Robert Vaughn (Montana)

Robert Vaughn
Robert Vaughn in 1900
Born	Robert Vaughan (1836-06-05)June 5, 1836 Montgomeryshire, Wales, UK
Died	March 23, 1918(1918-03-23) (aged 81) Great Falls, Montana, US
Occupation	Miner, rancher, farmer, businessman
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth Donahue Vaughn (1886-1888; her death); 1 child Ella De Vee (married 1893– divorced 189?)
Children	Arnovia Elizabeth 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.

Robert Vaughan was born on 5 June 1836 to Edward and Elizabeth Vaughan. The family lived near the village of Machynlleth in what was the county of Montgomeryshire (now the northern part of the county of Powys) 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.