Robert Vaughn

Robert Vaughn (born Robert Vaughan; June 5, 1836 – March 23, 1918) was a Welsh immigrant to the United States and an important rancher, farmer, and businessman in the U.S. state of Montana before and after the early years of its statehood. He homesteaded the Vaughn ranch in the Sun River valley in Montana, building a sandstone mansion as his home there. The town of Vaughn, Montana, is named in his honor, and helped co-found the city of Great Falls, Montana. He built the Arvon Block, a hotel and stable in Great Falls, one of the city's earliest buildings; the ranch and the hotel are both listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Early life and career Robert Vaughan was born on June 5, 1836, to Edward and Elizabeth Vaughan. The family lived near the village of Dinas Mawddwy in what was the county of Meirionnydd (now the southeast part of the county of Gwynedd) in Wales, United Kingdom. He was the third of six children. His siblings included Jane, Hugh, Robert, Edward, John, and Mary. His father was a warden of (supervisor over) the royal forest. He was educated minimally at home, worked on the family farm, and attended the Anglican Church in Wales. He spoke Welsh at home, but no English. Vaughan left home at the age of 19 to take a position as a gardener for the wealthy banker Benjamin Heywood Jones in Liverpool (where his sister Jane lived). He learned English, and in the fall of 1858 traveled to Rome, New York, in the United States to visit his brother Hugh, who had emigrated to the U.S. a year earlier. Vaughan traveled to America without telling his parents (doing so only after he arrived), and fully intended to return to Wales. After three months, he traveled to Palmyra, New York, to visit his father's sister. He stayed there a year, then moved to Youngstown, Ohio, where he worked as a coal miner and farmer. Hugh having moved to McLean County, Illinois, Vaughan moved from Youngstown to live with his brother. He assisted on his brother's farm for three months in the summer of 1863 before moving to Fairbury, Illinois, where he mined coal. Shortly after arriving in the United States, Vaughan resolved to become an American citizen. The official who filled out the paperwork misspelled his name as "Vaughn", an error noticed only after his citizenship had been approved. To avoid legal difficulties, Vaughan used the erroneous spelling for the rest of his life.