BIOGRAPHIES:  Amindon Wallace MILLER, Durand, Pepin Co., WI

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Submitted by Nance Sampson, Pepin Co. Archives File Manager on 19 November 2004
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**Posted for informational purposes only - submitter is not related to the
subject of this biography and has no further information.

Amindon Wallace Miller, surveyor, Durand, Pepin county, was born in
Union township, Broome county, N. Y., September 4, 1820, and is a son
of Samuel and Amarilla (Frost) Miller.  His paternal grandparents were
natives of Scotland, but his father, Samuel, was born in New Hampshire.
The Frost family were of English descent.  When our subject was eight
years old the family removed to Knox's Corners, Oneida county, N. Y.,
and five years later to Naples, Morgan county, Ill., where Mrs. Miller
died in 1833.  Her husband afterward moved to Missouri, opposite
Grafton, Ill., and died and was buried there, about 1839.  Their
childrens' names were:  Amindon W., Samuel, Lewis, Eliza (Mrs. E.
Grubb), Martha (Mrs. Lieut. Culp) and James.  While living at Naples
our subject suffered much with fever and ague.  In 1835 he made a trip
on a steamer commanded by Capt. Kellogg, from St. Louis to Fort
Snelling.  The whole month of September was consumed in making the
round trip.  There were no families living north of Ft. Crawford
(Prairie du Chien) then.  At Wabasha there was a large Indian village,
a few traders, and a French missionary, who came on board and requested
the captain not to sell any whisky to the Indians.  The notorious
"Bully Wells" was living with a squaw at Frontenac, and had a man named
Boles employed in cutting stone for a house which was afterward built
there.  Wells was afterward killed by the Indians.  On this trip he
first beheld the flag which the Indians kept upon the top of Maiden
Rock, and heard the legend in substantially the same words as it was
related to him in 1858 by the Sioux chief "Sangemuzzy."  The latter
located the event "Two hundred years ago and a long time before that." 
In 1837, by the advice of his physician, Mr. Miller left home and went
to Belmont, Ky., and received instruction in surveying, engineering,
etc., which he was not slow to put in practical use.  In 1839 he began
traveling through the south, and was employed for about three years in
locating and appraising such lands.  He afterward assisted the
Louisiana state engineer in surveying for a levee on the Mississippi
river from Island 101 to Young's Point.  Later he was employed as
surveyor, architect and overseer on various plantations in Mississippi;
he also scaled cypress timber on the Yazoo river.  In 1850 he came
north, visiting friends in Illinois on the way, and located at Hudson,
Wis., where he scaled logs, etc., and opened a surveyor's office in
1851.  Later he was employed in the government survey from St. Croix
Falls northward, in Wisconsin and Minnesota.  In August, 1857, he
removed to Pepin and opened an office there.  He had been there in 1854
and had platted the first four blocks of that village, and in 1855 he
altered that plat and completed it as it is at present.  While living
at Pepin he served as under sheriff, and later became sheriff and draft
commissioner of the county.  When the county seat was removed to Durand
he removed his office and residence thither.

March 11, 1865, he married Rosanna, daughter of Wesley Goss, and she
has borne him the following children:  Samuel W., Jennie V. (Mrs. P.
Solberg), Jessie E. (Mrs. Wm. Ames), Mattie M., Lottie M., Amindon W.
Jr.  About the time of his marriage Mr. Miller homesteaded a farm in
Buffalo county, adjoining his present residence, and on this farm he
has since resided.  He first voted for Wm. H. Harrison, but was a
democrat thereafter until 1860, since which time he has been a
republican.  He has been county surveyor in Pepin, Buffalo and St.
Croix counties, and also supervisor and sheriff as above stated.  While
he is a believer in Christianity, he is not a member of any church.  He
belongs to the order of A. F. and A. M., and was for seven years master
of the Blue Lodge, and is now second officer of the Chapter in Durand. 
Mr. Miller has done surveying in every county in the northwestern part
of Wisconsin.  While living at Pepin he made excavations on the site of
the old French fort, above the mouth of Bogus creek, and found some
very interesting relics.  He believes this to have been one of the
forts built by the French explorer Perrot.  His correspondence on that
subject with the State Historical society furnishes some interesting
reading.

-Transcribed from the "Historical & Biographical Album of the Chippewa
Valley Wisconsin, 1891-2," pages 453-454.


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