[2] His older brother George Duncan Hancock was a veteran of Battle of San Jacinto and represented Travis County in the Eleventh Texas Legislature.

After the secession of Texas in March 1861, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate States of America and was expelled from the legislature.

He refused to take part in military service during the war, and in 1864 he fled to Mexico to escape conscription for the Confederacy.

After the end of the war he returned to Texas and took part in the restoration of order, including serving as a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1866.

On the eighth season of Who Do You Think You Are?, actress and comedian Aisha Tyler learned that Congressman John Hancock was her great-great-great-grandfather.

Active in the local Republican Party, Hugh ran a bar called the Black Elephant.