Miller Family History, 1st Generation

Our Müller (Mueller)/Miller family dates back 350 years and 12 generations. It starts out as early as the late 1600s with Johann Michael Müller¹, a native of Zollikofen, Bern Canton, Switzerland.

His son Johann Michael Müller (Mueller)/Miller (Jr.)² was born in 1692 in Steinwenden, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany, and emigrated from Germany to the New World with the migration of “Pennsylvania Dutch” in 1727. Probably starting in Germantown on the outskirts of Philadelphia, the family gradually moved west across Pennsylvania to Coventryville, Rapho/Little Conewago, and Hanover before crossing into Maryland to present-day Maugansville just north of Hagerstown in Washington County, Maryland, in 1745.

As the Miller's expanded in this area they met with the disruptions of the French & Indian War (1754-1763) and the American Revolution (1775-1783). During the Revolution they espoused non-violence as “non-associators,” refusing to pay war taxes or to serve in the army. As a result Michael's sons David and Jacob Miller, as well as members from allied families, lost land claims.

Michael's son Philip Jacob Miller³ remained in Washington County until 1795 when he moved to Campbell County, Kentucky.

Philip Jacob's two eldest sons, Daniel Sr.⁴ and David⁴, both left Washington County in the early 1780s, moving north and across the Allegheny Mountains to Bedford County, Pennsylvania. Around the time of Ohio statehood in 1803, both Daniel Sr. and David resettled in western Ohio in the area of Montgomery and Preble counties near Dayton. They may have made this migration by way of Campbell County, Kentucky, which lies to the south.

Daniel Sr.'s son Isaac⁵ and David's daughter Elizabeth⁵, first cousins, wed in the Miami/Montgomery counties area of Ohio. After Isaac's death in 1822, Elizabeth remarried and continued westward into Elkhart County, Indiana, and on to Johnson County, Iowa, by 1840.

Isaac and Elizabeth's son David John Miller⁶, born in 1817 in Ohio, and his wife Sarah Kester started a family in Solon, Johnson County, Iowa, around 1841 and had as many as five children: three girls and two boys. The elder boy, Isaac Dennis Miller⁷, was born in 1843 and fought with the 24th Iowa Volunteer Regiment in the Civil War where he was wounded during the campaign against Vicksburg, Mississippi, and again on the road to Winchester, Virginia. After the war Isaac married Candace Mandana Andrews and all of the Miller family, except for the eldest daughter, Finetta, moved west to California about 1870. Isaac's family first settled in the area of Morro Township and Cayucos where his in-laws settled in 1868. It was here that Isaac and Candace's daughter, Cora Ethel Miller⁸, was born in 1881.

A few years later Isaac's family moved north to Parkfield in Monterey County but soon returned to San Luis Obispo County where they settled in Arroyo Grande until Isaac's death in 1896. Afterward Cora moved north to Sonoma County where she raised nine children and became the matriarch of the Fisher and Williams families. Over 40 years after her death the families continue to gather each summer for a reunion in the Santa Rosa area.

Johann Michael Müller (Mueller)¹ (~1655-1695)

1. Johann Michael Müller (Mueller)¹ was born about 1655 in Zollikofen, Bern Canton, Switzerland. He married Irene Charitas about 1684 and had six children, only one of whom survived to adulthood:

As noted in research by Tom & Karleen Miller (Johann Michael Miller Family Tree), the Müller (Mueller) family likely moved from Switzerland following a peasant revolt in 1653 and migrated down the Rhine (Rhein) River to Germany which was recovering from depopulation during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). They settled in Steinwenden, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany probably in the early 1680s and became part of the Steinwenden and Konken German Reformed parish churches.

Irene Charitas Müller died in 1692, probably in her early 20's.

Michael later remarried to Anna Loysa Regina.

Johann Michael Müller died on January 31, 1695, in Steinwenden at the age of 40.

Stutzman

Michael's widow, Anna, remarried a year and a half later to Johann Jacob Stutzman (II), allegedly a native of Spiez, Bern Canton, Switzerland, in 1696 and had one son: