Nephew of hymn­ist James Mc­Gran­ah­an (and some­times con­fused with his un­cle of the same name, who lived 1825-1899), Hugh stu­died mu­sic under George Root & Ho­ra­tio Palm­er, & at the New England Conservatory of Music in Bos­ton, Mass­a­chu­setts. His ca­reer start­ed by di­rect­ing mu­sic­al in­sti­tute con­ven­tions. He lat­er had charge of church chor­al un­ions in New York and Phil­a­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia, and head­ed the Mu­sic De­part­ment at Moo­dy Bi­ble In­sti­tute in Chi­ca­go for five years. Af­ter leav­ing the mu­sic­al field for health rea­sons, he en­tered the in­sur­ance field in Pitts­burgh, Penn­syl­van­ia, where he di­rect­ed mu­sic in the ed­u­ca­tion­al de­part­ment of the Belle­field Pres­by­ter­i­an Church. As of 1880, he was teach­ing mu­sic in South She­nan­go, Pennsylvania. By 1914, he had moved back to Jamestown.

• Hall, pp. 325-7

1. Melbourne
2. Tell the Sweet Sto­ry of Love