A Cosmopolitan Place – Vaughan Family
In 1857 Hugh Vaughan, together with several other families, left Wales seeking a better life. They left with a plan, but plans do not always work out.
The Welsh, like the Irish, wanted more political, economic, and religious freedom from English rule. Emigration was one solution, and America was seen as the best place to go.
Hugh planned to colonize with other Welsh immigrants in Tennessee. But that venture fell through, leaving him and the others with no place to settle and no place to farm. Consequently, his plans to marry were also delayed.
Hugh was a young man when he arrived in the U.S. in 1857. He was eager to marry his sweetheart and fiancé Ellen Jones.
Ellen Jones was engaged to Hugh Vaughan when she and her family arrived from Wales with the Davies and Evans families.
In 1858 Hugh and the other Welsh families came to northeastern McLean County. In an area located between Chenoa and the Mackinaw River, they established a rural farming community similar to the Welsh community they left behind.
This group of families depended on each other for help, practiced their faith together, and shared in family events.
The Vaughans were founding members of the Congregationalist church in Chenoa, but they desired a church that was closer to home. In 1879 Hugh and Ellen joined the area’s Methodist congregation and donated land for the Salem Evangelical Methodist Church.
Hugh and Ellen finally married in 1860 and started a family.
In 1900 many of the Welsh immigrants and their descendants, including the Vaughans, still lived and farmed where they had originally settled. They celebrated with a reunion.