Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the William Le Roy Vaughan Papers #4192, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Virginia Vaughan Mallory of Richmond, Virginia, in July 1979.

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The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

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• Andrews, George L.
• Beaufort County (N.C.)--History.
• Federal Writers' Project.
• North Carolina--Biography.
• Oral history.
• Vaughan, William Le Roy, 1880-1956.

• Federal Writers' Project Papers (#3709)

William Le Roy Vaughan was born 29 January 1880 in Halifax County, North Carolina, the sixth child of Martha Gray and William Thomas Vaughan. Both Vaughan and his older brother received their bachelor's (1902) and master's (1906) degrees from Wake Forest College. They were both admitted to the North Carolina Bar in 1907.

After working briefly at Wake Forest as an instructor and then as an editorial assistant on a Halifax county newspaper, William Vaughan established a law office in Washington, North Carolina, in 1908. While in Washington, he served as superintendent of Beaufort County Schools, 1909-1913; judge of Recorder's Court, 1914-1916; and legal council for the Beaufort County Land Company, 1916-1919. From 1919 to 1933, he confined his professional activities to his legal practice.

In 1911, Vaughan married Carrie Simmons, the daughter of another Washington lawyer. She died in February 1920 while bearing her fifth child.

Vaughan lost the use of his legs and right arm in May 1933 in an automobile accident in which one of his children was killed. Vaughan remained an invalid until 1938, when he began work as an interviewer for the Federal Writers' Project, responsible for collecting information on the history of Beaufort County. After the termination of the project, he worked as a Gallup poll-taker and later as customs officer for Washington, North Carolina.

In 1947, Vaughan left Washington to live with his daughter. He died in February 1956.

Vaughan's papers center around his activities with the Federal Writers' Project. Materials consist chiefly of correspondence with George L. Andrews, assistant state director of the Federal Writers' Project for North Carolina, and with others who were chiefly sources of information about Beaufort County; data on Beaufort County he collected from numerous public and private sources; and the finished accounts that he submitted to Andrews.