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COMMEMORA TIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. - 1895 Evan R. Vaughan, one of the prosperous and most highly
respected farmers of Little Wolf township, Waupaca County, is a native of
Wales, born in Llansyllin, December 7, 1833. Our subject is a son of Richard
Vaughan, a whipsawyer by trade, who married Ann Davis, and had a family of ten
children, a brief record of whom is as follows: David was a sawyer, and when last heard from was in Liverpool,
England; he had a wife, but no children.
Richard was also a sawyer, and passed his entire life in Wales, where he
died leaving no family. Edward came to
America in 1844, and locating in Utica, N.Y., was a day laborer for over twenty
years there, in 1867 coming to Wisconsin, an dsettling on land in Columbia
county, where he yet resides; he has been very successful, and has an
eighty-acre farm, which he may well be proud of; he has a family of ten
children, namely: Mary An, Nell, Edward G., Kittie, Elizabeth, Emma, Palmer,
Arthur, Eva and Jennie. Ann died in
Wales. William died in Little Falls,
NY, leaving a wife and four children:
Mary, Emma, Frank and Fred (deceased); he was a sawyer by trade. John, who was a mason died in Ohio. Thomas, who came from California to
Wisconsin in 1863, died in Little Wolf August 5, 1888, leaving a wife and three
sons: Edward (deceased), William
(deceased), and Edgar; he was a miner and farmer. Evan R. is the subject of this sketch. Eleanor married David Jones, of Gwern y Penant Penybont,
Llanyminech, Denbighshire, North Wales, and they have had three children.
Elizabeth is in Monmouthshire, England.
The parents each lived to a great age, dying, the father when one
hundred years old, the mother when ninety-eight. Evan R. Vaughn, of whom we
write, received, in his native land, but a limited education, never having
attended school after he was thirteen years of age, as he then commenced
working at day labor. In 1852 he
emigrated to the United States, landing at New York on the 5th day
of May, after a voyage of four weeks, thence at once proceeding to Utica, NY,
where was living his brother Edward.
From there he went to Remsen, Oneida Co., NY, and engaged at farm work,
also sawmilling, till 1856, the year of his coming to Wisconsin, and locating, in
the fall of the year, at Royalton, Waupaca county, which was then nothing but a
wilderness. Here he embarked in the
lumber and sawmilling businesses, and followed the same till 1862, when he
bought forty acres of land in Section 23, Little Wolf township, the same still
forming part of his possessions.
Thereon he built a log house, which is yet standing, and at once
commenced the process of converting the primeval forest into a civilized
farmstead. Having succeeded in clearing
and reducing to cultivation some eight acres, our subject took unto himself a
helpmeet, and then bought eighty acres more wild land, making, in all, 120
acres, to which he, from time to time, added until he had 240 acres all, or
most of which, he opened up, and today he has sixty acres cleared and
well-improved, having thereon a commodious and comfortable dwelling and
outhouses. He owned the fourth
horse-team ever owned in Little Wolf township, and has beheld the “howling
wilderness” transformed into fertile fields, and made to “blossom as the rose”,
all brought about, as far as his own farm is concerned, by the hard work and
honest toil of himself and faithful wife. On July 18, 1861, Mr. Vaughan
was married to Miss Ellen L. Whitman, who was born near Rutland, Vt., August
16, 1840, a daughter of Alvin and Hannah (Garfield) Whitman, the mother a
distant relative of the martyr, President Garfield. They were the parents of eight children: Urania, Bryon L., Marcia, Rollin, Orator,
Jennie, Ellen L., and Mittie. The
parents were of the old Eastern stock, dating their ancestry a long way
back. Mrs. Vaughan came to Wisconsin
with her brother-in-law Harvey Brown, locating in Royalton, Wis., whither had
also come her mother (who died there in 1874, at about the age of sixty-five
years) and brother Byron L., who is still living there. Three children have
been born to Mr. and Mrs. Vaughan:
Nora, born October 21, 1862, wife of Leonard F. Lozier, of Manawa, who
is engaged in th lumber woods as a day laborer; Walter G., born November 23,
1867, who lives on the farm and works it for his father; he married Anna
Behnke, and has one child, William, born May 3, 1893; and Luther A., born
February 17, 1872, who married Anna Raasch, and has one child, Menai E., born
April 24, 1894. The mother of these
childen ws called from earth October 13, 1888, deeply mourned by all who knew
her. In 1864, Mr. Vaughan enlisted in
Company D, Fifty-first Wis. V.I., which was sent ot St. Louis, Mo., was there
drilled, and thence ordered to Kingsville, same State, where the regiment was
stationed some two months, doing guard duty, during which time our subject was
promoted to be corporal. The Jesse
James gang had visited that locality about two weeks previous, and had burned
the town. From Kingsville the
Fifty-first proceeded to Pleasant Hill, Mo., where, in August, 1865, Mr.
Vaughan received an honorable discharge, and returned to his home, and to the
pursuits of peace. He is a member of
J.B. Steadman Post, No. 120, G.A.R.
Politically, he is a Republican, and has served his township in various
offices of trust, such as chairman, side supervisor, and as member of the
school board. |