Peter H. Vermilye ’40

Pete died March 9, 2009, from complications of pneumonia and a stroke.  

He was “a towering figure in Boston’s financial scene,” according to an article in The Boston Globe that was furnished by his daughter, Mary Vermilye Minott ’81.

Pete prepared at Groton School and graduated from Princeton with honors 30 years after his father, Herbert Noble Vermilye 1910. His daughter, Mary, and granddaughter, Lucy ’10, rounded out four generations of Princetonians.

At Princeton, Pete majored in history, was the managerial alternate for the tennis team, served on the editorial board of The Daily Princetonian and as a student tutor, and was a member of Whig-Clio, the German Club, the chess team, and Terrace Club.

He spent the next 24 years at J.P. Morgan and its successor company, rising to vice president and, according to his entry in our 25th yearbook, “managing 10 percent of the country’s trusted pension funds.” He later became a partner of State Street Research in Boston, advising Citibank, Barings (in London), and American Express.

Pete’s civic activities included serving as chairman of the board of Boston’s Huntington Theatre, as a trustee of Boston University and later as the chairman of its board of trustees investment committee, and as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Pete married Lucy Mitchell in 1950. To Lucy; their children, Peter Jr., Dana, Andrew, and Mary; and seven grandchildren, including Lucy Minott ’10, his classmates offer their sincere sympathies.