Wood County, West Virginia Biography of JAMES E. MILLER 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 II, pg. 534 Wood JAMES E. MILLER, who is president of the J. E. Miller Company in the City of Parkersburg, is known and honored as one of the most progressive business men and loyal and public-spirited citizens of this vigorous Ohio river city. He was born in Washington County, Ohio, on a farm near the Ohio River and not far distant from the city in which he now maintains his home. The date of his nativity was August 25, 1874, and he is a son of Austin D. and Mary E. (Goddard) Miller, both of whom were born and reared in Jackson County, Ohio. David Miller, grandfather of the subject of this review, was born and reared in New Hamp- shire, a representative of a sterling Colonial family of New England, and he was a young man when he made his way to Ohio from New Hampshire and became a pioneer farmer in Jackson County. He was reared on his father's New England farm. Austin D. Miller served as a gallant soldier of the Union in the Civil war, as a member of an Ohio regi- ment of volunteer infantry, and after its close he continued for many years as one of the representative exponents of farm industry in Washington County, Ohio, where his death occurred in the year 1910 and where his widow still maintains her home. Of the five children three are living. James E. Miller reverts with satisfaction to the fortifying experience that early became his in connection with the activities of the old home farm on which he was born and with the operations of which he continued his association until he had attained to his legal majority. In the meanwhile he profited by the advantages offered in the public schools of his native county, and later he completed a course in a busi- ness college at Parkersburg, a city with which he has been familiar since his childhood days. At the age of twenty-one years Mr. Miller made a radical change in environment and occupation by going to the city of Chicago, in which great western metropolis he was employed three years in a clerical capacity in a leading mail-order mercantile establishment. In 1898 he returned to the home farm, and after there remain- ing two years he went to Columbus, Ohio, where he con- tinued his residence seven years and where his active asso- ciation with the furniture business gave him the experience that has proved of inestimable value in his individual activi- ties in connection with this branch of mercantile enterprise. In 1907 Mr. Miller came to Parkersburg and engaged in the retail furniture business. Success attended the venture, and he had developed a well equipped establishment at the time when, in 1913, the property was destroyed in the great flood which devastated much of the city in that year. He then incorporated the Miller Furniture Company, which he sold in 1918. He forthwith made provisions for the re-establish- ing of his business, and incorporated as the J. E. Miller Com- pany. As president of this company he has built up one of the leading enterprises of the kind in the city. The large and well appointed furniture establishment of the J. E. Miller Company is at 404 Market Street, and is metropolitan in equipment and service, with a substantial patronage of representative order. Mr. Miller is independent in politics, and he and his wife are active members of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Parkersburg. In the time-honored Masonic fraternity he is a past master of Mount Olivet Lodge No. 3, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; is at the time of this writing, in 1921, an officer of Jerusalem Chapter No. 3, Royal Arch Masons, and of Calvary Commandery, No. 3, Knights Templars; while in the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite he is past vener- able master of Purnell Lodge of Perfection No. 2, and an officer in Odell S. Long Chapter No. 2, Rose Croix. He is also affiliated with Nemesis Temple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and is a member of its fine patrol. The year 1899 recorded the marriage of Mr. Miller and Miss Linnie M. Dye, of Marietta, Ohio, and they have eight chil- dren, namely: Edwin J., William T., Marie E., Carl and Earl (twins), Roscoe, Margaret and David.