Mr. John Vaughan, whose most distinguishing trait was love for his fellow-men, whom, it was said, he took more delight in serving than most men take in making and hoarding dollars, belonged to a family distinguished in statesmanship, letters, and affairs. The Vaughan brothers were of English birth, sons of Samuel Vaughan, a London merchant trading with America. The most prominent of this large family was Benjamin Vaughan, M.D., LL.D., sometime secretary to Lord Shelburne, and acting as confidential messenger in the peace negotiations between Great Britain and America in 1783. Deeply tinctured with the revolutionary spirit of the time, a liberal to the extent of admiring the system of the Directory in France, and writing in favor of it, Benjamin Vaughan finally found it expedient to quit the Old World for the more congenial political atmosphere of the New. He settled in Hallowell, Maine, as did his brother Charles, where descendants of the name still reside. The death of Dr. Benjamin Vaughan, of Hallowell, was announced to the society in 1836, and Mr. Merrick, his kinsman, was appointed to prepare a notice of him. Another brother, Samuel, settled in Jamaica; William, the successful banker of the family, remained in London; while John, one of the younger brothers, came to Philadelphia, where he established himself as a wine merchant, and a prominent member of the First Unitarian Church. Generous to a fault, “Johnny Vaughan,” as his intimates were wont to call him, seems to have objected to parting with but one single earthly possession,--his umbrella. A lady who knew Mr. Vaughan when he was a very old gentleman remembers one of flaming red, whose color should have insured its staying qualities. A story is also told of his having printed on the outside of another one in large characters, “This umbrella was stolen from John Vaughan.” One day a friend of Mr. Vaughan’s started off with this umbrella, and, quite unconscious of its equivocal inscription, hoisted it in broad day. Mr. Vaughan’s Portuguese office boy, who could speak or read no English, but who knew the umbrella, and what the printing stood for, chanced to meet the gentleman who carried it, and with speechless but entire devotion to his master’s interests followed it, and “froze on to it,” as the narrator expressed it, with such persistency that the holder was fain to relinquish it and make his escape from the jeers of the by-standers.