Pages 405-406, transcribed by Carolyn Ward from History of Allen and Woodson Counties, Kansas: embellished with portraits of well known people of these counties, with biographies of our representative citizens, cuts of public buildings and a map of each county / Edited and Compiled by L. Wallace Duncan and Chas. F. Scott. Iola Registers, Printers and Binders, Iola, Kan.: 1901; 894 p., [36] leaves of plates: ill., ports.; includes index.



 

  WOODSON COUNTIES, KANSAS. 405

HENRY M. MILLER.

HENRY M. MILLER, of Iola, whose connection with the development of Allen county has extended over a period of twenty-one years and whose citizenship is a synonym for integrity, honor and patriotism, was born in Hayesville, Ohio, August 16, 1838. His father, Samuel G. Miller, was a doctor of medicine. The latter was fitted for his profession in Wooster, Ohio, in the office of Dr. Day. He practiced in Richland county, Ohio, till 1854, when he removed westward and settled in Washington county, Iowa. He died in 1894, at the age of eighty-five years and is buried in Minnesota. He is descended from the Millers of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and was a son of George Miller. His wife, our subject's mother, was Nancy J. McEwen, born in the State of Pennsylvania. She died in 1874 and is buried at Washington, Iowa. The children of their union are: Nancy J., Henry M., Samuel R., Elizabeth J., Mary E., George F., Ella May and Wilbur D.

Henry M. Miller is the second child of his parents. His life up to his sixteenth year was passed in Richland county, Ohio. At that age he accompanied his parents into Iowa and soon engaged in teaching school. He taught in Washington and nearby counties for seven years, spending his spare hours and his vacations reading medicine as his calling and fully intended to enter a regular school (Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia,) when his preliminary preparation should be completed. He returned to Ohio about the time the war cloud broke upon the country and there responded to the President's second call for troops. He enlisted September 3, 1861, as a private in Company E, Third Ohio cavalry. He was promoted to Sergeant four days after his enlistment, while in camp at Monroeville, Ohio, and to Sergeant Major August 11, 1862, in the field while in Kentucky. March 21, 1863, he was promoted to 1st Lieutenant, while the army lay around Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and April 24, of the same year, he was raised to the Staff Department and assigned to duty as Assistant Commissary of Musters on the staff of Brigadier General R. B. Mitchell, 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Army of the Cumberland. He was transferred to the staff of Gen. E. M. McCook, 1st Brigade, 2nd Cavalry division of that army, and again transferred, this time to the staff of Major General W. L. Elliott, 1st Cavalry division, Army of the Cumberland. His final transfer was to the Executive Staff of Major General W. T. Sherman where he was assigned to duty as Military Conductor of United States Military railroads, Army of the Tennessee. November 20, 1864, he resigned his position upon surgeon's certificate of disability, and accepted, soon thereafter, the position of Paymaster, United States Military railroads in the office of F. J. Grilly, Nashville, Tennessee, Assistant Quarter-Master General. August 20, 1865, he resigned this position and returned to private life.

In all Mr. Miller's service his positions were not sinecures. Duty called him where the fray was going on and he met the enemy with his comrades in many noted battles of the war. In 1862 he was in the engagement at Lexington, Kentucky; Franklin, Columbia; Woodville and LaVergne,

406 HISTORY OF ALLEN AND  

Tennessee, and at the evacuation of Corinth, Mississippi. In 1863 he participated in the battles at Fayetteville, Shelbyville and Tullahoma, Tennessee, and in the brushes at Tuscumbia and Sand Mountain, Alabama. In 1864 he did his part in entertaining the Rebels at Snake Creek Gap, Pumpkin Vine Creek, Burnt Hickory, Crossing of the Chattahooche and the siege of Atlanta. He took part in the following general engagements in which he received seven wounds as reminders of the execution of the enemy: Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Chicamauga, Resaca, Kennesaw, Peach Tree Creek and Atlanta, as before stated.

The war ended, Mr. Miller engaged in teaching school. From 1865 to 1870 he resided in Carroll county, Indiana, from whence he came westward to Bates county, Missouri. In 1873 he returned to Indiana and in 1876 came to Kansas. For some years he was traveling salesman with his home in Iola. He was engaged in the furniture business here in the early eighties and, succeeding in this, he was cashier of the Bank of Allen county nearly thirteen years. About a year after his retirement from the bank he became a candidate for the office of Clerk of the District Court and was elected to it in November, 1898. In the discharge of his official duties he has demonstrated rare ability as a competent and careful and painstaking officer.

Mr. Miller was married in Delphi, Indiana, February 5, 1870, to Margaret L. Evans, a daughter of James Evans. Mrs. Miller was born in Indiana in 1845. The children of this union are: Bert E. and Rak Miller. The older served with Company I, Twentieth Kansas Volunteers, in the Filipino Insurrection and took part in many of the noted engagements from Manila to the Bag Bag.

The political alliance of the Millers was with the Whig, and then, the Republican parties. Henry M., our subject, has been a Republican voter forty-two years and twenty-three years of that time has been a leader in Allen county politics. His broad information and his positive conviction render him one of the characters of the county. He is prominent in the Blue Lodge and Chapter, A. F. and A. M., at Iola, having passed all the chairs, and belongs to the Valley Consistory at Ft. Scott, Kansas. He has taken all degrees of Masonry, including the thirty-second and is a member of the subordinate lodge and encampment, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. As a citizen he is always a gentleman and has maintained an unblemished record for probity and honor. He is public-spirited to a marked degree and is one of the substantial men of Iola.


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