Vaughan, John J.

VAUGHAN, MAXSON, PIPER

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 8/15/2009 at 18:31:47

John J. Vaughan, a successful grain merchant of Newton, and one of the most influential citizens of this place, was born in New York October 2, 1834. His father, whose name was also John, was the son of one Micajah Vaughan, who was of English ancestry, with perhaps a tinge of Welsh blood in his veins. The father of our subject was a blacksmith by trade and also owned a farm and kept a hotel in the state of New York, where he died in 1842. His wife, whose maiden name was Hannah Maxson, was a direct descendant of one of the royal families of Holland.

In the parental family of eleven children, six sons and five daughters, the late William Vaughan, of Newton, was the eldest. In an early day he came to Newton, where he amassed a fortune in the mercantile business and also engaged in the banking business, becoming one of the foremost men of the city. After the death of his father, John, then about eight years of age, came west with his mother and the remainder of the family and settled near Jackson, Mich., where the eldest brother, William, had come some years before. Later, John removed to Clinton, Mich., where he worked in the store of his brother, William.

In the year 1853, at the age of nineteen years, Mr. Vaughan crossed the plains to California, going from Salt Lake City to Sacramento on foot, and without shoes, his feet becoming blistered and bleeding by the eight hundred miles trip over the mountains. Arriving in the Golden State, he and his brother Samuel D., in whose company the journey had been made, engaged in placer mining, in which the latter accumulated a fortune. John J. remained in California until 1856, when he returned to Michigan via the Isthmus. Soon afterward he married Cornelia Piper, a native of Michigan, and a descendant of German ancestors.

In the spring of 1858, Mr. Vaughan came to Iowa, where for a time he resided on a farm near Newton, but soon afterward went into a store as a clerk. In 1861 he was appointed deputy County Treasurer of Jasper County, in which position he served for eight years, retiring from it to enter the insurance business. After the great Chicago fire, he located in that City and engaged in the commission business on the Board of Trade, but after spending two years In that place he returned to Newton and embarked in the grain business for a number of years by himself, but is now connected with the firm of Councilman & Co., of Chicago.

During the entire period of his residence in Newton, Mr. Vaughan has been one of the foremost citizens of this place. From the organization of the Jasper County Fair until the present time, he has been one of its leading spirits, and has served as its Secretary from the first. He and his wife have one child, a daughter, Florence, who was educated in New York. She has a fine musical talent. For many years Mr. Vaughan was the leader of the church choir in Newton, and his services have been in frequent demand for entertainment. Portrait and Biographical Record, Jasper, Marshall and Grundy Counties, IA Page 353.