Uncle Bill was born February 20, 1874, at Searsboro, Iowa. He was the second child born to John Wesley and Sarah Vincent Hughes. Bill was blessed with remarkable endurance, a powerful physique, and a mental toughness that carried him through a career that involved back packing over the Chilkoot Pass, ranching, mining, oil fields, road and bridge building, freighting and too many narrow escapes to mention.

He had terrific ability to rebound from what would be disaster for anybody else. His skill handling a freighting unit consisting of many teams of horses was legendary. When the Montana Power Co. built the dam and power house in the Madison Canyon, Uncle Bill contracted to haul the turbines from the railhead to the canyon site. He accomplished this with eleven teams, (22 horses) pulling a huge stoneboat (sled-like skid vehicle) on which was loaded one turbine.

Bill survived three wives. He was married to Bessie Clark in 1903, who tragically died in 1923, while they were living in Greybull, Wyoming,. Bessie was the mother of their four children: John, William, Ina and Sarah. In 1933 Bill married Adi Real, who died in 1944, then he married Carrie Templin, who died in 1947. Bill lived to the age of 98, dying April 30, 1972. He is buried in the McAllister, Montana, cemetery.

Bill was not reluctant to talk about his many adventures, prominent among them was a trip to Alaska to the Klondike Gold Fields with his father. He related vivid accounts of having back packed over the Chilkoot pass and of whipsawing lumber for boatbuilding on the shores of Lake Bennett and Lake Lindeman. These activities were at their peak during the stampede. Although Bill reckoned he was "about 19" when he went to Alaska with his father, his stampede experiences are indicative of a time frame more appropriate for when he was a few years older, probably 1897 or 1898.

One of the details indicating that they were present at the height of the stampede is that they were too short of money to procure the required supplies required; so Bill paid their way by back packing supplies over Chilkoot Pass on "commission" for other stampeders. The Canadian RCMP had established a requirement, in 1897, that each stampeder had to have 1700 lb. of supplies; and a cable tramway to the top of the pass was completed in late 1898. So Bill's packing for hire over the Pass was probably within that time period.

In any event, they did not stay long in Alaska, all of the good claims in the goldfield had been staked and the only livelihood was working for somebody else. Their Alaskan adventure ended with John W. getting sick. They only had money to get both of them to Seattle by boat and John W. home to Iowa on the train. Bill worked his way home, chiefly with a freighting job in Idaho.

In 1899 Bill went west to Montana with his older brother Edwin, the first Hugheses to make the move, soon followed by John Wesley, Sarah, and the rest of the family.

Click on Martha Hughes Rich "Memories of a Plain Little Girl for a handwritten article about the family by one of Edwin's sisters.

To continue reading the sstories of the 9th generation. Click on The Family That Went To Oregon