Greene County AlArchives Biographies.....Hughes, Chesney W. July 30 1842 - living in 1893
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Ann Anderson alabammygrammy@aol.com May 26, 2004, 12:21 pm

Author: Brant & Fuller (1893)
    CHESNEY W. HUGHES, a merchant of Pleasant Ridge, Greene county, Ala., was
born in Pickens county, Ala., July 30, 1842. He is a son of James J. and Nancy
(Hamlin) Hughes. The father of James J. Hughes was Joseph A. Hughes, a colonel
in the Revolutionary war, who was a native of South Carolina and moved to
Alabama, settling in Greene county, where he lived the rest of his life. James
J. Hughes was reared on his father's farm in South Carolina, and when a mere lad
was brought to Alabama. He and his wife, Nancy Hamilin, were the parents of
eleven children, seven sons and four daughters, only four of whom are living,
viz.: Chesney W.; Cicero T., a resident of Birmingham; Cornelius A. and
Henrietta P., both residents of Pleasant Ridge. The father of these children
died in South Carolina in 1856, and the mother died in Birmingham in 1872.
Chesney W. Hughes was reared on a farm and educated in the schools of Pickens
and Greene counties. In 1861 he enlisted in company D, Second. Alabama infantry,
under Capt. T. C. Lanier, and served as a private soldier all through the war.
He was taken prisoner at Corinth, Miss., and held fifteen days, when he was
paroled, and soon afterward exchanged. In 1862 he received a wound in the left
shoulder and arm. During his service in the army he participated in the
following important battles: Corinth, siege of Vicksburg, Lookout Mountain,
Missionary Ridge, New Hope Church and Atlanta, beside many skirmishes. After
serving until the close of the war, he returned to Pickens county and engaged in
farming. In 1871 he married Miss Going, a native of Pickens county, Ala., and a
daughter of Eli Going, a farmer of that county. To their marriage• was born one
child, a daughter, Mary G. Mrs. Hughes was a member of the Presbyterian church,
and died in 1872. In 1874 Mr. Hughes married Mary Hendley, a native of Greene
(now Hale) county. She died in 1876, leaving one child, a daughter, Lucy T. Both
of these daughters are living with their father at Pleasant Ridge. In 1884 he
married for his third wife Miss Anny F. Hughes, daughter of B. J. and Jane E.
(Going) Hughes. The fathers of Mr. and Mrs. Chesney Hughes were double first,
cousins, their paternal grandfathers being brothers, and their paternal
grandmothers being sisters. Their grandmothers were named Brown, and were lineal
descendants of the royal house of Stuart, of England. Mrs. Hughes's grandfather,
John Hughes, brother of Col. Joseph Hughes, emigrated from Union district, S.
C., to Alabama, in 1820. Her grandmother was an aunt of ex-Gov. Brown, of
Mississippi. She was r woman of remarkable mental faculties and memory,
recalling facts and dates with great accuracy and ease. She died in Pickens
county at the extreme age of ninety-five. The grandfather of Mrs. Hughes died in
Pickens county in 1839. The parents of Mrs. Hughes were natives of South
Carolina. Her father came to Alabama when fourteen years old, leaving his
parents in South Carolina. He worked as a field hand in Greene county, Ala.,
obtaining his education as best he could, and being of a studious disposition he
devoted his evenings to his books. In this way he mastered the elements of a
common English education, and then took up the higher branches, and even the
languages and sciences, including engineering and mechanics, of which he
obtained a thorough knowledge. He then engaged in teaching school in the county,
and at length embarked in merchandising; going, as was then the custom of
country merchants, twice a year to New York to buy goods. He carried on the
mercantile business at Vienna and Bridgeville, both flourishing business towns,
for a period of thirty years, and notwithstanding some reverses and losses, he
accumulated finally a considerable fortune.He died in May, 1878, at the age of
seventy-four. Mrs. Hughes's mother came from South Carolina to Pickens county,
Ala., when nine years old, was married to Mr. Hughes in 1834, and died in 1880,
on the plantation on which she had spent the latter portion of her life. Chesney
W. Hughes was engaged in the mercantile business in Birmingham seven or eight
years, but in the fall of 1887 he removed to Pleasant Ridge, where he has since
been engaged in the same business. He was present at the organization of the
city of Birmingham, and was instrumental in building the first Presbyterian
church in that city. Both he and his wife are members of the Pleasant Ridge
Presbyterian church.



Additional Comments:
from "Memorial Record of Alabama", Vol. I, p. 1047-1049
Published by
Brant & Fuller (1893)
Madison, WI

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