The Eastlick family
An Issaquah dynasty was started when Abbie Vaughan married Mahlon Eastlick in the gold fields of California in 1875.
Her father was John William Vaughan, an Englishman who was interested in the mineral and timber resources of the Western United States. In 1852, he married Rachel Mercer, the sister of Seattle’s famous Mercer brothers, in Illinois. The couple and their growing family traveled the West looking to make their fortune.
Abbie Vaughan was 20 years younger than Mahlon Eastlick. His family had come west in the gold rush of 1849, but he never struck it rich mining. The couple had seven children-Glenn, John, Nell, Grace, Mary, Iva and Helen. The family traveled to the northwest in a covered wagon in the mid 1880s, and arrived in this area in March 1886.
Abbie’s brother built a sawmill in the area now known as Black Nugget Road on the plateau. It soon became a family operation, with other relatives joining in. It also led the way for more homesteading, farming and logging on the plateau.
Today, there are dozens of descendents within a stone’s throw of the old sawmill site. The Eastlick children and their children married into families such as the Settems, Clarks, Jones, Busbys, McBrides, Barlows and Ericksons.
