert was a successful traveling soap salesman for the Larkin Company which brought him to Buffalo, NY. In the mid-1890s, Elbert founded his Roycroft Press in East Aurora, NY which would grow into an arts and crafts community and campus that produced books, furniture, and other goods that became very popular. Through his Roycroft Press, Elbert would publish several of his own magazines including The Philistine and The Fra. He is perhaps best known for the 1899 essay “A Message to Garcia,” which appeared in The Philistine and became immensely popular. Elbert and his second wife Alice died in the sinking of the Lusitania on May 7, 1915. The Roycrofters continued operations under his son until 1938. The campus is still around today.