Thomas Vaughan papers, circa 1854-2012

Thomas Vaughan was born on October 13, 1924 in Seattle, Washington, to Daniel and Katherine Vaughan. After serving in the Marine Corps during World War II, he attended Yale, and then the University of Wisconsin. While in Wisconsin, he met Elizabeth Ann Perpetua (“Sherry”) Crownhart (1929-2011), who he married in 1951, and headed the Rock County Historical Society.

In 1954, he and his wife moved to Portland, Oregon, after he had been chosen to direct the Oregon Historical Society. At the time, the Society was located in cramped offices in the Civic Auditorium, and had only five employees. Over the next 35 years, Vaughan transformed the Society, dramatically increasing its staff, funding, number of publications, and prominence. He moved the Society to its current location on the South Park Blocks in downtown Portland, in a building opened on September 23, 1966. During his tenure, Vaughan oversaw several exhibits that gained widespread attention, including the Captain James Cook exhibit loaned from the British National Maritime Museum in 1974, and a display of one of the few original copies of the Magna Carta in 1986.

In 1989, Vaughan retired from his position at the Oregon Historical Society. The Society had a tumultuous period in the following years, as it faced financial difficulties, and Vaughan’s successor, William J. Tramposch, clashed with staff members during his tenure, which ended in 1991. The Society’s North Pacific Studies Center, which Vaughan had opened in 1988 with a federal grant secured with help from Senator Mark Hatfield and Representive Les AuCoin, and was helmed by Vaughan’s wife Elizabeth Crownhart-Vaughan, closed in 1991 after additional federal funding failed to come through.

Vaughan traveled widely in his life and received a number of accolades, including being named a commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. He was known for his magnetic personality and baritone voice. He authored a number of books, as did his wife Elizabeth, who became known as a scholar of Siberia and Russian America. The two had three daughters and one son. Thomas Vaughan died in Portland, Oregon on December 6, 2013, two years after his wife’s passing.