Delta County CO Archives Biographies.....Miller, George W. May 19, 1842 - ? ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/co/cofiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net March 9, 2006, 7:26 pm Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado George W. Miller, of Hotchkiss, who since November 19, 1903, has been the dutiful and attentive postmaster of the town, and was for many years prior to that time one of the active and progressive promoters of the state’s interests in a number of commendable ways, was born in Delaware county, New York, on May 19, 1842. He is a brother of Charles R. Miller, of near Hotchkiss, a sketch of whom will be found elsewhere in this work, and the son of Putnam G. and Margaret (Roff) Miller, natives of the same county as himself. In 1854 they moved to Iowa, and years afterward they died there. In 1861, when he was but eighteen years of age, Mr. Miller enlisted in the Union army for the Civil war, becoming a member of Company H, Fourth Iowa Cavalry, his regiment later becoming the veteran regiment of the army, it being the first to re-enlist at the end of its first term. It was first under the command of Col. A.B. Porter and later under that of Col. Edward F. Winslow. The command formed a part of General Grant’s army at the siege of Vicksburg and in 1864 was with Sherman. Mr. Miller was taken prisoner on October 11, 1862, and kept in captivity about three weeks. He was then under parole three months before he was exchanged. In a desperate charge his horse fell with him and seriously crippled him, but this did not keep him from again seeking active service. In August, 1865, he received an honorable discharge and returned to his home in Iowa, where he remained until 1872. He then came to Colorado and located in Clear Creek county for a short time, being engaged in mining. In the summer of 1876, he was in the Black Hills of South Dakota, while that region was at the height of its boom and mining excitement, but in the fall of that year he returned again to Iowa, remaining until the fall of 1880, when he came back to Colorado and located at Pitkin, where he passed the time until 1883 in mining. In that year he made another visit to Iowa and Dakota, and again in the fall becoming a resident of this state, locating in Delta county, where he started an enterprise in ranching and raising stock, which he conducted until 1891, then opened a drug store at Hotchkiss and included an extensive line of harness in his stock, but still retained his ranch of forty-five acres adjoining the town, of which he has twenty acres in fruit. In the spring of 1900 he sold his store and devoted his time to his ranch thereafter until November 19, 1903, when he was appointed postmaster at Hotchkiss, an office he is still filling capably and with satisfaction to its patrons. His ranch was raw land when he bought it in 1891, and the improvements he has made on the first purchase and an additional forty acres which he pre-empted in 1893, are all the results of his own enterprise and well-applied industry, making the property into one of the best fruit ranches in that part of the county. Mr. Miller was married on September 2, 1866, to Miss Mary Mead, a native of Rockford, Illinois. Some years after her birth her parents moved to Chickasaw county, Iowa, where the mother died and the father is still living. Mr. and Mrs. Miller have three children, Gertrude, Harry and C. Lloyd, all living in Colorado. The head of the house belongs to the Grand Army of the Republic and is a Republican in politics, though seldom an active participant in public affairs. Additional Comments: From Progressive Men of Western Colorado. Chicago: A.W. Bowen & Co., 1905 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/delta/bios/miller252gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/cofiles/ File size: 4.0 Kb