Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1915
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 488
JAMES CUTLER MILLIMAN

The subject of this sketch was born in Saratoga county, New York, on January 28, 1847, his parents being Francis MILLIMAN and Sally Emily (HUNT) MILLIMAN, both natives of New York state, the mother being a daughter of Walter HUNT, one of the pioneers of the town of Edinburg, Saratoga county, New York. The father was born in the year 1809 and the mother in 1812. The ancestors of Francis MILLIMAN were Scotch-Irish, having removed from the north of Ireland to the state of Connecticut in about 1740. Walter HUNT was the son of Captain Ziba HUNT of the Revolutionary War, the latter died at Northampton, New York, in 1820, at the age of seventy-five years and his wife, Johanna BLOUNT, passed away at Edinburg, New York, in 1825, at the age of seventy-seven years.

Francis MILLIMAN and Sally Emily HUNT were married in 1831 and to them were born five sons, Henry S., Ezra Wilson, Ambrose, William W. and James Cutler, besides two daughters who died in infancy. James Cutler MILLIMAN resided in Ballston Spa, the county seat of Saratoga county, until 1865, when he and his father's family removed to Harrison county, Iowa, where he has since resided.

The early life of the present mayor of Logan, Iowa, was one of hardship, his mother having died when he was two years old, leaving a family of five boys. At the age of nine years, his father having again married, James Cutler MILLIMAN left his father's home, going thirty miles inland by stage to live with an aunt, where he worked for his board and clothes for four years, doing farm work, going to school three months in the winter and often being the first one to make a path for nearly half the way after a foot or more of fresh snow. His clothes consisted of one suit of homespun and homemade woolen from the backs of sheep he tended, and one of his sports was to wash the live sheep in May by taking them into a brook on the farm, where the big ram or wether often contested for the mastery and, except for the long wool to which he would cling, must have gotten the better of the lad. He also had for summer wear, pants and shirt made of spun and woven hemp, grown on the farm.

Planters, cultivators, mowers and reapers were unknown there, so this boy cut grain with a sickle on the rougher ground and with a cradle where smooth, planted corn with a hoe and hoed it three times during the season, mowed with a scythe and raked with a hand rake, in short, did the farm work in a manner now unknown to western farmers.

At thirteen this boy was taken to his father's home in Ballston Spa for better school facilities where for nearly two years, he attended a school divided into two grades, doing all kinds of work out of school hours and thus clothing himself. Home life, being unpleasant, he again struck out for himself and worked at a place for two years for his board, two suits of clothes, a pair of boots, a pair of shoes and three months of school per year. When in his seventeenth year, he enlisted in the Civil War, but was rejected on account of his height, being half an inch too short. Later in the year he again offered himself as a volunteer, and after entreating the examiner, was passed and finally accepted. There being no new regiments formed at that time, he was assigned to Company E, Forty-sixth Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry, where, with a veteran on either side, he soon became a soldier and within three weeks from date of muster-in, was on the firing line in front of Petersburg, Virginia. On September 30, 1864, in the battle of Poplar Spring Church, he was wounded, a minie ball passing through his left elbow, necessitating amputation about four inches above, the operation being performed on the field. He at once applied for his discharge, wishing to get away from the blackness of hospital life and the gloom of his condition, and was discharged on December 28, 1864, at Washington, D.C.

In the summer of 1865 he attended school at Reeder's Mills in Harrison county, Iowa, and in the fall of that year entered the preparatory department of the university at Iowa City, from which, by hard study, he was soon admitted to the normal department and having practically covered three years' work in two years' attendance, might have been graduated in one more year, but his money being spent, he returned to Harrison county. Having taught four terms of school, the Republican party nominated him for county recorder in the summer of 1868 and, being elected, he took the office January 4, 1869, which office he held for eight years. In 1876 he, with A. L. Harvey, established the Harrison County Bank at Logan, disposing of his interest there in to A. W. Ford in 1879. In 1881 he, with Almor Stern, established a farm loan and abstract business in Logan, which partnership continued for twenty-four years.

The life of J. C. MILLIMAN has been strenuous. In addition to doing two men's work much of the time, he has filled public office as follows: Two years as justice of the peace, eight years county recorder, two years on the city council, six years mayor of Logan, two years representative in the twenty-fifth General Assembly of Iowa and four years lieutenant-governor of Iowa. An Odd Fellow since February, 1870, he has passed all the chairs, being the first noble grand of the Logan Lodge, No. 355, and later serving as representative to the grand lodge of Iowa, and in 1901-2 as grand patriarch, followed by one term as grand representative to the sovereign grand lodge. A member of Fuller Post, Grand Army of the Republic, at Logan, Iowa, he has filled all positions and was adjutant several years, and also has filled the position of department commander of Iowa and is a member of the national encampment. He also retains his membership in Council Bluffs Lodge No. 531, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. At this date he is serving his fourth term as mayor of Logan, Iowa.

In his boyhood he attended the Methodist Sunday school, also the Presbyterian Sunday school, and committed to memory the catechisms used in each, reciting each at one sitting without missing a word, and also read the entire Bible carefully. His religious training was thorough and in middle life he united with the Presbyterian church, supposing he was a believer in the Trinity and its kindred dogmas. At the age of fifty he began a second reading of the Bible and was himself shocked to find that he could not believe the statements of the Old Testament as to the Creation and the brutalities alleged to have been done by the Hebrews at the command of God. This led him to a candid investigation of the origin of the Bible, the source of the doctrine of inspiration, the history of the several councils that promulgated the doctrine that the Bible is the will and word of God, and he concluded that the books comprising the Scriptures are a mass of tradition, mythology, superstition and dogmas unworthy of the Eternal Mind, which he believes now to be everything, everywhere and always. He at once withdrew from the church and has since enjoyed a freedom of thought and conscience that has been a constant delight. He rejects the story of the fall of man, but believes in the plan for the rise of man in this life. He wishes to be helpful in measures for the uplift of men and society, the betterment of government and a universal peace, which broad purposes comprise his religion; and, finally, he has no anxious thought or fear for a future existence. At the age of sixty-three years he retired from business and now enjoys his books and an acquaintance with the writings of Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, Haeckel, Tolstoi and other scientists and free thinkers.

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