BIOGRAPHIES:  Samuel MILLIREN, Pepin, 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.

Samuel Milliren (deceased) was born in Westmoreland county, Pa.,
January 31, 1810, and died at Pepin June 7, 1870.  His parents, Abraham
and Mary (Shafer) Milliren, were of German descent.  They had eight
children:  John, Samuel, Jacob, Elizabeth, Nancy, Daniel, Jonathan and
Mary A.  When Samuel was a small boy the family removed to Summerville,
Jefferson county, Pa., where he was reared on a farm.  His schooling
was limited to six months' attendance at the district school.  He was
married May 16, 1837, to Esther, daughter of Hewlett and Eunice
(Wheeler) Smith, natives of Connecticut.  The Wheelers are a very long-
lived family, of English descent.  Hewlett Wheeler was a soldier in the
war of 1812.  Mrs. Milliren was born February 14, 1818.  She is the
mother of eleven children, viz.:  Melissa A. (Mrs. S. R. Anderson),
born March 9, 1839; Hewlett J. (see sketch); Eunice, February 12, 1842,
died May 2, 1844; Wesley W., July 21, 1844, died September 28, 1846;
Irvin H. (see sketch); Caroline P. (Mrs. E. Crumb), May 2, 1849; Mary
H. (Mrs. E. Minder), June 2, 1851; Silas A. (see later in this sketch);
Barton L., May 2, 1855; Milo C., April 1857; Milton S., April 27, 1858.
At the age of twenty-three years Mr. Milliren began life as a sailor on
Lake Erie, which occupation he followed for several years.  On one
occasion he was nearly shipwrecked, but returned home after being given
up for dead by his parents.  Later he made a voyage to the West Indies.
After his marriage Mr. Milliren engaged in farming and lumbering on an
extensive scale, winning quite a reputation as a pilot on the Red Bank.
In 1858 he sold out and came west, moving his goods to Pittsburgh on a
lumber raft, thence to Pepin by the steamer "Canada," on her first
trip.  Purchasing a farm on section thirty, township twenty-three,
range fourteen, where his widow still resides, he spent the balance of
his days in its improvement and cultivation.  He was a very methodical
man in his business, and kept a diary in which are recorded many
interesting and important events.  Politically he was an ardent
democrat.  He was a member of the Methodist church from his youth, and
also belonged to the A. F. and A. M. and I. O. O. F. fraternities.

Silas Augustus Milliren was born at Summersville, Jefferson county,
Pa., July 9, 1853.  He removed with his parents to Pepin when about
five years of age, and was reared on the farm, attending school a part
of the time until twenty-one.  When twelve years old he had the
misfortune to get his left hand crushed in a cane-mill, necessitating
the amputation of all the fingers.  This partially unfitted him for
labor, but, being of an ambitious disposition, he began at seventeen
years to travel as an agent for books, which occupation he followed in
this and other lines for several years.  In 1867 he went to Pipe Stone
county, Minn., and took up a claim, but returned to Pepin, where he is
now engaged in general farming on the old homestead.  He has spent
considerable time in travel on business and pleasure.  In 1886-87 he
made an extensive tour through the east, south and west, visiting among
other places the famous Kenson, Niagara and Brooklyn bridges.  Mr.
Milliren is a democrat and a member of the I. O. G. T.

-Transcribed from the "Historical & Biographical Album of the Chippewa
Valley Wisconsin, 1891-2," pages 708-709.


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