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					LESTER R. MILLER
				MRS. LOUISA (KENT) MILLER (1st wife)
			       MRS. SARAH L. (COLE) MILLER (2nd wife)

	Lester R. Miller has a large, well-cultivated farm, and probably the finest and most 
expensive farm residence in Montcalm County.  The passer-by would naturally infer that this 
estate, this elegant home, had been erected by the munificent gift of some wealthy ancestor, 
which is not the case, but is the result of the energy, economy, and most persistent industry of
Lester R. Miller, who was born Aug. 27, 1827, in the State of New York.  His father, Isaac D. 
Miller, moved to Detroit in 1830, remained five years, went to Oakland County, where he settled, 
cleared up a farm, raised a family of ten children, eight of whom are now living.  When twenty 
years of age Lester R. went out for himself.  Three years later (1850) he came to Montcalm County
with a team and two hundred and fifty dollars, purchased one hundred and sixty acres of 
unimproved land, which is a portion of his large farm in Fair Plains, where he now resides.  The
following winter he returned to Oakland County for a wife, and was married, Dec. 25, 1850, to 
Louisa Kent, daughter of John Kent.  She died October, 1857, leaving two children, George W., a 
farmer in Fair Plains, and Della, who lives at home.  Mr. Miller was  again married on 1860 to 
Sarah L. Cole, daughter of James W. Cole, of Ionia County, by whom he has two children living,
--John C. and Aggie;  Mable died in infancy. At that time they adopted a bright boy, now seven 
years of age.  When Mr. Miller commenced the improvement of his land the country was new, and the
few settlers poor.  The great question was to break up their land, and Mr. Miller made a 
specialty of that, and in this way earned money to improve his own land.  Realizing that time was
money he lost as little as possible.  As a sample of his economy of time he relates an incident: 
the coulter of his plow needed sharpening; not willing to have his oxen idle, he took the coulter 
on his shoulder and walked to Greenville, five and a half miles; finding the blacksmith yet in
bed he called him up, had the implement repaired, and walked back in time to have the plow at 
work by seven o'clock in the morning.  By this kind of industry we account for the elegant 
residence, broad and fertile fields, and abundance of this world's goods.



This biography is taken from "HISTORY OF IONIA AND MONTCALM COUNTIES, MICHIGAN" 
by John S. Schenck. Philadelphia:  D. W. Ensign & Co., 1881.  Page 458.  Fair Plains Township.