California Biographies

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

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

Source:
History of the state of California and biographical record of the San Joaquin 
Valley, California. An historical story of the state's marvelous growth from 
its earliest settlement to the present time.
Prof. James Miller Guinn , A. M.
The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago 1905
Notes: Missing Page: 865-866,983-984,1175-1176


NATHAN O. MILLER. About three miles southwest of Le Grand is the grain and stock 
ranch belonging to N. O. Miller, who is conceded by all to be a man worthy of the highest 
respect and esteem, and the owner of seven hundred and fifty acres of as fine land as may 
be found in the county. He is a son of Jacob and Mary (Singleton) Miller, both natives of 
Indiana ; the former came to California in 1850 with ox-teams. Upon reaching his destination, 
he went at once to Placer county, where he mined two years, with good success. He re- 
turned home in 1852, and eight years later returned with his family by way of the Isthmus of 
Panama. Landing in San Francisco, they located first in Santa Clara county, where Jacob 
Miller purchased one hundred and eighty acres of land, part of which he set out in an orchard, 
remaining there until his death, at the age of fifty-five years. Surviving him were his wife 
and seven children, as follows : Sarah ; Stephen J., of Gilroy; Scott, of Eureka; Mrs. Josephine 
Ross, of Modesto; Alice; Nathan O., and William E. ; the mother died in 1901 at the advanced 
age of seventy-four years. 

Nathan O. Miller was born in Santa Clara county, November 13, 1861. His early education 
was received in the common schools, and supplemented by a course in Heald's Business 
College, in San Francisco, after which he spent three years as foreman of a sugar plantation 
in the Hawaiian Islands. Returning once more to Santa Clara county he was engaged as an  
orchardist for six years, finally trading his property for the ranch he now owns. By his mar- 
riage in 1899 he was united with Fanny E. Harrison, also a native of Santa Clara county, daugh- 
ter of Eli and Mary (Hobson) Harrison. The former was born in Massachusetts in 1831, a son 
of James Harrison, an Englishman, Mrs. Harrison being a native of Illinois. In 1852 Eli Har- 
rison journeyed from New York by way of the Isthmus to San Francisco, going first to the 
mines and then to Santa Clara county. He had the distinction of being one of the first orchard- 
ists to locate in Santa Clara county, and also of being one of the prominent men who had Elm 
Rock Park set aside for San Jose. He owned about thirteen hundred acres of land in the San 
Joaquin valley. He served the Republican party as public administrator. Mr. Miller is a Re- 
publican who never swerves from the doctrines of that party. He was a member of Palo Alto 
Parlor, N. S. G. W.