John Vertrees

Birth: 1741 Death: 1802 Hardin County Kentucky, USA

John Vertrees, son of Jacob Van Tress aka Johannes Jacob Vertrees & his wife Catherine Euler Vertrees.

Verdries aka Vertrees were early 1730's settlers Monocacy Settlement, Maryland There is conflicting info that states this John Vertrees was infant baptisted 27 Apr 1741 in that settlement as opposed to Holland

1778 -- 1 of 175 "the Long Knives" VA volunteers of George Rogers Clark in the campaign Old Northwest Terr (Kaskaskia, old Vincennes, etc)

Tenmile Country, WV > Spring 1780 KY > 7 Oct 1780, Battle of Kings Mountain > 1,300 acres of land, Severnse Valley 1781 under VA Land warrants KY by Patrick Henry > Fall 1782, Capt John Vertrees, Col John Floyd, six weeks Northwest campaign, Kaskaskia, Vincennes, Chillicothetown & Piqua

1st married Rebecca Burris Vertrees

Children Daniel Vertrees b 1768 Joseph Vertrees b 1770 Rebecca Vertrees Allison b 1772 Mary "Nan" Vertrees Miles b 1774 Sarah Vertrees Rawlings b 1776 John Vertrees b 1779 Isaac Vertrees b 1782 Jacob Vertrees b 1785

2nd married 1795 Elizabeth VanMeter Swan McNeil Vertrees.

Children Charles Vertrees b 1797

Elizabeth 1st married John Swan Jr 2nd married Thomas McNeil 3rd married (in Hardin Co,KY) 1795 John Vertrees

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Captain John Vertrees was born in Holland. There the family name was Van Tress. He was the son of Jacob Van Tress, and had brothers, Isaac, Jacob, William, Joseph, Daniel. He came to America many years before the Revolutionary War and settled in the Virginia colony, where he assumed the name of Vertrees.

Captain Vertrees was a soldier of the Revolution and fought at King's Mountain (October 7, 1780). He was one of the 175 Virginia volunteers (called by the Indians "Long Knives") with George Rogers Clark in the conquest of the Northwest Territory (1778-9), fighting at Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Vincennes, Chilicothe and Pickaway; and was captain of a company of soldiers with Colonel John Floyd against the Indians in 1782, following their incursions into Hardin and other counties in 1781.

In 1779 he came from the Monongahela country to "the falls" (Louisville, Ky), and with the Vanmeters the following year to "the valley" (Elizabethtown). Here he became an important figure in the little pioneer settlement, the first between Louisville and Green River. He took up some 1,300 acres of land in Severn's Valley under Virginia warrants (1781). The same year he was one of the organizers of the Regular Baptist church of Severn's Valley, the first west of the Alleghany Mountains. Early religious services were frequently held at his house. As justices of the peace, he and Patrick Brown, Robert Hodgen and Bladen Ashby held the first court in Hardin county (July 22, 1793). He sat with Captain Thomas Helm as judges of a called session of the old Quarter Sessions Court, March 2, 1796, when the first death sentence was pronounced in Hardin county, condemning the slave Jacob for the murder of his master, John Crow, on December 30, 1795. In the legislative act (approved December 22, 1798) creating the Hardin Academy, John Vertrees (spelled there "Vantreese"), John Paul, Thomas Helm, Benjamin Helm, John Cankhaw, sen, Bladen Ashby, Robert Hodgen ("Hodgins"), Patrick Brown, Stephen Rawlings ("Roling") and Jacob Larue were named as the first trustees. He was chairman of the first town board (1797), the other members being Stephen Rawlings, Benj Helm, James Crutcher, Armistead Churchill and Isaac Morrison. His long and useful services were ended by death in the year 1803.

His great-great-grand-daughter, Mary Vertrees, was the heroine of Booth Tarkington's "The Turmoil".

His son, Daniel Vertrees, grandfather of Judge W D Vertrees, was killed by the Indians.

Another son, Joseph Vertrees, for a time an Indian captive, married (1804) Margaret, daughter of Robert and Sarah (Larue) Hodgen and became the patriarch of the Vertrees settlement in the western part of the county, erecting a two-room log cabin in the fork between Vertrees' Creek and Rough Creek, and carving on the sandstone chimney "Joseph Vertrees 1810," still legible.

Daniel Vertrees was born July 21, 1768, and Joseph Vertrees, January 4, 1770.

Besides these, John and Rebecca Vertrees had children: Rebecca, born October 4, 1772, married John Allison; Mary (Nan), born August 2, 1774, married John Miles; Sarah, born December 27, 1776, married Edward Rawlings; John, born February 14, 1779, married Nancy Haycraft in Haycraft's Fort; Isaac, born February 2, 1782, married Sally Leuallen ("Llewellyn"); Jacob, born July 20, 1785, married Elizabeth Young.

After the death of his first wife, Rebecca, Captain Vertrees married Mrs Elizabeth Swan McNeill, by whom he had a son, Charles, born February 25, 1797, married Millie Vernon.

Hardin County Hardin County Historical Society 1946