Click here for the John Martin Family home page. 3rd Generation - Mary Martin 

Mary Elizabeth (Martin) (Barnett) Miller, the ninth child of John Martin, Jr., and Mary Ann (Wheeler) Martin, was born 21 January 1854 at Camargo, Illinois (which was then part of Coles County but was included in Douglas County in 1859).  She married (1) Robert Barnett1 on 15 February 1872 in Douglas County.  He was born 12 June 1846 in Vermilion County, Illinois, the son of James and Sally (Yarnell) Barnett.  His mother died when he was 2, and his father remarried when he was 6.

After marrying, Robert and Mary settled at his family home in Carroll Township of Vermilion County.  There, they became the parents of four children:

  • Bruce Barnett, 1873–1873.
  • Dr. Daniel Emmet Barnett, 1875–1942 (married Cora Lucretia McGinnis).
  • Ella B. Barnett, 1877–1931 (married Jacob A. Seybold).
  • Ray Forrest Barnett, 1881–1946 (married Carrie Thompson).

Robert passed away on 7 July 1896, and obituaries appeared in two local newspapers.  He is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Indianola, IL.  The 1900 census shows Mary, a widow, still living in Carroll Township with all three of her surviving children, all of whom are identified as school teachers.  Sometime between 1900 and 1910, however, Mary married (2) Henry Lockwood Miller.  He had been born 25 August 1835 in Licking County, Ohio, a son of Henry and Eleanor (Lockwood) Miller.  He had previously been married to Marinda Schecter (who died in 1899), and had had three children with her.  No children were born to Henry and Mary together.

The 1910 census shows Mary living with Henry in Jamaica Township of Vermilion County, IL.  Henry died, however, on 22 November 1919.  So in the 1920 census, Mary is once again listed as widowed and is living in Sidell Township of Vermilion County with her daughter Ella and Ella’s husband, J. A. Seybold.  Six years later, Mary was living at the home of her son Daniel when she passed away on 2 February 1926, as noted by an obituary in the Rushville Daily Republican.  She and Henry are both buried at Woodlawn Cemetery next to their original spouses.  Mary’s tombstone shows her last name as Barnett, not Miller.

If you can suggest any corrections to the information above or provide any further details about the lives of Mary, her husbands, and her descendants, please contact me at the address shown in the image below:

P L Martin C O at G mail dot com

Thanks,      
     —Pete Martin

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  1. Although Mary and three of her sisters all married men named Barnett, it's interesting to note that none of these men were brothers; all had different parents. It's likely they were all cousins, though, descended from various sons of George and Delilah (Davis) Barnett. Moreover, three of them (those who married Susanna, Nancy, and Mary) may have been double cousins, as they all had mothers who had had the maiden name of Yarnell.
    2.