Charles Vaughan was an English merchant. He was also a promoter of attempts to develop the Kennebec Valley in Maine.
Background
Charles Vaughan was born on June 30, 1759, in London, England. His father, Samuel Vaughan, was a prosperous London merchant interested in colonial trade; he owned a plantation in Jamaica and had dealings with Boston, where he met Sarah Hallowell, who became his wife.
Charles, their son, was brought up on the Jamaican plantation, where his more celebrated brother Benjamin was born. Soon after his arrival in New England, Vaughan entered upon a long and prominent connection with the "Kennebec Purchase" in Maine.
His maternal grandfather, Benjamin Hallowell, had been one of the "Proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase, " popularly known as the "Plymouth Company, " incorporated in 1753 to take over a region some thirty-one miles wide along the Kennebec, originally a grant to some of the Plymouth settlers.
Career
With over-optimistic zeal, Vaughan plunged into two costly developments. At Hallowell, just below Augusta, with a view to establishing a great center at the head of navigation of the Kennebec, he constructed houses, stores, and mills, set up a printing press, built one of the most up-to-date gristmills in the region and a brewery which, it is said, turned out a greater amount of malt liquor than any other in New England. More visionary was his effort to establish a seaport at Jones Eddy near the mouth of the Kennebec, four miles below Bath. He built wharves, warehouses, and a wet dock for masts, which were an important export; he also maintained an agent there to chart the port and transact the expected business.
In 1790, he visited England to develop trade connections for his new enterprises. The Jones Eddy project was a complete failure, however. It had an excellent location, being much more accessible than Wiscasset on the Sheepscott, to which exports from the Kennebec had to be carried through a narrow river; but tradition proved stronger than geographical advantage. Wiscasset remained the chief port of the region until after 1812, and, in spite of Vaughan's efforts, Bath rather than Jones Eddy became the official port of entry. Long before Vaughan's death, only the rotting wharves remained as relics of his venture. Returning from England in 1791, he established himself as a merchant in Boston, sending Kennebec products on the first leg of the old triangle which included the West Indies and England. He was an incorporator of the Boston Library Society, the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture, the Massachusetts Society for the Aid of Immigrants, and of Hallowell Academy.
In 1793, with Bulfinch and William Scollay, he was a promoter of Boston's first block of brick houses, the Franklin or Tontine Crescent. A year later, he withdrew from the venture, and when it led to Bulfinch's bankruptcy in 1796 Bulfinch conveyed his equity to Vaughan. Two years later Vaughan himself was drawn into bankruptcy by his numerous ventures. His brother Benjamin, who had settled at Hallowell, bought in the ancestral lands on the Kennebec and Charles retained only his Hallowell house, to which he retired for the remainder of his life. He continued as agent for the non-resident owners in the Purchase, prosecuting squatters with a vigor that occasionally involved shooting. "Spared the pain of protracted weakness and infirmity, " Vaughan died at eighty at Hallowell.
Achievements
Connections
In 1791, Charles Vaughan married Frances Western Apthorp (1759-1836), daughter of Bostonian John Apthorp. Together they had six children; four survived into adulthood.