MILLER, Van Ransler 'V.R.' 1828-1914

MILLER, MCGREGOR

Posted By: S. Ferrall - IAGenWeb volunteer
Date: 8/6/2012 at 22:35:46

Oldest Resident Dies at McGregor - Came to McGregor in 1848

McGregor, Iowa, April 3 - V.R. Miller, who was found dead in his bed shortly aftermidnight Wednesday night, was McGregor's oldest resident and a man greatly beloved in the community. He was eighty-seven years of age and has lived continuously in McGregor since 1848.

At the time of his arrival here, the day Zachary Taylor was elected president, a warehouse on the bank used to store provisions for the soldiers at Fort Atkinson and one small frame house, in which Alexander McGregor and family lived and J. Gould kept a tavern constituted McGregor, the only inhabited point on the Mississippi river in northern Iowa and Minnesota. The "Neutral Ground" had recently been established for the Winnebago Indians and Fort Atkinson had been built. In order to convey supplies to it a landing had been made opposite Fort Crawford on the Iowa shore and named McGregor's Landing after Alexander McGregor who was operating a mule team ferry between the two points.

Mr. Miller, a tinner by trade, opened a shop at the Landing and while waiting for business, assisted Mr. McGregor in running the ferry. During the winter of '49 he hauled lumber by ox team on the ice from McLeed's Mill above Bridgeport, Wis., for the first store to be built in McGregor. The following summer with the California gold craze sweeping the country he worked up quite a little trade making camp outfits for gold seekers.

He was the first clerk of the township, the first justice of the peace and the first assessor. He helped organize the first public school founded north of the Turkey river in Iowa and drew up the petition asking for the incorporation of McGregor as a town.

For sixty-three years he was in the hardware business here and during that time established the astonishing record of never having been absent from his store more than two or three days at a time. Two years ago he retired from business. Shortly afterward he had the misfortune to fall and break his hip. Despite his advanced age he sufficiently recovered of the fracture to walk about the streets again this winter.

Death came without warning, his aged wife awakening in the night to find he had passed away quietly in his sleep.

~LaCrosse Tribune, April 3, 1914

Note: burial is in Pleasant Grove cemetery, McGregor. His wife Elizabeth died a week later.