John Joseph Vaughn (abt. 1816 - 1851)

Born about 1816 in Virginia USA [uncertain]

Ancestors

Husband of Susan (Hall) Jones — married 1842 in Escambia County, Florida

Descendants

Died 3 Jul 1851 at about age 35 in Harrison County, Texas

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Biography

John Joseph Vaughn was born about 1816 in Virginia USA, son of Caroline Augusta Cooper (about 1832–about 1910).

John (25) and Susan Hall (9) were married in 1842 in Escambia County, Florida. Susan was born about 1832 in South Carolina, United States. She was the daughter of Clemson Hall I and Ann (Vaughn) Hall.

John died on 3 Jul 1851 in Harrison County, Texas, aged about 35.

The following article was written by Susan Hall's great-grandson John C. Bush and published in the ^[1]

To Texas and Back

John C. Bush

Great-grandson of John J. and Susan Hall Vaughn

John Joseph Vaughn and Susan Hall were married in Pensacola, Florida Territory, sometime before 1840. The young John had come south from Virginia, along with his brother Jeremiah Benjamin and their sister Martha. Whether their parents accompanied them, or whether these three young adults came alone, is unknown. John was the oldest, born about 1816, and was a lumberman and wagon maker. On April 12, 1843, John and Susan sold their modest home near the Navy Yard in Pensacola to his brother, Jeremiah.

To Texas

Some time after the birth of their daughter, Martha, in 1846, the young family moved to east central Texas where John acquired a considerable land grant in Navarro and Harrison Counties. His prospects were good. He owned a modest herd of livestock, and set up shop as a wagon-maker.

Later that same year, Jeremiah sold his holdings in Pensacola to Sterett Ramsey and followed his brother westward. This left only their sister, Martha, in Pensacola. In 1839 she had married William Nix, and they had ten children. Numerous descendants of her line remain in the Pensacola area today.

Jerry, too, acquired a considerable amount land in Navarro and adjoining counties. He was not married and tended toward a rougher lifestyle than John and Susan were comfortable with. John was diligent, industrious and focused on caring for his young family. Jerry was at loose ends, unsettled and volatile.

Tragedy

One day, Susan’s worst nightmare was realized. On July 3, 1851, a neighbor was coming to talk to John about a new wagon when he came upon the body clumsily hidden in a ravine. John had been shot. There were signs of a struggle, and a trail of blood and broken weeds indicated that whoever killed John had dragged the body into the ravine in crude an attempt to hide it from view.

At the time of John’s death Susan was about six months pregnant with their fourth child. Distraught and afraid, she sold the homestead and began making plans to move, though in her condition that would not be possible for awhile. In desperation, she turned for advice to a Judge Beasley, a lawyer who had helped John with some legal matters related to their land. He had befriended the young family, and Susan was sure he could be trusted.

Three months after the death of her husband, their fourth child was born and she named him John Beasley Vaughn, after his father John Joseph, and their friend Judge Beasley, without whose help her life would have been much more difficult.

Return to Escambia

Shortly after John’s birth, Susan packed their belongings into one of the last wagons John had built and set out on the arduous journey moving her family back to Escambia County. Years later Miss Mary B. Barrett, an old friend of the family, would recall hearing Susan talk about the terrifying journey:

I recall that in conversing with her that she stated that she held her brother-in-law, Jerry B. Vaughn, responsible for the death of her husband on July 3, 1851, and that her son John Beasley Vaughn was born in Harrison County, Texas some three months later. Then she told of crossing the Mississippi River the following June en route to Escambia County, Florida, with two children and daughter Mattie (or Sis) and the infant John Beasley Vaughn, to make their home among her own people.

Susan Hall Vaughn must have been one strong woman to have survived the twists and turns of her life. She was the seventh child born to a family that would eventually consist of twenty-one siblings, children of Clemson Hall and his three wives. Susan was born in 1823 in Florida, and her mother had died there. Clemson Hall was born around 1789 in South Carolina and migrated to Mississippi Territory before 1812, then later to Florida. He is said to have served as a Private under Captain Joseph Kennedy in the Mississippi Volunteers during the War of 1812, and he claimed to have been one of the volunteers assigned to bury the dead at Ft. Mims following the Creek Indian attack there. There are many Hall descendents in northwest Florida and southwest Alabama today. One of Susan’s brothers, Andrew Jackson Hall, was a founder of the town of Canoe in Escambia County, Alabama.

The Mystery of Uncle Jerry

Jeremiah remained in Texas, and there are many records of him in Harrison and adjoining counties, beginning with the Federal Census of 1850. That census confirms that he, like his brother and sister, was born in Virginia. On April 1, 1852 he married Margaret Arnett. It seems that she died within a few years, and on January 15, 1863 he married Laura O. Arledge, daughter of one William Arledge. An affidavit filed by William on behalf of Laura after Jeremiah’s death claims that a child, Mary, was born to this marriage, but there is no other evidence of this. The affidavit was filed in Newton County, Texas many years after the fact, on October 13, 1881, and says that the child, Mary, was born in late 1863 or early 1864 and survived her father by a few months. Jeremiah died near Corsicana Texas and is buried at Porter’s Bluff. There are no descendents of this line remaining in Texas.

Susan’s Children

Susan brought her children, J. H., J.D., Martha and John, back to grow up in Escambia County. J. H. (probably Jeremiah) simply disappears from the public record; there is a family story that he was a civilian casualty in a Civil War skirmish near Gonzalus Station. J. D., whose name may have been James, is reported to have died in New Orleans during an outbreak of Yellow Fever, though this has never been proven. Martha, now called “Mattie”, married William J. Costello, and later a Judge Creen in Pensacola, her descendents continue to live in the area.

John B. Vaughn was married twice, first to Annie Evelyn Cannon of Wilcox County, Alabama on January 12, 1872, by whom he had three children, only one of whom survived childhood. Their son John Boardman Vaughn moved to Miami as an adult, where he was a green grocer. Annie died at Brewton, Alabama on September 22, 1879.

On June 29, 1880 John married Dora C. Butler of Madison, Indiana at Pensacola’s First Presbyterian Church. John was an ambitious young businessman with a keen interest in politics. For several years he operated a coal and lumber business on the pier at Pensacola but, as a lumberman, John and his family tended to move around Escambia County with some frequency. The family settled at Bluff Springs, and it was from there that he was elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 1889, going on to serve three terms.

John and Dora had nine children, five of whom lived in Escambia County well into adulthood. Among them was Miss Eva R. Vaughn, who served as Postmaster at Century for almost fifty years. Their son, Raymond Edward, is buried at Barraccas National Cemetery. John died May 7, 1909 at his home in Bluff Springs. Dora lived until March 21, 1931, dying at the home of her eldest daughter, Miss Eva, at Century. One great grandson and a great-great grandson are the last known surviving Vaughn males in this line.

On August 13, 1854, Susan Hall Vaughn married George Lafayette Jones, and two daughters were born to their union. She died July 28, 1891 in Pensacola.

Research Notes

Occupation:

Place: Lumberman and Wagon Maker

Date: 12 APR 1843 Sold their home near the Navy Yard in Pensacola, Fl. to his brother Jeremiah

Sources

1. ↑ Bush, John C, West Florida Genealogical Society's magazine, FOOTPRINTS, Nov. 29, 2008.

See Also

• [www.rootsweb.com/~flescamb/cem63.htm RootsWeb]