Vaughan Township, now the City of Vaughan, was named by Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe in honour of British diplomat Benjamin Vaughan, co-negotiator of the Peace of Paris, the treaty that ended the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783).

The present City of Vaughan was part of a large tract of land purchased by the British Government from the Mississauga Indians in 1788. During the same year the area known subsequently as Upper Canada and Ontario was divided into four administrative districts. With the arrival in 1792 of Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe to govern the new Province of Upper Canada, the districts were divided into nineteen counties, with each being further subdivided into townships for the purposed of land dispersal.

During peace negotiations in 1783, American representatives suggested that Canada be ceded to the newly formed United States. Benjamin Vaughan and Richard Oswald, representing British interests under the direction of Lord Melborne, rejected this proposition for many reasons, including the necessity to secure some British American territory as a refuge for loyalists to the British cause.

The specific role of Benjamin Vaughan in the life of John Graves Simcoe remains obscured. However, it is known both served under the British in the American Revolutionary War. Despite this ambiguity, Vaughan's name remains associated with an area that was secured and settled as a direct result of his diplomatic skills

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