Miller Family History, 6th Generation

Mary Magdalena Miller^Δ (~1814-<1870)

118271. Mary Magdalena Miller^Δ was born about 1813 or 1814 in Ohio^{[Cen 1850]}, likely in Montgomery County. She married her first cousin, Abraham Miller^Δ on November 3, 1833, in Elkhart County, Indiana, where her mother had moved by 1833. Mary had at least five children before her death, sometime in the 1860s. Children Martin, Elizabeth, and Emanuel were declared as “idiotic.”^{[Cen 1870, 1880]}. Abraham afterward remarried to Mary Ann (Wyman) Gerard, a widow with three children. Their blended family was:

The Millers moved from Elkhart County southwest to Marshall County, Indiana, probably in the late 1840s.^{[Cen 1850]} They likely settled first in Polk Township,^{[Cen 1850]} then shifted slighly south to neighboring West Township,^{[Cen 1860]} and then east to neighboring Center Township.^{[Cen 1870]}

Mary Magdalena Miller died sometime in the 1860s.^{[Cen 1870]} She would have been in her late 40s or early 50s.

Abraham remarried to a the widow Mary Ann (Wyman) Gerard in July 1870. He was 59 years old and she was reported to be 42. She had three children from her first marriage who lived with them in Center Township, Marshall County.^{[Cen 1870]} By 1880 the Millers moved northwest to neighboring Polk Township with Abraham's three adult “idiotic” children, ages 31 to 45, and Mary's son “Newton” (presumably referring to Isaac). An 11-year-old “servant” named Mary Roberts lived with the family and attended school.^{[Cen 1880]}

Youngest son Emanuel died on May 15, 1882, at the age of 36, and was buried at the Blissville Cemetery, across the road from the Blissville Church of the Brethren in Polk Township.^[Grave]

Abraham Miller died on either April 11 or 19, 1896, in Polk Township at the age of 85. He was also buried at Blissville Cemetery.^[Grave]

After Abraham's death, Mary lived with her son George and his family at 1143 South Franklin Street in South Bend, St. Joseph County, Indiana. There George worked as a watchman at a wagon factory. All three of Mary's children were recorded as living.^{[Cen 1910]}

Mary (Wyman Gerard) Miller died 16 years after Abraham on May 21, 1913, at the age of 92. She was also buried at the Blissville Cemetery.^[Grave]

Daniel Miller (1815)

118272. Daniel Miller was born in 1815 in Montgomery County, Ohio. Nothing further was know of him until autosomal DNA testing indicated that he may have been the Daniel Miller who married a woman from Virginia named Susannah by 1839 and had four children:

Daniel and Susannah are first found in the 1850 census of Putnam County, Illinois, with three sons. The elder two were born in Iowa Territory (which later gained statehood in 1846) and by 1846 or 1847 the family moved back to Illinois where Daniel was born.^{[Cen 1840]} Coincidentally, the Jesse and Ruth Kester family, which was connected to the Millers through the marriage of Daniel's younger brother David to Jesse's niece Sarah, was also located in Putnam County (Magnolia Township) in 1850 and recorded in the census 13 pages later.

By 1860, the Millers had resettled near Malden in Berlin Township, Bureau County, Illinois, roughly 30 miles north and across the Illinois River from Magnolia Township.

Upon his mother's death in 1865, Daniel received a fifth share of inheritance (less $100 he had received during his mother's lifetime) from among his five Miller siblings and his deceased half-sister Mary Ann (Fackler) Startzer. (His elder sister Nancy (Miller) Weaver did not receive a share.) This is the last known, confirmed mention of Daniel's relationship to his parents and siblings.

The family was not found in 1870. Reportedly all but son Daniel Y. were killed in explosion of a riverboat on the Mississippi River after the Civil War. Afterward only son Daniel was found in Kansas^{[Cen 1880]}; then Blackfoot, Bingham County, Idaho; 25 miles south to Pocatello, Bannock County, Idaho^{[Cen 1900]}; and lastly in Goldendale, Klickitat County, Washington.^{[Cen 1910]}

Nancy Ann (Miller) Warner^Δ (1817-1901)

118273. Nancy Ann Miller^Δ was reportedly born on February 8, 1817, in Montgomery County, Ohio. She married Simon Wisor Warner on October 22, 1836, in Louisa County, Iowa, and had twelve children:

All their children were allegedly, but unlikely, born in Burlington, Des Moines County, except for Nancy, who was reportedly born in Mount Vernon, Linn County; John, who was reportedly born in Louisa County; and Martin, who was reportedly born in Jefferson Township, Louisa County.

The Warners continued to live and farm in Jefferson Township, Louisa County, where the Iowa River converges with the Mississippi River, through 1850.^{[Cen 1850]} By 1860 they moved about 75 miles north to Putnam Township, Linn County, in the township just north of Big Grove Township, Johnson County, where Nancy's mother and half-siblings had settled. There they were enumerated next to Nancy's younger half-brother, Martin Fackler and his family.^{[Cen 1860]}

Simon Wisor Warner died on December 9, 1867, reportedly in Iowa Township, Wright County, Iowa, in north central Iowa, at the age of 56.

After Simon passed, Nancy and her six younger children returned to Louisa County where they were enumerated in Eliot Township on the south and west banks of the Iowa and Mississippi Rivers. Nancy was recorded to have been unable to read or write.^{[Cen 1870]}

Nancy soon after moved to Sarpy County, Nebraska, where she remarried to Lewis A. Driskell, a native of Kentucky and widower with eight grown children, on January 18, 1872, in Sarpy County, Nebraska. Two weeks later, Sarah's daughter Savilla and Lewis's son James married on February 5, 1872, in Ashland, Saunders County, Nebraska.

By 1880, Nancy had moved in with her eldest surviving son John and his family in Oak Township, Smith County, Kansas^{[Cen 1880A]}, while Lewis, on the other hand, had moved in with his eldest son William E. Driskell and his family in Charleston Township, Washington County, Kansas^{[Cen 1880B]}, about 90 miles east of Oak Township.

Lewis A. Driskell died on July 15, 1880, in Charleston Township, at about the age of 63.

Nancy ultimately moved west to Evans, Weld County, Colorado, by 1900, where she lived with her widowed daughter Sarah (Warner) Sumner and her five surviving children. Interestingly, Nancy was enumerated with her first husband's name as “Nancy Warner,” and it was recorded that eight of her twelve children survived.^{[Cen 1900]}

Nancy Ann (Miller Warner) Driskell died on March 4, 1901, in Lasalle, Weld County, Colorado, at the age of 84. She was buried in Evans Cemetery in Evans.

David John Miller⁶ (1817-1892)

118274. David John Miller⁶ was born on December 2, 1817, in Ohio, likely in Montgomery County, and moved to Iowa Territory around 1840, soon after it became a territory in 1838. He marri ed Sarah Ann Kester⁷ by 1840 in Cedar County, Iowa Territory, and then began their family of as many as six children in Solon, Johnson County, Iowa Territory:

Miller Children

	Name	Birth	Death	Age
1182741.	Finetta A. MillerΔ	23 Feb 1841	9 Apr 1908	(67)
1182742.	Isaac Dennis Miller7	8 Dec 1843	25 May 1896	(52)
1182743.	Margaret Elizabeth MillerΔ	15 Sep 1854	3 Apr 1938	(83)
1182744.	John Valentine MillerΔ	24 Sep 1856	13 Apr 1940	(83)
1182745.	Mary Jane MillerΔ	4 Jan 1859	3 Jul 1940	(81)
1182746.	Sarah Ellen Miller	21 Mar 1861	6 Nov 1932	(71)

David, wife, and two young girls between the ages of 5 and 10 appear to have been enumerated adjacent to David's mother in Johnson County, Iowa, in 1840, however, there is no other record of two daughters born before 1840.^{[Cen 1840]}

The Millers have yet to be found in the 1850 census. By 1860, they had settled in the township to the east of Big Grove at Side Hill, Cedar Township (Township 81 North, Range 5 West), in the northeast corner of Johnson County, Iowa Territory.^{[Cen 1840]} Their real estate value was appraised in 1860 at $1,500, and personal property at $250.^{[Cen 1860]}

Except for eldest daughter Finetta, whose family had already set firm roots in Iowa, the rest of the Miller family joined a wagon train bound for California about 1870. As noted in a family narrative from 1935, the wagon train was attacked by Indians and son John Valentine had a “close call” when an arrow ripped through the crown of his hat.

Upon arrival in California the Miller family first settled in either San Luis Obispo or Santa Barbara County.

David and Sarah relocated to Oregon, possibly as early as 1871. They likely settled in Josephine County by 1879 when youngest daughter Sarah Ellen married in Josephine County, but may have migrated as early as 1871 when their middle daughter, Maggie, married in Jackson County to the east of Josephine County. The Millers settled in Slate Creek Precinct, probably up Redwood Highway (Highway 199) in the hills southwest of Grants Pass on the edge of what became Siskiyou National Forest, where daughters Mary Jane, Sarah Ellen, and their husbands had also settled by 1880.^{[Cen 1880]}

David John Miller died in 1892 in Table Rock, near Sam's Valley along the Rogue River in Jackson County, Oregon, just north of Medford. He was 74 years old.

Sometime after David's death, Sarah moved to back to San Luis Obispo. There she was hospitalized at the San Luis Obispo County Hospital by 1900.^{[Cen 1900]}

Sarah Ann (Kester) Miller died on June 29, 1902, in San Luis Obispo, San Luis Obispo County, California where some of her grandchildren lived. She was 83 years old. She is buried in San Luis Obispo.

Elizabeth (Miller) Brockert (1820-1901)

118275. Elizabeth Miller^Δ was born September 10, 1820, likely in Montgomery County, Ohio. She married Andrew Brockert, an immigrant from Bavaria, Germany, on March 4, 1843, in Iowa. She and Andrew had as many as nine children:

The Brockert family settled in Eliot, Louisa County, Iowa, by 1860 and stayed their throughout the rest of their lives.^{[Cen 1860-1880]}

Andrew Brockert died on August 23, 1891 in Oakville, Louisa County, Iowa, three days after his 70th birthday.

Elizabeth (Miller) Brockert died ten years later on August 30, 1901 in Oakville, 11 days shy of her 81st birthday.