Walking John Vaughn

 Walking John Vaughn

Sometimes memorable stories are handed down about particular family members. Such is the case for Walking John Vaughn. Walking John was born in 1882 and died in 1953.  Notice the shoes on this tombstone and the name Walking John Vaughn. Here's his story that is well known by almost all the Vaughns, Taylors and Conners. Walking John was one of the last children of William Vaughn and his first wife, Mary Taylor and is one of the more colorful family characters.  He never married  or had a home.  He just "visited" around from one relative to the next. John would sometime help out with whatever chores might be going on when he visited a family.   John really liked to visit with the Conners and when he came up to Noxubee County, he would go around and spend time with each of them.  Oh, did I mention that he walked everywhere he went?  Thus the name Walking John. Walking John had a habit of singing spiritual songs as he walked along the Kemper and Nouxbee county roads and  people could hear him coming, sing along the way, before he arrived.

     John died as the result of a freak accident when he was in his early 70's in 1953.  He was up in Noxubee County and on his way to visit with Melvin Conner for awhile.  A truck came along with a family in it and they stopped and asked John if he wanted a ride.  So he got in the back of the truck.  Uncle Melvin's house set back quite a way from the road and it was John's habit when he was going there to leave the road at a certain spot and cut across a pasture as a short cut.  Since John walked everywhere, he knew and used short cuts. When the driver of the truck did not stop there, no doubt intending to stop at the driveway, John decided to jump out of the back of the truck.  It was a bad old dirt country road and no doubt the truck was going pretty slow.  But when John jumped, he some how made a bad landing and was injured quite seriously.  The driver of the truck took him to the nearest hospital which was the one in Macon and John lingered two or three days before he died as the result of his injuries.  A sad life.  His mother died when he was about four and he probably took to the road when he was a teen.  But on the other hand he had quite a large family to make him welcome wherever he went. Walking John Vaughn is a legend in the Vaughn family.
Thanks to Rochelle Higginbotham in Tennessee for contributing this story.

Information Resources for this website include; 
"The Conner Family" by W. E. Conner published 1975
"Crusade in Education" chapter 1 titled My Heritage - Published 1971 by John Earle Vaughn
Hewers Of The Wilderness-1st Edition by Jack Vaughn - Published 1958

Family History Genealogy Research by Lynn Till
Family Bibles

Post by Ray Vaughn

Vaughn Family History Webmaster