Barney Vermilyer - The Search for a Connection

The Search for a Connection

Starting with a little background:

In or about 1994, Jim and I bought a book that listed all the people living in the United States with the spelling of Vermilyer. There were 30 names. This was a surprise since Jim's family claimed they were the only ones left with that spelling.

Over the years, Jim was told that the name used to be Vermilyea pronounced with a long "e" and long "a" at the end of Vermilyea. He was told the name had been changed when the family moved to Illinois from Canada so it would not sound French.

We started calling people on the list. We learned there were just two groups of Vermilyer's, them and us. Everyone we talked to said, "you need to call Lewis." So we did. Lewis lived in La Porte, Indiana. We heard from Lewis the same story about the name change that had been handed down to Jim. Lewis had his family chart drawn on a window shade. He didn't know anything about a Barnabas, our oldest known ancestor. We sent him a copy of our chart . Years went by without a word from Lewis. (his wife had died that same year).

Linking all the Vermilyer's living in the United States became our goal.

Jim and his brother George Vermilyer visited Illinois in 1997. On this trip they found a front page, newspaper article telling about an occurrence at the home of "Barney Vermilyea", on the outskirts of Batavia, Illinois. It seems a group of vigilantes arrived to tar and feather Barney. The article claimed, Barney, not caring for this type of wearing apparel gathered up a half dozen guns and leaving a woman upstairs, headed for the basement. The vigilantes ransacked the house scaring the woman into spasms, then headed for the basement. Barney shot the leader, a man named Knooks in the groin. This sent the other 20 to 30 men running out of the house. Barney would later go to court against Knooks and Knooks against Barney for damages. We were sure "Barney" was Barnabas Vermilyer. We knew he owned land in that location. A portion of that land still belonged to the family.

A couple of years passed. We found the Vermilyea Family Association Web page a few months before the Oregon Reunion. We made arrangements to attend. We read for the first time about how closely we were connected to all spellings of the name. When we met Sandra Vermilyea Todd, and others at the reunion, we learned the pronunciation of Vermilyea as it is used today. We now realize that what Jim had been told about the pronunciation of the name still holds true in Canada. We also learned that no one in New York would have a problem pronouncing Vermilyer as we do (rhyming with familiar). In California it is a problem!

Sandra learned from a relative of Lewis, that Lewis compared our chart with his and felt our Barnabas and his Charles B. Vermilyer were the same man. He had heard stories that Charles B. had been married before to someone named Mary and had two boys. He claimed he had divorced her because she "nagged him all the time!"

We made it our vacation this year to see if we could find proof to support Lewis' claim. Our plan was to fly to Illinois, rent a car and visit La Porte, Indiana, meet with Lewis if possible although our latest information showed he was living in southern Illinois, 6 hours away from Batavia. After going to Indiana, we planned to return to Illinois and fly to North Carolina to confer with John and Sandra (Vermilyea) Todd. We didn't know if we would find anything, but felt it could be a worthwhile attempt and would give us a chance to visit Jim's cousin, Ralph and others in the process.

Jim's Aunt Doris, now living in Oregon, told us to call Gladys, a family friend still living in Batavia. She is 92 years old. She fixed us a terrific dinner and told us to be sure to check out the historical society in Batavia. We had been to Geneva Historical Society nearby and they told us the same. Jim had gotten the newspaper information from them on his last trip. Had Gladys not told us about new information, we may spent our time looking elsewhere.

Batavia Historical Society was our "gold mine of information"! We were on a rather tight schedule. They have a new research room ready to open in June. We were there in May. They offered to let us go into there attic, showed us how to use the index and within minutes we were holding in our hands a divorce document dated 1870, and hand written! By now it was closing time! They were kind enough not to ask us to leave, but we felt we should let them go home, after all, they are volunteers. I asked if we could come back. They were not supposed to open again for several days. We would be in Indiana by then! A very gracious woman named, Carla Hill offered to open for us the very next day so we could research and copy pages! What a thrill! We copied several documents, used about 60 pages of paper. All without charge! We of course left a donation! What wonderful people! We learned that a group of volunteers had met once a week for 5 years to organize these papers and index them! The state had microfilmed the information they wanted and then everything was headed to the landfill! The townships were offered boxes and boxes of this information. Some towns let them go to the dump rather than take on such a large project. What a shame! We read the divorce papers. In this document we learned that Barnabas Vermilyer married Mary Cummings in Canada in 1841. They moved to Illinois. They bought land near Elgin from George W. Cummings. We think that must be Mary Cummings dad. His middle name may have been Washington in which case one of their sons may have been named after Mary's dad. They owned and sold several parcels of land in Kane County. In 1869 they were living along the Fox River. They had a son, James E. that was 26, a daughter Emma age 21, a son George W. that was 18 and another daughter, Viola that was 6 years old. Staying with them was a woman named Mrs. Harriet Keller Roath, age 26. Mrs. Roath had a 7 year old son at the time. He may have been at the house also, we aren't sure.

Mary Cummings Vermilyer claims that in Feb. of 1869 she asked Barnabas to go with her to visit their daughter in Aurora. He declined claiming he had business in another direction. Even after his plans fell through he still declined going to Aurora with Mary. Mary left in the wagon. The wagon broke so she was forced to return home. When she approached the house, she heard rustling inside. Then she saw Mrs. Harriet Keller Roath climbing out the window! She went inside the house and asked Barnabas, who was the only one still in the house, why Mrs. Roath felt a need to leave by way of the window. Barnabas had no explanation.

In this same court document, George W. Vermilyer, then age 19 states he on one occasion saw his father, Barnabas dancing with Mrs. Harriet Keller Roath, holding hands and going into a bedroom at 2 a.m. then turning out the lights. It was said that Barnabas and Harriet "eloped" in Feb. 1869. They were living out of State, no one knew exactly where. ( Coincidentally, the newspaper shows it was Feb. 1869 when the vigilante's paid a visit to Barnabas' home and one, Mr. Nookes was shot in the groin by Barnabas and the rest fled. A man named Jo Keller was included in the vigilante group.) Mary Cummings was awarded half the property plus over $2000.00 in furniture, etc. and custody of the two minor children, George W. age 19 and Viola age 7.

In a court action "Susan W. Snow vs. Hanna Simpson", in 1907 ( no mention of Vermilyer in the name of the document). This was filed to clear the title on a piece of land sold by Mary Cummings to a Mr. Snow. When Snow died, his daughter inherited the property but couldn't locate the deed. Because Barnabas and Mary had owned the property, and since both were deceased, all heirs had to be notified. The list of heirs to Barnabas was: "George Vermilyer, Viola Jones, Eugene Howard, Frank Howard, William R. Howard, Hattie Vermilyer, Nelson B. Vermilyer, Elma Antrim, and the Unknown Davisees of Barnabas Vermilyer, deceased, Defendants". Hattie we know is Harriet Keller Roath, later to be known as Harriet Vermilyer. Nelson B. and Elma are children of Harriet and Charles B. Vermilyer in La Porte, Indiana. The rest were Jim's family, (children of Mary). This was the proof we were looking for! Charles B. and Barnabas Vermilyer are the same man! Much thanks to the great work by the volunteers at the Batavia Historical Society for indexing this document also, under "Vermilyer"!

We continued our vacation, driving to Indiana and finding Lewis Vermilyer.

Barnabas is Jim's great great grandfather, Barnabas is Lewis' grandfather!

He is 77 years old and we found him living just outside of La Porte, Indiana. He has moved back to this area just a year ago. He was very happy to see us and still had the letter and chart we sent him years earlier. We were able to see his hand written family chart on a window blind. He took us out to several cemeteries in the area showing us many, many stones with the name Vermilyer. He showed us the stones for Charles B. and Harriet Vermilyer We left Lewis having gotten lots more information and having been able to share with him what we found in Illinois! Very exciting!

We came back to Illinois, had a second visit with Jim's cousin Ralph and his wife Sue. They shared our enthusiasm!

We did a bit more research and then off to North Carolina!

North Carolina was our bonus! John and Sandra did a great job of showing us around their beautiful area! Holly Springs is a very green and lovely place! John and Sandra helped us sort what we had and we enjoyed every minute spent with them! We had the pleasure of lunch with Jim Vermilyea our treasurer for Vermilyea Association)! Our trip was over far too soon! We left feeling that our time went much too fast with each person we saw and each place we visited. This was a trip through time! The study of genealogy is truly in our blood!