FROM HOME TO THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
I was born in Wales June 5, 1836, and was reared on a farm until I was nineteen years old. My parents’ names were Edward and Elizabeth Vaughan. There were six children—Jane, Hugh, Robert, Edward, John and Mary. Edward lives in the old home at the present time. His address is: “Dugoed Bach, Dinas Mowddwy, Mereoneth Sheir, G. B.”
My parents were of good family; by that I mean they and their ancestors were good Christian people, father and mother were members of the Episcopal Church. Father was a warden as long as I can remember. Mother was my only teacher. She taught me to obey, to tell the truth, to be kind, to respect others, and above all to fear God.
I left home when I was between nineteen and twenty. At this time I could speak but the Welsh language. I had a great desire to learn to acquire English; therefore I went to Liverpool, where sister Jane lived. I secured employment from the Hon. Benjamin Haywood Jones to work in a flower garden at his beautiful home on the West Derby Road. He was a rich banker in the city. I remained there over a year. Brother Hugh had gone to America a year before I left home, locating near Rome, N. Y. In the fall of 1858, instead of going home as I intended, I concluded that it would be a good idea for me to go to America and see my brother; then return in four or five months. So, without the knowledge of my parents, I took passage on board a steamship named the “Vigo” bound for New York. I was on the ocean twelve days and a half. As soon as I landed I wrote home and stated what I had done, and that I would be back home in four or five months, and at that time it was my honest intention to do so. From New York City I went to my brother’s, and stayed with him about three months; then I went to Palmyra, Ohio, to see Aunt Ann, my father’s sister. I was right at home now, and my father was satisfied since I was in the care of his sister. I was there over a year, going thence to Youngstown, Ohio, where I worked for Joshua Davies on a farm, and in the coal mines. From here I proceeded to McLean county, Illinois, where my brother had been for two years. I farmed with him one summer, then I went to Fairbury, Livingston county, and mined coal until 1864. During all this time I wrote home regularly and received letters in return. Instead of going home I was continually getting further from it. Somehow I could not resist the desire of venturing into the unsettled regions of the West. I kept drifting further and further until I found myself in the heart of the Rocky mountains, six thousand miles from home.
LEAVING HOME.
In this way forty-one years elapsed since I left my childhood home, but the picture remains in my memory as though it were but yesterday; everything appears to me as it was the last time I saw it. The house still seems the same; the ivy creeping up its walls; the sycamore, alder, birch and spruce trees stand there like sentries guarding it. The rose bushes and the evergreens in front, the hollies where the sparrows huddled together at night, the orchard and the old stone barn; and I imagine that—
“I see the quiet fields around,
I stroll about as one who dreams;
’Til each familiar place is found,
How strangely sweet to me it seems.
“The old and well known paths are there,
My youthful feet so often pressed;
Gone is the weight of manhood’s care,
And in its place a sense of rest.
“The broad expanse before me lies,
Checked here and there with squares of green;
Where, freshly growing crops arise,
And browner places intervene.”
I see the dancing rill flowing by the garden gate, and the great arch of white thorn overspanning the passage way that led to the main road. There my mother embraced and kissed me and bade me good-bye for the last time. Here my “only teacher” gave me her last instruction, it was this: “My dear son, be careful in selecting your companions to go out with in the evenings. God be with you, good-bye.”
Oh, how sweetly her voice fell on my listening ear,
And now, I imagine those soft words I hear;
If I ever view her silent grave,
My tears will flow like tidal wave.
There she stood staring at her wandering boy leaving home. We watched one another until a curve in the road took me out of sight; that was the last time I saw my mother. Father came with me about a quarter of a mile. We spoke but very little; we were both very sad. Suddenly father turned to me and took me by the hand and said: “Well, my son, fare thee well, be a good boy.” I was weeping bitterly and after I had gone a little way I looked back and saw father leaning against a gate which led to the meadow, with both hands on his face; this caused my tears to flow faster than ever. I shall always believe that father was praying for me then. And that was the last time I saw him. Father and mother are now sleeping in the silent tomb. But in my memory they appear like statues as I saw them last, and that was forty-one years ago. Mother standing at the gate with tears in her eyes waving the kind and tender hand that soothed and fondled me when I was a babe, and father leaning on that rude gate with his face buried in his hands offering a prayer in my behalf. Nothing can efface that vision from my memory. Mother more than once said in her letters to me that she always remembered me in her prayers. I often think that I might not have fared so well and perhaps be a worse man than I am, were it not for the prayers of my father and mother.
Robert Vaughn.
Great Falls, Mont., March 20, 1898.