Solano County Biographies

MEREDITH RAINES MILLER

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
one of the oldest pioneers of the coast, came to Oregon in 1847, to California 
in 1849 and to the immediate vicinity of Vacaville in 1851, since which time he 
has been a resident here.  He was born in Newbern, the county-seat of Montgomery 
County, West Virginia, in 1818.  His father, Abraham Miller, was a native of 
Pennsylvania and of German descent, and his mother, nee Mary Raines, was a 
native of Virginia and of Scotch descent.  In 1826 the family removed from 
Virginia to Illinois, locating forty-five miles east of Springfield, on the 
north fork of the Sangamon River.  Meredith�s uncle, Daniel Miller, had moved 
with his family to that vicinity, locating the quarter section on which the city 
of Decatur is now situated, and was the first man to stretch a surveyor�s chain 
in Illinois, under a contract with the United States Land Department, and 
surveyed from what is now East St. Louis to Chicago.  In 1828 Abraham Miller 
moved with his family to the lead-mine region in southern Wisconsin, where he 
remained until 1848, engaged in farming and mining.  In 1847 the subject of this 
sketch, as before intimated, joined a wagon train for Oregon, and drove an 
ox-team in consideration for the transportation of his trunk and clothes and 
subsistence and mutual protection.  Leaving Independence, Missouri, May 10, he 
arrived at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River in October following.  His first 
work there was the erection of a house for the man for whom he drove the ox team 
across the continent.
            He and a friend who had come West with him and helped him in the 
building of the house, started up the Willamette Valley to look up a claim, 
which they located about 100 miles from Portland on the Willamette River.  On 
returning, and while preparing to purchase supplies and implements to improve 
their claims, they heard news of the Whitman massacre, in which the Indians had 
killed Dr. Whitman and his wife and all the men but one, who escaped, and took 
the women and children prisoners, at the Methodist Mission on the Walla Walla 
River.  The local authorities raised a command of about 500 men to fight the 
Indians and at the same time selected nine men to accompany a man named Meek on 
a trip to Washington, District of Columbia, to enlist the service of troops and 
obtain other recognition of the Territory of Oregon.  Mr. Miller was selected as 
on of those men. They accompanied the troops as far as the scene of the 
massacre, having two days� fight with about 1,000 Indians near the Umatilla 
River.  After going beyond the Blue mountains they returned and began to recross 
the continent, after encountering many great difficulties and hardships, they 
completed their journey, stopping at Fort Boyce and Fort Hall on the way, 
finally meeting the westbound emigrants.  Meek went on to Washington while the 
other men remained in Missouri.  The result of Meek�s mission was the 
appointment by the Government of Territorial officers for Oregon and a 
detachment of troops for protection against Indians.  
            In the fall of 1847 Abraham Miller sold out in Wisconsin and moved 
into Missouri, where Meredith met him on his return to Oregon in the spring of 
1848.  Remaining in Missouri until the summer of 1849, he joined a party coming 
to California by way of Santa Fe.  In this party there were eighty persons, well 
equipped with teams and supplies.  Near Santa Fe they sold their outfit and came 
with pack animals the remainder of the trip, reaching California by way of 
Colonel Cook�s road to Los Angeles, and thence they came to San Francisco on the 
schooner J. R. Whiting, arriving about the middle of February, 1850.  Mr. Miller 
immediately went to the mines on Feather River, reaching Long�s Bar early in 
March, 1850.  He remained in the mines until August, 1851, meeting with good 
success.  He then came to Pleasant Valley and located on a Government claim of 
160 acres, on which he lived for thirty-three years.  Later he purchased an 
adjoining quarter section.  This ranch he entered with a land warrant which he 
had received from the Government for military service in the Black Hawk war in 
1832, when he was a member of Captain Moore�s company, which was recruited at 
Mineral Point, Wisconsin.  At his new home here in California he first engaged 
in the raising of fruit and live-stock, and later he substituted general farming 
for the specialty of live-stock.  He sold his place in 1883 and removed to 
Vacaville, where all his interests are now centered.  He is a member of 
Vacaville Lodge, No. 134, F. & A.M., of the Royal Arch Chapter, No. 43, Suisun, 
and also of the Solano County Association of California Pioneers.  In 1852 he 
made a trip to the East by way of Panama, New Orleans and Mississippi River to 
Missouri, where he married his first wife, Miss Mary Ann Troutman, a native of 
Kentucky.  The same season he came with his bride and a younger brother across 
the plains with ox teams, arriving in California in October.  Mr. Miller has 
made the trip across the plains by wagon and horseback and on foot four times, 
one of these, in returning from Oregon, being the most difficult and dangerous 
journey, and he has also crossed the continent twice by rail.
            Mr. Miller ahs four children by his first wife, namely:  Minerva C., 
now the wife of J. B. Griffin, of Yolo County; James M., now in the drug 
business in Vacaville; Cornelia T. and Meredith R.  In 1870 his wife died, and 
March 12, 1883 [?], he married Miss Harriet Chrisman, a native of Missouri, and 
she died March 27, 1877.
 
Memorial & Biographical History of Northern California, The Lewis Publishing 
Co., 1891, pp 526-527