Bios: Charles Clinton Miller: from West Middlesex, Luzerne County, PA

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History of Henry County Illinois, Henry L. Kiner, Volume II, Chicago:
The Pioneer Publishing Company, 1910


CHARLES CLINTON MILLER

Charles Clinton Miller, a farmer on Section 31, Galva Township, Henry
County, Illinois, was born in West Middlesex, Pennsylvania, June 11,
1857, and is a son of James and Henrietta (Kemp) Miller.  His paternal
grandmother died at the age of ninety years.  The grandparents on the
motheršs side, Isaac and Elizabeth (Bonham) Kemp, died in middle life.
The former was a native of Maryland and a shoemaker by trade.  James
Miller, the father of Charles Clinton Miller, was born in Pennsylvania
and learned the carpenteršs trade.  In 1863 he came to Illinois,
settling first in Hickory Grove but coming the next year to Section 31,
Galva Township, Henry County.  Here he farmed and followed his trade,
and on the farm his son now owns passed away in his seventy-third year.
His wife was a native of Maryland and survived her husband a number of
years, her death occurring in 1904 at the age of seventy-eight.  Both
Mr. Miller and his wife were strong adherents of the Methodist Church.
He was school director and road overseer in they ears of his activity
and occupied a prominent place in the Greenback Party.  Five children
were born to them, three sons and two daughters:  Mary, who died young;
Charles Clinton; John; Myra, who married Fred Keeler; and Reuben, who
died at the age of six years.

Mr. Miller has made Galva Township his home during all his life.  Reared
to the work and hardships of the farm, he attended the district school
near his home, and then the public school of Galva.  Until he reached
manhood the paternal farm was his home, but on attaining his majority he
started out for himself.  For the first few years he rented land and
then he removed to the farm of one hundred and five acres he had
inherited from his mother.  This was but a part of a larger tract of two
hundred and sixty-five acres which she had received as a gift from her
uncle James M. Bonham. The inherited farm has been Mr. Milleršs home to
this day, and from it he has gained a comfortable competence.

On the 5th of March, 1884, Mr. Miller was united in marriage to Miss
Harriet McDowell, a daughter of William and Caroline (McCoy) McDowell.
By birth and ancestry Mrs. Miller belongs to Pennsylvania.  Her paternal
grandfather, James McDowell, was a native of that state, followed
farming, and was a soldier in the War of 1812.  He married Miss Sarah
Brandon and they had the following children:  William B., Jane, Nancy,
Henderson, Thomas, Sarah, David and James.  Mrs. Milleršs maternal
grandfather was John McCoy, also a farmer of Pennsylvania, who married
Miss Elizabeth Mouer, and they had six children:  DeWitt Clinton, Jacob
Theodore, Winfield Scott, Caroline Emily, Ellen, and one who died in
infancy.  John McCoy died in middle life, but his wife lived to a ripe
old age.  Mrs. Milleršs parents were born in Pennsylvania and came to
Illinois in 1876, taking up their residence near Victoria, Knox County.
There the mother died December 12, 1895, at the age of sixty-five years,
while the father survived until May 26, 1907, when he died in his
eighty-ninth year.  Seven children were born to them:  DeWitt Clinton;
Harriet E; William W.; Edwin T.; Eva C., the wife of John Mackey; and
two who died in infancy.  Mr. And Mrs. Milleršs own family consists of
four children:  Clyde C., Edwin W., Henrietta C., and Charles Linn.  The
first born is a barber and farmer.  The second son is employed in the
Hayes Pump & Planter Company Works.  He married Miss Florence Dunn.

Mr. Miller enjoys pleasant fraternal relations with Galva Lodge, No.
243, A. F. & A. M., and politically affiliates with the Republican
Party.  He has not, however, sought public preferment, though for a
period of eight years he served as a member of the school board, during
which time he proved to his fellow citizens that he was a man who had
their best interests at heart.