DEEP IN THE OLD SOUTH live today numerous descendants of the early Vertreeses of whom we have written. All are
descended from that pioneering Hollander, John Van Tress, who, in America, changed his name to Vertrees. He it
was who attained the rank of captain in the time of the Revolution and who marched with Colonel George Rogers Clark
and his Virginia "Long Knives" in 1778 to subdue the Illinois villages, including Kaskaskia, Prairie
du Rocher and Cahokia. Later he sat on the bench of the first courts in Hardin county, Kentucky, where he was one
of the earliest settlers of what is now Elizabethtown.
Among the southern Vertreeses is the authoress, Letitia Vertrees Sylvester of Lakeland, Florida, who celebrated
her 90th birthday on March 30, 1938. She is a daughter of Charles M. Vertrees, who in Pike county, Illinois, on
October 2, 1839, married Mary J. McFarland, descendant of Brown county pioneers.
Charles M. Vertrees, who settled near Perry in an early day, was a brother of Jacob Sneed Vertrees whose history
has just been recorded. He was the ninth child and sixth son of the second John Vertrees. His mother was Nancy
Haycraft Vertrees, a daughter of Samuel Haycraft and Margaret Van Meter, pioneers of Elizabethtown, Kentucky.
Charles M. Vertrees was born in Hardin county, Kentucky, August 21, 1816. He came to Illinois with his parents
in the 1820s. A grandson of Captain John Vertrees of the Revolution, Charles M. died in April, 1897.
His wife, Mary J. McFarland, was descended from William and Margaret McFarland, who were residing in Harrison county,
Kentucky, when Illinois became a state. Their nearest neighbor was ten miles away. In 1819 they removed to Green
county, Ohio, being among the earliest settlers there. In 1822 William McFarland with his wife and four children
set out for Illinois. They stopped in Sangamon county and there William McFarland died. Springfield was then a
mere hamlet. The state capital was at Vandalia.
In 1824, Cornelius Vandeventer, accompanied by his three sons, William, Peter S. and Elihu, left Ohio enroute for
western Illinois. Cornelius was a brother-in-law of William McFarland. After a long search, Vandeventer located
the widow McFarland (whom he was afterward to marry), in Sangamon county. The widow accompanied her sister and
her sister's husband on their western migration to what is now Brown county where they established the first settlement
in that region. There, in a clearing that had been made in 1823 by a man named Shepherd who built the first cabin
in present Brown county, which he soon afterward abandoned, the Vandeventers planted a patch of corn, the first
in the region.
This settlement was two and a half miles east of present Versailles. In a log cabin here erected, Hannah Burbank
taught the first school in Brown county. In the first bitter winter of the settlement, the Vandeventer and McFarland
families lived on lye hominy, parched corn, wild game and wild honey. On December 31, 1839, Cornelius Vandeventer
married the widow, Margaret W. McFarland.
Charles M. Vertrees in the 1840s owned land in Sections 17, 24 and 27 in Perry township. The northeast quarter
of the southwest quarter of Section 27 he acquired from John McFarland in 1843. He acquired land in Section 24
in 1840. He disposed of his land in Section 17 to Jacob Frike in 1857.
Charles M. Vertrees was named for his father's brother, that son of Captain John Vertrees who was reputed to have
quarreled with Dan'l Boone, and who then came west and pioneered on the plains of Indiana, founding there that
branch of the Vertrees family which is celebrated by Booth Tarkington in his novel, "The Turmoil."
Mary Vertrees, daughter of Pike County Charles and Mary McFarland Vertrees, married O. F. Johns and they went to
California where Mrs. Johns died January 13, 1938, at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Arthur Kerfoot of Lemon Grove,
California. She is buried at Olympia, Washington. Mr. Johns also is deceased.
Sarah L. Vertrees, another of Charles's daughters, married Oscar R. Deland in Pike county, April 17, 1866 with
the Reverend Charles Harrington officiating. She resided in Olympia, Washington.
Nancy Louisa Vertrees, sister of Mary and Sarah, married Captain L. F. (French) Williams in Pike county, May 2,
1865, with the Reverend William Hawker officiating. Captain Williams had seen hard service in the Civil War. On
one of the great battlefields, searchers for wounded found him one day with a terrible gunshot wound through his
head. Apparently he was dying. Having time only for those with a chance of living, they left him on the field to
die. He lingered through the heat of the day. That night, cooling rains swept the battlefield. The rains revived
Captain Williams. He crept to a sheltered place and next day was picked up by the salvaging squad and carried to
a hospital. He lived, but lost one eye. The Williams family resided for a time in Kansas and then went to Florida,
where Captain Williams died. He at one time was in business in Joplin, Missouri.
Letitia Vertrees, the southern authoress, has been three times married. Her first husband was a Watkins, her second
a Pullman. Her third husband was S. A. Sylvester.
Among the volumes of prose and poetry written by this daughter of Pike county Charles Vertrees, copies of which
are possessed by Herbert H. Vertrees of Pittsfield, is a collection of poems entitled "Magnolia Blossoms and
Holly Berries," published in 1911. The authoress was then Letitia Vertrees Pullman. In this little volume,
Letitia pays the following poetic tribute to her father, Charles M. Vertrees, this being an extract from one of
the poems:
"As boy, his heart in earnest duty turned
To those who gave him birth.
As man, no truer heart e'er beat for wife,
No toil, no sacrifice of self too great
For those whose worth
He deemed so high - his wife, his children, home.
"Nor narrow was his heart. It constant burned
With all-enduring love
For all humanity, whose pulsing strife
Stirred to its depths his soul, as pain might
Stir the tender dove.
Another lilting poem is dedicated by the authoress to her little nieces, Clara and Nettie Williams, daughters of
her sister, Nancy Vertrees Williams. Typical of the poem are these lines:
"Little blue-eyed fairie,
Little black-eyed sprite,
Hair of golden sunbeams,
Locks as black as night.
Fair, courageous Clara,
Twirling, twinkling net-
Come and kiss me, darlings,
For my eyes with dew are wet."
"Carolina," published in Louisville, Kentucky, is another of Mrs. Letitia Vertrees Sylvester's books.
This is dedicated to her stepson, Carl Sylvester of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, South America.
Mrs. Sylvester's latest book is "My Kentucky Cousins," issued by the Christopher Publishing House of
Boston in 1933, when the authoress was 85. It is dedicated to "the Kentucky descendants of those who pioneered
when the Indians called it Kant-A-Yah, meaning "The Land of Tomorrow."
Mrs. Sylvester's children included Lloyd, Eleanor and Gleyn Vertrees Watkins.
Daniel Haycraft Vertrees, twelfth of the children of pioneer John Vertrees and Nancy Haycraft, was born in Kentucky
May 6, 1821. He too came to Illinois in the 1820s, along with the parents and brothers and sisters whose stories
have preceded. He was named for that stalwart son of Captain John Vertrees who died in pitched battle with the
Indians near present Elizabethtown, Kentucky, in the days of the first white settlement in that region, soon after
the Vertrees, Haycraft, Van Meter and Hobbs families cast their lots in that virgin wilderness.
Daniel Haycraft Vertrees settled at Murrayville, Illinois, where his family was raised. He had a son, Edward M.
Stanton Vertrees, in whose family there are four children, namely, Warren Vertrees of Cleveland, Ohio, Mrs. Hazel
Vertrees Janz of 1311 Santa Barbara Street, Santa Barbara, California, Jesse Raymond Vertrees of St. Louis, and
Ruth Vertrees of Moline, Illinois. Raymond and Ruth are teachers. Mrs. Hazel Janz is vice regent of the Daughters
of the American Revolution chapter at Santa Barbara and Ruth Vertrees is a member of the D. A. R. at Moline. Her
brother is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution.
Another extensive clan of the Vertrees family descends from the old Indian fighter son of Captain John of the Revolution,
Dan Vertrees, who as already related perished in Indian combat in the early settlement of the Severns Valley in
Kentucky, where now is Elizabethtown. This clan includes the Nashville (Tennessee) Vertreeses, numerous of whose
descendants are now residents of Florida.
Dan Vertrees, when he was killed by the Indians, was the father of a young son, Jacob, who was born in Haycraft's
Fort (now Elizabethtown), July 30, 1785. Jacob married Catherine Davis, who was born in Kentucky June 19, 1792.
They had ten children, namely, Nancy R., William D., Rebecca B., Elizabeth C., Sarah W., James C., Wordford M.,
John L., Zarilda H. and Mary H. Vertrees.
Nancy R. Vertrees, born September 10, 1816, married John D. Otter. Their descendants reside in Louisville.
William D. Vertrees, born at Elizabethtown March 24, 1818, married Eliza Haynes, and they had four children, Haynes,
Martha, Charles and Catherine Vertrees.
The younger Samuel Haycraft, in his History of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, first published in the Elizabethtown News
in 1869, has the following to say of Mrs. William D. Vertrees and her husband, Judge Vertrees:
"Among those who have left an impression upon Elizabethtown and its people, and one of those who stands out
most distinctly, was Mrs. William D. Vertrees, or ‘Miss Eliza' as she was known to all of the children and most
of the adults. Her maiden name was Eliza Ann Haynes. Her father was Dr. John Haynes of Virginia, who was a graduate
of medicine of either Harvard or Yale Medical School, and her mother was Martha Ann Campbell of Massachusetts.
"They were married in Virginia and came across the mountains of Kentucky and settled at Big Spring. Eliza
Haynes was born at Big Spring, October 3, 1824. In November, 1854, she married William D. Vertrees, a Mexican War
veteran and later county judge of Hardin county. She was the first graduate of Bethlehem Academy. Mrs. Vertrees
was an active, highly intelligent, educated woman, a skillful musician, and unusually well read in the best literature.
She was a Christian woman who was interested in everything for the good of the town and its people. Because of
her unusual mental and personal qualities she was one of the town's most beloved characters. Nearly all persons
in Elizabethtown, in middle life or beyond, who knew anything of music got their grounding under ‘Miss Eliza' and
have her among their fond recollections."
Rebecca B. Vertrees, born February 21, 1821, married Dr. S. D. Ford. Wordford Ford, a son, died in 1938 in Kentucky,
at Rocky Hill, where a son is still resident.
Elizabeth C. Vertrees, born April 20, 1822, died on August 9, 1835.
Sarah W. Vertrees, born January 17, 1824, married James S. Wortham.
Wordford M. Vertrees, born March 23, 1827, married Martha Ford. Descendants of Wordford Vertrees reside at Nashville,
Tennessee.
John L. Vertrees, born March 13, 1828, married Flora Head. Zarilda H. Vertrees, born September 14, 1830, married
Thomas J. Hardy. A descendant, Mrs. T. L. Bell (Martha Hardy Bell), resides at 1429 Garrett Avenue, Dallas, Texas.
Mary H. Vertrees, born August 13, 1832, died unmarried.
James Cunningham Vertrees, sixth of the children of Jacob Vertrees and Catharine Davis, born in Edmonson county,
Kentucky, June 15, 1825, married Susan Catharine Lee, in Caswell county, North Carolina, July 29, 1849. Miss Lee
was born in Caswell county November 21, 1828. They had six children, namely, John Jacob, Mary Catherine, James
Capers, William Otter, Emma and Ole Moore Vertrees.
John Jacob Vertrees, born in Sumner county, Tennessee, June 16, 1850, married Virginia Dudley Park in Maury county,
Tennessee, June 16, 1886, and they had one child, John J. Vertrees, born at Nashville, Tennessee, March 19, 1887.
He married Margaret Hoyt and is now sales division manager for American Can Company, New York Central Building,
230 Park Avenue, New York. Attorney John Jacob Vertrees, resident of Nashville, edited the Tennessee Code in 1884;
he died at St. Augustine, Florida, July 17, 1931. His wife died in Nashville, December 4, 1917.
Mary Catherine Vertrees, born in Clay county, Missouri, December 5, 1853, married John Norfleet Walton, at Gallatin,
Tennessee, January 10, 1883, and they had three children, namely, Judge Vertrees Walton, Susie Lee Walton and Will
Norfleet Walton.
Judge Vertrees Walton, born in Gallatin, Tennessee, August 16, 1884, married Sophie Elizabeth Howard, a native
of Grahamville, Florida, in 1909. They reside in Palatka, Florida.
Susie Lee Walton, born November 20, 1889, resides in Palatka where she has served as president of Patton Anderson
Chapter, No. 76, United Daughters of the Confederacy.
Will Norfleet Walton, born December 24, 1893, married Frances O. Points, February 12, 1926. They reside in Summer
Haven, Florida. Mr. Walton was severely injured in active service in the World War. He was a second lieutenant
in the 327th Infantry.
James Capers Vertrees, born in Clay county, Missouri, November 12, 1857, died July 5, 1916, at Baltimore, Maryland.
He is buried in Palatka, Florida.
William Otter Vertrees was born in Clay county, Missouri, April 4, 1860. Emma Vertrees, born in Sumner county,
Tennessee, August 12, 1865, died February 9, 1866. Ole Moore Vertrees, born in Sumner county, Tennessee, October
20, 1868, died July 3, 1873. William Otter Vertrees resides with the Walton family in Palatka, Florida. He practiced
law in Nashville until the death of his brother, Attorney John Jacob Vertrees, in 1931, when he retired. He was
a major in the Spanish-American War, Fourth Tennessee Volunteer Infantry.
Judge Vertrees and Sophie Howard Walton have four children, Sophie Elizabeth, Katharine Lee, Mary Judith and Lois
Ann Walton.
Sophie Elizabeth Walton, born in Palatka, Florida, October 19, 1911, married Robert Law Gibson and they have two
children, Robert L. Gibson, Jr., born at Trinidad, British West Indies, in November, 1936, and John Walton Gibson,
born at Oakland, California, in February, 1938. Mr. Gibson is a pilot for Pan American Airlines and moves frequently.
The family considers Palatka as home.
Katharine Lee Walton, born February 5, 1913, is a lawyer, as is her father, Judge Vertrees Walton. The latter,
while a lawyer, is not a judge, he having been christened "Judge Vertrees Walton."
Judge Walton's two younger daughters, Mary Judith and Lois Ann, were born February 5, 1916, and September 23, 1918,
respectively. The family resides in Palatka.
James C. Vertrees died at Palatka December 23, 1908. He was an officer in the Confederate Army in the Civil War,
serving as third lieutenant in Captain McCarty's company, 5th Missouri Regiment.
Susan Catharine Lee Vertrees, wife of James C., died at Palatka October 16, 1894.
Jacob Vertrees, father of James C., died in November, 1854, his wife in July, 1864.
Haycraft in his history of Elizabethtown speaks thus of Dan Vertrees, father of Jacob:
"Many deeds of daring valor were performed by those sturdy pioneers. It cost some blood. Henry Helm, son of old Captain Thomas Helm, was killed; also Dan Vertrees, the honored grandfather of Judge W. D. Vertrees, our fellow citizen (one of the sons of Jacob heretofore mentioned). Dan Vertrees was a stalwart young man of daring. He, with the late Colonel Nicholas Miller and others, was pursuing a band of Indians. This company coming upon the Indians suddenly, a desperate fight ensued. Vertrees was killed at the first fire."
Dan Vertrees is buried in the lost burying ground of the pioneer Vertreeses, near a spring on a hill above Elizabethtown, where sleep the early settlers of the Kentucky wilderness, those who trod close upon the heels of Dan'l Boone. There, in this abandoned plot, where exits no marker to indicate that the dead are there, sleeps also the progenitor of all the Vertreeses in America, Captain and Judge John Vertrees, challenger and conqueror of the early American wilderness and one of the famous "Long Knives" who marched with George Rogers Clark in the time of the American Revolution.