The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-08-01
OUR NOMINEES.

We present to-day personal sketches OF
our candidates for governor, lieutenant
governor, and states'- attorney. They are
all able, wel-known and reliable citizens
of this commonwealth, strongly allied
with all its interests /:
COLONEL ROBERT w. HUGHES,
Our candidate for governor, is man who
would be marked for his superior endow-
ments among the most brilliant of our gift
ed names. He is in the prime Of life, and
possesses wonderfully compact and'vigor-
Gus frame, symbolizing as it were the
powerful and symmetric mind whichit con-
tains.
He has an active nervous temperament,
which is we'll balanced by his strong physi-
cal powers. Like Bayard, the good knight,
he is without reproach or fear, the worthy
leader of noble cause.
Colonel Hughes was born in Powhatan,
county lying little above Richmond, on
the south side of the James river. His
family were among the pioneers of the
colony of Virginia, and one of the first to
settle in Powhatan county. A considera-
BILE stream flowing into the James, called
Hughes creek, takes its name from the
original owners of the lands it drained.
His grandfather, David Hughes, was a
captain in the war Of Independence, while
his father, jesse Hughes, was captain in
the war of 1872. His mother was Nor
ton, of Prince Edward county, Hugenot
"a scion of one of the most numerous
and respectable families in Southside
Virginia. Through her the subject of this
sketch inherits the blood of the Hugenot
families of Watkins, Mosely, Mosby, Dan
iel, and others. A great great uncle, Jesse
Hughes, was pioneer hunter and Indian
fighter in West Virginia, (see De Hass's,
history from whom Hughes river, flowing
into the Kanawha, took its name. From
these facts it is plain that the subject of this
memoir is beyond the reach of those who
endeavor to make capital by the hue and
cry of that terrible word "carpet-bagger."
His father inherited large plantation on
the James river, in Powhatan county, but
lost his estate in the financial depression
which followed the close Of the last war
against Great Britain. lie died soon after,
leaving his family without estate or means.
Colonel Hughes, the subject of this sketch,
who is now man of wealth and great in
fuence in Virginia, is self-educated and
self-made. By his great industry and en-
ergy, and while yet in the prime of life, he
has placed himself in an Independent posi-
ton, and is, therefore, not dependent on
official position for the support of either
himself or family. He has accepted the
leadership of the Republicans because he
believes, if elected, he can be of great SER
vice to them in advancing the interests of
the state, and not from any hope or ex-
pectation of selfaggrandisement or personal
benefit.
After passing through many vicissitudes
as an orphan boy, Colonel Hughes studied
law on attaining manhood, and began the
practice of his profession in Richmond in
1916, pursuing it with great assiduity and
success until the close of Mr.. Pierce's adj
ministration in 1867. During nearly all
this time, however, he was a constant con-
tributor to the Richmond Examiner, an in
dependent Democratic paper of eonsidera-
bic celebrity and great influence in the
south. When the editor of that journal,
John M Daniel, ESQ.,, went abroad as
United States minister to Sardinia
In1anal H,nbaa I
editorial charge of it. He continued
in this position until the accession of Mr..
Buchanan to the presidency in 1857, when
on invitation of the president, he accepted
the position of principal editorial writer FOL
the Washington Union, the national organ
it will be remembered, of the Democratic
party. This position he filed with marked
ability until the summer of 1859, when he
retired from politics to farm which he
had purchased in Washington county, IN
southwestern Virginia, where he has since
continued to reside, though during ant
since the war he has spent much of his tim,
in Richmond
The hostility of Mr.. Buchanan to Judge
Douglas was one of the reason which in
duced the withdrawal Of Colonel Hughe,
from the Washington Union. lie attended
the Democratic convention which convened
in Charleston in April, 1860, as a Jealous
advocate of Judge Douglas but owing t
his personal relations with the Buchanan
administration he took no part in tn
Presidential contest of that year. !.
After secession became an accomplishe,
fact, Colonel Hughes threw in his lot with
the state of Virginia, and at the earnes
solicitation of his old associate, John M