El Dorado County Biographies


This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm



JAMES HARRISON MILLER
 
            The subject of this sketch is the oldest settler at Latrobe.  He was 
the eldest child of a family of ten children born to John and Elizabeth Miller.  
He was born at Springfield, Robertson county, Tennessee; and until seventeen 
years old worked on a farm, after that entered a wholesale dry goods store in 
the city of Memphis as a clerk for W. D. and H. Connell.  After four years spent 
in their employ, he engaged in the trade for himself at Pleasant Hill, 
Tennessee.  On the second day of February, 1850, he left his native State to 
cross the plains to California, being one of the first to attempt the trip 
across the then almost untrodden plains.  On the 13th day of August he arrived 
at Placerville, was taken sick at once and did not recover until December.  He 
then went to Logtown and engaged in butchering.  In 1857 sold it out and went to 
San Jose, in February.  In May he returned to the mountains at Georgetown and 
thence to Nashville, where he engaged in work on the mills.  He then went to 
Orum city and in company with Lyton Bostick opened a store, which they kept till 
1861; declining health drove him out of the mercantile line and he engaged in 
stock raising, and is now one of the largest dealers in live stock in the 
county.  He keeps about 6,000 sheep, 200 cattle and 30 to 50 horses, which find 
feed and range on about 7,000 acres of land owned by Mr. Miller.  He has in 
addition a fine range for stock in the Sierra Nevada mountains, west of Lake 
Bigler.  In 1869 he represented his county in the Legislature and again in 
1877-78. Is Democratic in politics, and the only one in the family of his father 
and none other children.  He was married in 1854 to Eliza A. Ewing, a daughter 
of Samuel Ewing, of Montgomery, Ohio.  They have raised a family of six 
children, viz.:  Tennie A., now Mrs. C. W. Duden, Libbie C., John Lyton, Mary 
M., Hattie N. and Nettie Frances.  Mr. Miller is essentially a self-made man.  
His education was very limited, and when he did the first day�s labor in 
California he was $500 in debt, but by industry and tact has in a few years 
become one of the first men in the county financially.
 
Historical Souvenir of El Dorado County, California with Illustrations & 
Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men & Pioneers - Oakland, Cal. - Paolo 
Sioli, Publisher, 1883. p - 227
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler