Past and Present of Sioux City a

Past and Present of Sioux City and Woodbury County 1904

Genealogy for Woodbury County, Iowa, USA. Click here for the HOME page.

This information courtesy of the Woodbury County Genealogical Society.

E. W. Miller

E. W. Miller, who after many years of active connection with agricultural interests in Woodbury County, is now living a retired life in Pierson, claims Pennsylvania as the state of his nativity, his birth having occurred in Bedford county on the 16th of November, 1820. He is a son of Jacob W. Miller, also a native of Bedford County, born in 1801. The grandfather Robert Miller was likewise a native of Pennsylvania and the family is of Irish lineage. The first representative of the name in America was Samuel Miller, who, leaving the Emerald Isle, sought a home in Maryland. His son, Robert Miller, Sr., was born at Pike Creek, Maryland, June 27, 1701, and died in Bedford county, Pennsylvania, in 1843, at the advanced age of eighty-two years. The family were among the first settlers of Bedford county, taking an active part in laying the foundation for development and progress there.

E.W. Miller was reared in the county of his nativity and received but common school advantages. He was the eldest son of a family of twelve children and his services were needed on the home farm where he assisted in the arduous task of clearing new land and developing hitherto uncultivated fields. The family home was in the midst of the green forests of Bedford county and it required much strenuous labor to clear away the trees and prepare the land for the plow. Thus the youth of Mr. Miller was largely a period of earnest and unremitting toil. He engaged in teaching school for several terms prior to his marriage and for two terms afterward.

On the 1st of December, 1853, in Bedford county, Pennsylvania, was celebrated the marriage of E.W. Miller and Miss Catherine De Vore, a native of that country, born January 1, 1836. her father. Jacob G. De Vore, was of French ancestry. Mr. Miller afterward removed to Stephenson County. Illinois, where he engaged in the cultivation of a new farm, winch be continued to improve for several years. He then sold that property and went to Missouri, locating near Wellsville, Montgomery County, in 1868. There he carried on general farming for fifteen years and when be sold that property in 1883 he came to Iowa and purchased a farm a mile and a quarter west of Pierson. He owned there two hundred and forty acres of arable land on which he placed good improvements, adding all modern equipment and accessories. He prospered in his undertakings through the productiveness of the land, owing to his careful cultivation and supervision, the fields returning to him rich crops which found a ready sale on the market. Thus year by year be was enabled to add to his financial resources and on the 14th of November, 1899, he left the farm and purchased residence property in Pierson, where he has since lived in the enjoyment of the fruits of his former toil.

Mr. and Mrs. Miller are the parents of seven sons and four daughters, all of whom are married and now have families of their own. The family circle has never been broken by the hand of death and there are now thirty five living grandchildren. Mr. and Mrs. Miller celebrated their golden wedding anniversary December 1, 1903, at lda Grove at the residence of a daughter. All of their children were present and most enjoyable was the occasion and one long to be remembered. The eldest son, J. D. Miller, is a lawyer of Geneva, Illinois; Elijah F. is a practicing physician living at Verdella, Missouri; John S. is a member of the medical fraternity engaged in active practice in Aurora, Illinois; Samuel B. is a famer of Scotland, South Dakota; William C. is a lawyer of Des Moines; Ira G. is a resident farmer of Pierson; Edward J. owns and operates the old homestead farm; Mary Ida is the wife of C. S. Macomber, a lawyer of Ida Grove, Iowa ; Anna Laura is the wife of D. D. Cottrell, a grain merchant and dealer in machinery at Newkirk, Oklahoma; Clara Alice is the wife of Walter S. Sterling, an electrician of Sioux City; and Katie Estella is the wife of F.F. Nicolls, a druggist of Pierson, Iowa.

Politically a Republican, Mr. Miller gives an earnest support to the principles of the party, but has never sought or desired office and has never aspired to positions of political preferment save that for two yean he was assessor. He and his wife are members of the Christian church, in which lie occupies official positions, and they are well known in Woodbury County, having an extensive circle of warm friends who entertain for them high regard by reason of their sterling worth and many excellences of character.

Past and Present of Sioux City and Woodbury County, pages 270, 271
The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1904

Woodbury County Coordinator