Maxwell was born on a farm near Horse Shoe Run in Tucker County, West Virginia, USA. His father was Rufus Maxwell, first prosecuting attorney in the county, and his mother was Sarah Jane 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 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. 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 on 8 December 1891 and they had 4 children: Selby Frederick, Marian, Anna, and Alexander Wilson. 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, 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.
Works
Books
Maxwell, Hu, History of Tucker County, West Virginia, From the Earliest Explorations and Settlements to the Present Time, Kingwood, W.Va: Preston Publishing Company..
Maxwell, Hu, Idyls of the Golden Shore
Maxwell, Hu, Evans and Sontag, the Famous Bandits of California; Supplemental material by Charles W. Clough.
Maxwell, Hu, The History of Barbour County, From its Earliest Exploration and Settlement to the Present Time, The Acme Publishing Company, Morgantown, W.Va..
Hill, A.F., The White Rocks, or: The Robber's Den, a Tragedy of the Mountains, Morgantown, WV: Acme Press, Illustrated by Howard Llewellyn Swisher and Hu Maxwell.
Maxwell, Hu, "The Seneca Indian Trail"; Article published in The Tucker Democrat ; Reprinted in West Virginia Review; 2:1 Aug 1925, pp 393–395. Reprinted by Randolph County Historical Society: Magazine of History and Biography; 11, 1954; pp 96–101.
Maxwell, Hu, "Pioneer Sawmills of the Appalachian Region", Amer. Lumberman, 2599: pp 56–57.
