He was born in Owen County, Kentucky and was converted at the age of sixteen in a Methodist revival meeting in an old schoolhouse.
After serving twelve years as a pastor and one year as an evangelist, Hughes felt that God was leading him to establish a distinctly religious school where students could receive a thorough college education under the direction of a faculty wholly consecrated to God.
Hughes stated: "We will endeavor, as a faculty, to do all in our power to lead our students to the Biblical experiences of regeneration and entire sanctification and to live daily a consecrated, holy life with warm hearts and cool heads, always endeavoring to tear down the works of the devil and to build up the Kingdom of God.
Also in 1790, Bishop Asbury had established Bethel Academy, a Methodist school and the only one of its kind west of the Allegheny Mountains, just three and a half miles south of Wilmore.
This local connection gave even more meaning to the new name for the college, which Hughes viewed as less pretentious than the original name.