Tucker County, West Virginia Biography of JOSEPH L. MILLER, M. D. This file was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: **The Submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch.** This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 485 Tucker JOSEPH L. MILLER, M. D. The dean of the medical pro- fession at Thomas in Tucker County is Dr. Joseph L. Miller, who has general supervision of the medical and surgical practice for the Davis Coal & Coke Company in this region. He has some active connections with local business as well, and his career also serves to introduce one of the very old and prominent families of the state. Doctor Miller was born in Beach Hill in the Big Kana- wha Valley in Mason County, October 10, 1875. In the same locality was born his father, Henderson Miller. His grandfather, John Miller, came from Woodstock, Virginia, to settle in this section of the Big Kanawha Valley. Here he built the first brick house in 1810. This house stood on what is known as tlie old Judge Moore farm. John Miller subsequently presented that farm to his son, and he located on another one of his Kanawha Valley farms. This farm, where he and his wife, Sallie, lived, is now the property of William H. Vaught of Point Pleasant. Their bodies lie in the old family graveyard on the farm. John Miller owned twenty or more slaves. His first wife was a daughter of William Clendenin, an early and prominent settler of Mason County, who served as a member of the Virginia Assembly. His second wife was Sallie Henderson. Her father was Col. John Henderson, a distinguished character in the pioneer period of Mason County. He was a member of the first County Court, in 1804, served as sheriff from 1804 to 1809, was a member of the Vir- ginia Legislature from 1809 to 1824, and was colonel of the 106th Virginia Regiment in the War of 1812. He and his brother Samuel Henderson inherited 2,000 acres of land at the mouth of the Big Kanawha River from their father, Lieut. John Henderson, who had acquired it by grant from the State of Virginia and had settled there about 1795. The old Henderson brick house in which 061. John Henderson lived is still standing, just across from Point Pleasant, and its construction dates from 1811. Col. John Henderson was a brother-in-law of Gen. Andrew Lewis, who was in command of the Virginia troops at the battle of Point Pleasant on October 19, 1774. John Miller by his first marriage had six sons and one daughter, and by his second wife had the same number of children, but in reverse sex, there being six daughters and one son. The son of his first marriage, Charles Clen- denin Miller, lived in Mason County, and for fifty years was president of the old Merchants Bank. Henderson Miller, father of Doctor Miller, and only son of John and Sallie (Henderson) Miller, spent seventy years of his life on the farm where he was born. He was a graduate of Marshall College in 1847, was a slave holder and planter, little disposed to politics beyond voting as a democrat, and was a liberal and prominent member of the Southern Methodist Church, donating the site and more than half the funds required to build a church at Beech Hill. Henderson Miller, who died February 19, 1898, at the age of seventy, married Finetta Lyon, daughter of Joseph Lyon, at Woodford County, Kentucky. She died May 19, 1920, at the age of sixty-nine, and both are buried in the Beech Hill Cemetery. Their children are: Dr. Joseph Lyon, of Thomas; and Stephen Kisling, one of the prominent business men in the Ohio Valley, a resident of Louisville and vice president of the Kentucky Wagon Works and Dixie Motor Company, where the old Hickory farm wagon has been made for a half century. Dr. Joseph L. Miller grew up in Mason County in the environment of his distinguished forefathers, and he first attended country schools, continued his education in Morris- Harvey College at Barboursville, spent two years in the University of Nashville, and graduated in medicine from the University College of Medicine at Richmond in 1900. The last six months he was in college he was an interne in the Sheltering Arms Hospital of Richmond. Soon after finishing his course in medicine Doctor Miller moved to Thomas as first assistant to Dr. 0. H. Hoffman, then chief surgeon for the Davis Coal & Coke Company. When Doctor Hoffman, in 1917, removed to Baltimore he was succeeded by Doctor Miller, who now has medical charge of the seven plants of the company in this region and is also local surgeon for the Western Maryland Railroad Company. He has been in active practice here for over twenty years. He has twice served as president of the Barbour-Randolph-Tucker Tri-County Medical Society, has been vice president of the West Virginia State Medical Association and is a Fellow of the American Medical Association and a member of the Southern Medical Asso- ciation. Doctor Miller, in 1914, established a drug store at Thomas, and still owns that business. He is president of the local Board of Health, has been a member of the City Council, and was the only democrat elected to the local school board for many years, overcoming the republican majority to attain that office. He is a past officer of every chair in Thomas Lodge No. 123, F. and A. M., and belongs to the Scottish Rite Consistory at Wheeling. He is a Presbyterian and Mrs. Miller has taken a very active part in the church, especially in connection with the choir. She has a finished musical education, and is a member of the Thomas branch of the Federation of Women's Clubs. On June 3, 1902, at Ashland, Kentucky, Doctor Miller married Miss Pamelia Hampton, a native of that locality and daughter of John W. Hampton, a successful lawyer, and granddaughter of Judge William C. Ireland, who was on the Kentucky bench for a score of years and served as a member of the Kentucky Senate before and during the Civil war. Judge Ireland's daughter Louisa married John W. Hampton in 1872, and Mrs. Miller is the youngest of their three cliildren. Her surviving brother, William Ire- land Hampton, is a lawyer and cattle man at Fort Worth, Texas. Mrs. Miller is a graduate in music from the Morris- Harvey College and also from Randolph-Macon Women's College at Lyhchburg, Virginia. Doctor and Mrs. Miller have three children, Henderson Hampton, now a student at Yale University, class of 1925. Ireland Fielding is a student of architecture in the University of Pennsylvania. John Hampton, the youngest, is attending Mercersburg Academy at Mercersburg, Pennsylvania.