James Hughes, of Ireland, settled in Pennsylvania. His son James married and settled in Sullivan County, Tennessee. By his first wife he had but one child, a son named Alexander; and by his second wife a daughter, named Gertrude, who married James M. Owings. Mr. Hughes built a keel-boat, in which he conveyed his family and property to Missouri, coming down the Holsten, Tennessee and Ohio rivers, and up the Mississippi and Missouri.