Civil War Union Army Officer. Col. Washington Romeyn Vermilye was one of a very remarkable family of brothers. Their father was a venerated elder in the Presbyterian Church, and the sons and brothers are known in financial and religious circles as most useful, honored, and trusted public men. Two of them— Rev. Dr. Thomas E. and Rev. Dr. Robert G.— are distinguished clergymen, and three— William M., Washington R., and Jacob D.— became known as bankers whose names were never associated with anything but the highest integrity. The father, William W. Vermilye, was of Huguenot ancestry, the name appearing in the earlier annals of the city in civil and political affairs, and being still represented in New York City and vicinity by numerous descendants. The mother was Mary Montgomery, also born in New York, her mother being of Dutch extraction, her father of the Irish Montgomery lineage. The family consisted of six sons and four daughters, all excepting one son and one daughter living to mature and advanced life. The father and mother died in a good old age, and for forty years not one death occurred in the wide and united circle of their children. Col. Vermilye was born in the city of New York in the year 1810, and was married in the year 1834, at West Springfield, Mass., to Elizabeth D., daughter of Hon. Samuel Lathrop, long a member of Congress, Speaker or president of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and a prominent lawyer of that State, and granddaughter of Rev. Joseph Lathrop, well known as one of the most distinguished clergymen this country has produced. She died in the year 1874. With the exception of the last four years of his life, having removed to Englewood, N.J., in 1868, Col. Vermilye was a resident of New York City, where for many years he was identified with and greatly interested in the public schools as one of the commissioners; also in the Seventh Regiment (formerly Twenty-seventh), his connection with the organization dating back to 8th of November, 1830. In 1832 he was elected first lieutenant; in 1833, captain; in 1840, major; in 1843, lieutenant-colonel; and in November, 1845, he was promoted to be colonel of the National Guard. After years of service in the regiment he continued his interest, being colonel of the veterans, and in the building of their new armory he took an active part. In politics Col. Vermilye was a Republican, adhering in principle to what he believed was right, and outspoken in all cases of disloyalty. His patriotism, ever above suspicion, was amply illustrated during the war by service as a private in the regiment he formerly commanded when it marched and took its station to guard the city of Washington. As a business man Col. Vermilye was the soul of honor. During the forty-four years of his life, amidst the whirlpools of Wall Street, he kept his banking-house above all suspicion of dangerous speculation, or the least departure from the loftiest ideal of business integrity. As a citizen he was loyal, liberal, courteous, friendly towards all, and an active promoter of all proper public improvements. His benevolence was eminently of that sort which sought not the praise of men, but only the approval of God and the good of men. He was singularly unpretentious and humble in his benefactions, which were liberal in different directions, and unostentatious in his whole conduct of life. In his domestic and social relations he was kind, affectionate, and considerate. He had a noble physique, and it was but the type of the nobler spirit it contained. Integrity was the central virtue of Col. Vermilye’s character. Integrity made him a good friend, a useful citizen, a stanch patriot, a trusted banker, and a pillar in the church of God. He was a man of the highest sense of honor. Deception in every form and degree were abhorrent to his nature. As a Christian he was sincere, devout, and righteous. He accepted God’s truth without reserve. The Bible was a sacred book to him, and the Sabbath was a holy day. His place as an elder in the church was one which he honored by his fidelity. In the Presbytery, in the Synod, and in the General Assembly his counsels were valued. He was an active member of the board of managers of the American Bible Society, of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, a director of the Lennox Hospital, and of other benevolent associations.
His death at his residence in Englewood occurred unexpectedly, after a short and painful illness, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. His remains were placed beside those of his departed wife, in a beautiful plot in Woodlawn Cemetery, near Kingsbridge, where since the early settlement of New York the Vermilye family had an extensive farm and old-fashioned mansion, their original seat in this country.