Captain Nathan MILLER

MILLER, ENYART, BEAVER, STEVENSON, EDWARD, IMUS, BROWN, GRIFFITHS, MARSHALL, MCGAUGHEY, POOR, CARMAN

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 7/9/2010 at 01:28:41

One of the oldest settlers and richest men in the county is

CAPT. N. MILLER

who was born in Rockbridge county, Va., in 1824. In Oct., 1855 he moved his family with one team to Louisa county, Iowa, and eight weeks were taken up by the trip. Leaving his family in Louisa county, he came on horseback to Ringgold. He spent ten days in the county during which time the thermometer stood at from 24 to 80 degrees below zero. He stayed several nights at Oliver ENYART'S. New Years day, 1856, he took dinner with Michael BEAVER, where John STEVENSON lives, near Eugene. New Years night he spent in Mt. Ayr, at the EDWARDS tavern. He slept up in the "loft," the floor of which was of puncheons so short as to reach only from one joice to another, and not nailed; so that he to have a care how he stepped. Snow covered his clothing in the night so that he had to hunt them in the morning under more than a foot of snow. Mt Ayr then had but two houses in it. In March 1856 Mr. MILLER moved his family to the county. A deep snow lay on the ground, hiding all inequalities of surface. He drove into a deep "draw" in the east part of the county and stuck fast; it was about four miles to the nearest house, that of Hiram IMUS; it was about dark and the weather was cold. Mr. M. unhitched the team and he and his wife managed in some way to get themselves and the seven children on the horses and ride in this way to Mr. IMUS'. He and the boys returned with oxen and brought up the wagon yet that night. IMUS had but a small log cabin, and another strange family, movers too, were staying all night with him, but he made Mr. MILLER welcome. The floor was used for a bed and it was well covered when all had "retired" to rest.

Mr. MILLER spent the summer of 1856 in an old log house that had been used by R. BROWN, afterwards county clerk. BROWN had cut logs for a better house, but on leaving he sold them to D. ENYART. Mr. MILLER bought them of ENYART and of them built his first house, on the site of his present one. Mrs. MILLER lent a hand at the carpenter work, assisting him at making the shingles from a walnut tree he had paid for by day's work. Together they succeeded in finishing the house in time to move in before winter. They moved into it on the 4th of Nov., 1856, just in time for a big snow storm which came the same week. The night before it fell, his brother, James A. MILLER, arrived in the county from the east.

The cheerless aspect of the then unsettled country disheartened the newcomer, and he went to bed on Mr. N. MILLER'S floor with a heavy heart, which was not much lightened by the sight which met his eyes next morning. His brother was shoveling nearly two feet of snow out of doors. The wind blew coldly through the crevices of the house and when the present Justice of the Peace uncovered his head the snow went down his neck. This was just what was needed to argument his fit of the blues. The last straw that he could bear up under, "Nathan," he said, and Mr. MILLER enjoys telling about the woe-be-gone expression on his face as he spoke, "there's no use of your making a fire. We will all perish anyhow." The prospect must have been a dismal one, and the wonder is that Mr. MILLER did not more sympathize with his brother's dispondency. Mr. MILLER had used up all his grain when he reached his claim in March, and he borrowed a feed of corn, from J. J. GRIFFETHS (GRIFFITHS?), to last over night, and the next day he started out in search of grain. He was gone four days and had to go 40 miles into Missouri before he found any.

Several times during the first summer, meals were eaten without bread. Coffee was made from corn, rye or oats. For his blacksmithing and mail, he used to go to Grant's Hill, (now Denver) Missouri.

Mr. MILLER attended the early elections in his part of the county, held at McGAUGHEY'S. Among the early officers in old Middlefork [Township] were Jno. CARMAN and Tom MARSHALL, Justices, McGAUGHEY, Constable, Ira MITCHELL, Assessor, Wendell POOR, Clerk.

Mr. MILLER served eighteen months in the State Militia [Southern Iowa Border Brigade], during the [Civil] war, ranking as captain.

He is quite wealthy, owning one of the best farmes (sic) in the county, 800 acres in Middlefork [township], and in Missouri. He sells several cars of stock off the place during the year. His house, 24x40, two stories high, is one of the largest in Ringgold county. He has several miles of osage hedge, and an orchard of 200 trees on the farm.

No one stands higher in his township as an upright, and at the same time, sociable and accommodating man. He has raised a large family, whose intelligence and good breeding reflects much that is to the credit of Mr. and Mrs. MILLER, several members of which have married into the best families in the county. His is a staunch Republican.

SOURCE: Believed to be 1880 or 1881 article from Ringgold Record
Courtesy of Mount Ayr Public Library

Photograph courtesy of Amanda Grantham Goodman, great-granddaughter, April of 2010

Submission by Mike Avitt, July of 2010

Ringgold Biographies maintained by Tony Mercer.
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