Grandma Vaughan Dead

Margaret Amanda Craig, sister of Hiram and Allen Craig, deceased early settlers at Ft. Calhoun, was born in McComb, St. Lawrence county, New York, Dec. 5, 1836, and died at Ft. Calhoun, 11:30 P.M., June 9th, 1914. She was married to Irad W. Vaughan, Nov. 27th, 1852, at Byran, Fon du Lac county, Wis., who died in the volunteer service in the civil war, a member of the 19th Wis. Infantry regt., in 1863, at Fortress Monroe, Va.

The family lived one year in Ft. Calhoun, in 1859-60, and were passengers to that place on the old steamboat St. Marys, when it sank a few miles up the river from St. Joseph.

They returned to Wis., and in 1868 Mrs. Vaughan returned to Nebraska, making the home where she died.

She was the mother of six children, all living; Lou Vaughan, of Blair, Jas., and Harvey, of Ft. Calhoun, and Mrs. Charles Allen, George and Charles Vaughan, of Los Angeles, Calif.

Grandmother of seven children all living: Burl Vaughan, of Blair, Hugh Vaughan, Mrs. Wallie McMillan and Mrs. Charles Sierk, of Ft. Calhoun, Mrs. Peter Johnston, of Herman and a son and daughter of Charles Vaughan of Los Angeles, Calif. There are also eight great grandchildren all living in Washington county, Nebraska.

Funeral services were held at 2:00 o’clock P.M. Thursday, June 11, from the Presbyterian church, at Ft Calhoun, Neb. Rev. G. B. Warren, of Blair, officiating.

Pilot 10 June 1914

Mrs. Margaret A. Vaughan died at her home in Ft. Calhoun at 11:30 last night of dropsy. She was 78 years of age the 5th of last December and was one of the oldest settlers in the state. She came to Ft. Calhoun in 1859 and when the Civil war broke out Mr. Vaughan enlisted in the Union army and she went back to the old home in Wisconsin. He died in the hospital at Fortress Monroe in 1863. She returned in 1869 and made her home in Ft. Calhoun ever since that time, 45 years. The funeral will be held at the church tomorrow at 2 o’clock, Rev. Geo. G. warren, of this city, officiating. Her only daughter, Mrs. Martha Allen, and two sons, Geo. W. and Chas. W., live in California. Lou Vaughan lives in this city and Jas. D. and Harvey live in Ft. Calhoun.

Tribune 17 June 1914

Great Grandmother Vaughan

Great Grandmother Vaughan, who was buried in the Calhoun, Neb., cemetery June 11, 1914, was born in Macomb, New York, December 5, 1836, and was married in Wisconsin in 1852. The family came to Ft. Calhoun in 1856, near the beginning of the Civil war they returned to Wisconsin, where her husband enlisted as corporal in Co. G., 19th Wis. Vol. Infantry and died in the hospital near Richmond, Virginia, November, 1863. Later she moved back to Ft. Calhoun where she has resided ever since.

Her body was placed near her mother, Grandma James Craig, her brother, Allen Craig and sister, Mrs. Hamer. She leaves a brother, James, in Kansas and a sister in California, a son, Louis, the Blair architect, two others, James and Harvey in Ft. Calhoun and two, Charles and George in California, and a daughter, Mrs. Allen in Texas, and a number of grand and great grandchildren mostly in this county. She was surely a good mother and a grand Christian woman, who could tell many stories of the trials and hardships of early pioneer days in two states. When the writer came to Ft. Calhoun in May, 1871, we ate our first Sunday dinner at her house; in July we preached her mother’s funeral and on Thanksgiving we took our family to her home for dinner and have numbered her among our choice friends ever since. Having been the most of her life a consistent member of the M.E. church, Rev. G. B. Warren, pastor at Blair officiated in the Presbyterian church. Anthems by Mrs. Charles Rathjen and Howard Beales, Mrs. Anna Roberts at the organ. The pall bearers were Edward Brenan, A. G. Milligan, Paul Schiller, Frederick Jipp, Henry Prochnow and William Nichols. Among others present were Mrs. Simonton of South Omaha.

W. H. Woods

~~~Obituaries courtesy of the Nebraska Washington County Genealogical Society. Newspaper clippings on file in the Blair, Nebraska Public Library~~~

Find a Grave Memorial #18176859