Los Angeles-Tulare County CA Archives Biographies.....Miles, Elam C. 1832 - 1900
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Author: Luther A. Ingersoll (1908)

    REV. ELAM C. MILES (deceased) was born in Litchfield County, Conn., in 1832,
a son of Stephen and Delia M. (Hawley) Miles. They were staid and highly
respected New England people by birth and ancestry. He was a successful farmer.
The son grew up on the old homestead, was passionately fond of good books and
studiously devoted his spare moments to systemized reading and study; thus
becoming in a liberal degree, self educated. He became an expert mathematician
and held the professorship of higher mathematics in Jefferson County Institute,
St. Louis, Mo., when only twenty years of age. In 1861 he married Miss Elizabeth
C. Massey in the town of Morris, Grundy County, Ill. Her father, Sylranus P.
Massey, was of English and Irish extraction. He was a merchant by occupation and
a native of Salem, Mass., where he grew to manhood. He married Hannah Shedd, of
Tewksbury, Mass., and there their two children, Elizabeth and Sylranus, Jr.,
were born, she being the eldest. She was born in the same house and rocked in
the same cradle as was her father. About 1855 when this daughter was twelve
years of age the family came on to the then western frontier and located in
Illinois near the town of Manlins, La Salle County. Later the father became a
prosperous merchant in the town of Lostant, in the same county. He there died at
about seventy-five years of age. By a second marriage he left a son, Solon P.
Massey, of Lake Mills, Iowa. Elam Miles joined the ministry and upon coming to
California occupied the pulpit of the Unitarian Church at Pomona. He came to
Santa Monica in 1878, when it was a small village. Here he held the office of
Justice of the Peace and was an efficient officer. He soon thereafter located on
a ranch in Blakes Canyon, a mountain resort back of the Malibu Grant. Here for a
time he engaged in bee culture. Returned to Santa Monica and later went to
Florida where he spent several years. Returning to Porterville he there died in
the year 1900, at about seventy-six years of age. He was a scholarly man and
left a very large and valuable library. Besides Mrs. L. H. Case there are, of
his children living—Waldo P. Miles, of Corona; George C. Miles, of Los Angeles;
G. Bennett Miles, of Riverside; Bessie, wife of Peter Ting, of Porterville,
California; Clara, Mrs. Clarence W. Preston, of Exeter, California, and Mabel,
Mrs. Charles W. Smith, of Scioto, Ill.

Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Ingersoll's century history, Santa Monica Bay cities: prefaced with a brief
history of the state of California, a condensed history of Los Angeles County,
1542 to 1908: supplemented with an encyclopedia of local biography and
embellished with views of historic landmarks and portraits of representative
people.

Los Angeles: Luther A. Ingersoll (1908)

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/losangeles/bios/miles215bs.txt

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