Los Angeles County, CA, Biographies

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


RICHARD T. MILLER 
 
was born is Caswell County, North Carolina, in 1841, but was reared from early 
childhood in Virginia. His father was Rev. John A. Miller, an itinerant preacher 
in the Methodist Episcopal Church, a native of Virginia, and of English origin. 
He married Jane B. Williams, of North Carolina, by whom he had a family of seven
children. He died in Prince Edward County, Virginia, in 1849, well known and 
much beloved by a very large circle of friends. His wife died in Virginia in 
1888. Our subject was the third child and was quite young when his father died. 
His opportunities for an education were very limited. He was a soldier in the 
Confederate army, a member of the "Danville Blues," Eighteenth Virginia 
Regiment, and was one of the first who went to Richmond.  He was in the battles 
of Cloyd's Farm, Cold
Harbor and around Petersburg. Was taken sick prior to the battle of Bull Run 
with typhoid fever, and sent to hospital, and was afterward discharged for 
disability. Having regained his health, he enlisted in the Ringgold Battery, 
Thirteenth Virginia Battalion Artillery, and was appointed Commissary-Sergeant, 
and held that position until March, 1865, when he was appointed 
Quartermaster-Sergeant; was captured on the 2d day of April, 1865, when General 
Grant broke the lines at Petersburg, and was carried a prisoner to Point 
Lookout. He was released on the 15th day of June, 1865. He was married in 1869, 
to Ella R. Flippen, of Danville, Virginia, and they have an interesting family 
of nine children, whose names are as follows: Emery L., Janie E., Arthur, Edwin 
B., Minnie V., Edna T., Gracie, Grover Cleveland and Belle. When he first 
started in life Mr. Miller learned the drug business, and after coming to 
California he clerked for three years in a store in Fresno County, and 
subsequently went to farming there and lost very heavily. Not discouraged, 
however, he came to Los Angeles, with nothing but two horses and a wagon, and 
his family. He bought thirty acres near Compton, which he soon sold. Then he 
rented for several years, till he purchased the twenty-acre ranch where he now 
resides.
 
An Illustrated History of Los Angeles County, California �  Chicago, The Lewis 
Publishing Company, 1889   Page 558
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler