Marion County WV Archives Biographies.....Miller, James 1780 - March 19, 1856
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Connie Burkett marionwvusgwarch@gmail.com April 22, 2010, 2:51 am

Source: West Virginia and Its People
Author: Thomas Condit Miller and Hu Maxwell

West Virginia and Its People
by Thomas Condit Miller and Hu Maxwell
New York, Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1913
Volume II, Page 149

James Miller, son of Noah Miller [and Ann Buel], was born in Farmington,
Connecticut, in 1780. When about twenty-one years of age he married Sarah,
daughter of Abner Messenger, a soldier of the revolution under General
Washington in 1782 (Connecticut in the Revolution). Abner Messenger married a
Miss Pike, who was a cousin of General Pike. About a year after his marriage
James Miller, together with his father-in-law, Abner Messenger, went to the
Muskingum Valley in the tide of emigration that went west of the Allegheny
mountains about that time. Abner Messenger settled in what is now Preston
county, West Virginia, and died there at an advanced age, his descendants now
being numerous in that section. James Miller, contracting malaria at Marietta,
Ohio, and becoming discouraged with the western country, started back to
Connecticut, but finding a good opening at Morgantown, Virginia, opened a
coopering establishment at that place, that being his trade, and employed a
number of hands in his shop. A few years later he went to Greensboro,
Pennsylvania, where Albert Gallatin had established a glass plant, the first one
west of the Allegheny mountains. About 1837 he moved to Middletown (now
Fairmont), Virginia, where he continued in the coopering business, and also
conducted a ferry between Fairmont and Palatine, in which latter town he bought
the first laid-out lots and to which he removed in 1839. His first wife, Sarah
Messenger, having died, he married a Mrs. Hirons, of the Pricket Creek
settlement, and a few years later he and his stepson purchased a farm upon which
he resided until his death, March 19, 1856. He was an exemplary citizen, and a
class leader in the Methodist church. His first wife died in Palatine in 1839;
his second wife survived him. To his first marriage five sons and five daughters
were born: Noah Buel, who died in infancy; Abner Amherst; Samuel B.; James;
William Edmund; Emily, married Jesse Core; Ann, wife of Daniel Gantz; Abigail
Pike, married Thomas Pickens of Ohio; Sarah, wife of M. D. Purnell; Mary,
married L. D. Fox. All these are now deceased.

Additional Comments:
1850 Census, Marion County (W)Va
Stamped page #123
Lines 3-8
MILLER, James, 69, Farmer, Vermont
", Nancy, 50, Penna
IRONS, Thomas, 19, Laborer, Va
", Sarah, 12, Va
MILLER, Emily, 8, Va
LEONARD, Bernard 12, Va


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/wv/marion/bios/miller92nbs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/wvfiles/

File size: 3.1 Kb