 Charles was the grandfather of renowned poet Langston Hughes.Langston was born free in 1817 in Louisa County, Virginia, the second of three sons and a daughter born to Lucy Jane Langston, a formerly enslaved woman of mixed African-American (including European) and Pamunkey (Native American) descent.Their father was her common-law husband, Ralph Quarles, a wealthy white planter who had immigrated from England.