Library of Congress

HUGHES, William, a Representative and a Senator from New Jersey; born in Drogheda, Ireland, April 3, 1872; immigrated to the United States in 1880 with his parents, who settled in Paterson, N.J.; attended the common schools; as a youth was employed in the silk mills of his home city; studied stenography at Columbia Business College at Paterson and was employed as a stenographer in New York City and subsequently became a court reporter at Paterson; at the beginning of the Spanish-American War enlisted as a private in the United States Army and served throughout the war; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1900 and commenced practice in Paterson, N.J.; elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-eighth Congress (March 4, 1903-March 3, 1905); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1904 to the Fifty-ninth Congress; elected to the Sixtieth, Sixty-first, and Sixty-second Congresses and served from March 4, 1907, until September 27, 1912, when he resigned, having been appointed to a position on the judicial bench; judge of the court of common pleas of Passaic County 1912-1913, when he resigned, having been elected Senator; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1913, until his death in Trenton, N.J., January 30, 1918; chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Navy (Sixty-third and Sixty-fourth Congresses), Committee on Pensions (Sixty-fifth Congress); interment in Cedar Lawn Cemetery, Paterson, N.J.