(written by Evelyn Outman in 1924-25, Junior in High School)

There was born to Jeremiah Outman and his wife, Anne Poole Outman of Orange County, New York, four sons and two daughters, Jonah, Stephen, John, Jacob, Rachael, and Abigail during a period of time from 1796 to 1808. The sons grew to manhood and three of them left to find their fortunes in the West. There is a story told that two brothers traveled until at a fork in the road, they each decided to go in different directions and they never saw each other again. Stephen remained in New York, Jonah went to Ohio and then to Michigan, John to Missouri and Jacob to Illinois. Each brother lost sight of all the rest.

Jacob Outman was the youngest of the brothers and in 1848 he and his wife who was Hepsibeth Hotchkiss (who by family tradition was a descendant of an Indian Maiden) came by the way of the Great Lakes to the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers and settled in Jackson County, Illinois where his family grew up and married and where many of his descendants still reside. One of his sons was George Willis Outman, my Grandfather, whose wife was Amelia Corbett. He was a Baptist Preacher on Sundays and a School Teacher on week days. He had three living children, one of whom was my father, William Henry Outman, born June 10, 1853 in Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania.

George Willis Outman enlisted in the Civil War in 1862 in Company K-73^rd Regiment of Illinois Volunteers. He was in the hospital at Bowling Green when his regiment was in the engagement at Harpers Ferry. He with a few others were sent up on the railroad track to reconnoiter on the first day of battle. He fell, the target of a southern sharp-shooter on December 31, 1862. His widow and the children moved to the northern part of the state so as to be near her own people.

My father, with his mother and two sisters decided to make a home in Kansas. They traveled in a covered wagon across the prairies, leaving Illinois in the spring of 1869. My father told the story of waking up on the morning of his sixteenth birthday, throwing his arm to the side and having it land in the water of the river that had risen during the night, the river was that close to him. Father used to travel on horseback for miles over unbroken prairie for supplies or medicine. During the early Autumn Grandmother died, leaving my father, a sixteen year old boy, as the head of the family, with two sisters to care for and bring back to civilization in Illinois. Their home was near the present site of Guilford, Kansas, with not another family in sight. A neighbor (although miles away) prepared the grave for Grandmother, and her body was laid to rest without even anyone to say a prayer over it.

William brought his sisters back where he was again near some of his own mother’s people and where he and the girls worked and made their own way until they were grown and married.

His opportunity came when a travelling man once told him of a family of Outmans in Michigan. He immediately wrote to Mr. Outman and in return found out he was Melvin Outman. Through a great deal of correspondence they found they were of the same blood. Through many more efforts he found track of the four boys’ families, but nothing has ever been heard of the girls.

The Outmans in Michigan happened to know John Outman went to St. Francois County, Missouri. Father wrote to Missouri and through some fraternal society, received the information that a family of Outmans was located at Bonne Terre, Missouri. He found a cousin at that place bearing the same name as himself and he became as interested in finding his long lost relatives as Father was. The three families planned a reunion to be held in Marseilles, Illinois in October 1911. Each one invited all the relatives of his own branch of the family. In the meantime they were writing back to New York, where the relatives were last heard of until finally on the first day of the reunion, a letter came to Papa from a descendant of Stephen Outman of New York. The reunion lasted four days and thirty-four people were in attendance. The next reunion was in De Soto, Missouri with over one hundred thirty in attendance, where relatives were present from all four families.

Father was the president and mother the Secretary of the Society and wrote a history and family record which was considered complete in 1913, but which has not been kept up since then. I attended all of these reunions, but I was too young to remember much about them.

Probably it would be interesting to note here how we got the family name. Through family tradition we are told that as Stephen Outman of Pennsylvania was dying, he called his son to his bedside and told him their name wasn’t Outman, but that he and his brothers had gathered together and changed it from Utterman to Ottman and then later selected Outman as we now have it.

Some of the good work which my father did in Marseilles is shown by a clipping dated 1889 from a Marseilles newspaper: "Previous to the engagement of Prof. W.H. Outman, as principal of the east Marseilles Public School, graduating exercises were unknown."