Jacob J. Miller
Company I, 13th Kansas Cavalry This is what William Cutler wrote about this gentleman: JACOB J. MILLER, farmer, P. O. Sabetha, came to Kansas in 1859, making the claim on which he now lives. During the first two years he worked in a Missouri saw-mill, and in 1861 enlisted for six months in the Missouri State Militia. Returning to his farm, he put in and harvested the crop of 1862, and in August enlisted in the Kansas Thirteenth for three years; fought at Cane Hill, Prairie Grove, Van Buren, and in other disputes with the Missouri and Arkansas rebels. For two years after the war he worked by the month for A. Moorehead. Built his house in 1867, and in 1868 married Miss Mary Moorehead. He now has 320 acres of land, all fenced and mainly under improvement, good buildings and a five-acre orchard, etc. Mr. and Mrs. Miller have four children - Annabel, Lillie, Bennie and Nellie, all born in Rock Creek, Nehama (sic) Co., Kan. History of Nemaha County, Kansas by Ralph Tennal, Standard Publishing Company , Lawrence, Kansas, 1916. Jacob J. Miller.—The late Jacob J. Miller was a pioneer settler of Nemaha county, Kansas, and was one of the famous vanguard of pioneers who came to Kansas in the late fifties and paved the way for the redemption of the vast unpeopled spaces awaiting the advent of the home builders from the East and the Old World, who have since come in ever increasing numbers. Those early, sturdy, brave wilderness conquerors such as Jacob J. Miller doubtless dreamed of the days when the iron locomotive would supplant the slower moving pony express and the immigrant freight trains which wended their slow passage from the Missouri to the far West. He lived to see his dreams come true and attained a portion of the prosperity which was rightfully his before his demise. He served his country in the late Civil war and became an honored and respected citizen of a great county, of which he was one of the first real old settlers. Jacob J. Miller was born in Wurtemberg, Germany, August 10, 1834, and was a son of Frederick and Elizabeth (Hilt) Miller, who were the parents of eight children, of whom Jacob J. was the sixth in order of birth. He was reared to young manhood in Germany and in 1854 left his native land and immigrated to America, and after a two years' stay on Long Island went to Illinois, where he remained for five years, migrating to Nemaha county, Kansas, in 1859. He preempted a homestead of 160 acres of land with Gabriel Lucket in Rock Creek township. His home was a log cabin which the previous homesteader had built on the farm. He broke up his land with slow moving oxen and continued its cultivation until the outbreak of the Civil war in 1861. Just previous to the Civil war Mr. Miller drove an ox team in an overland freight train from Atchison to Salt Lake City, walking the entire distance to Salt Lake City and part of the return trip. He felt called upon to assist in preserving the Union from dissolution, and accordingly, in 1862, he enlisted in the famous Thirteenth Kansas infantry at Hiawatha and served for three years. He fought at the battle of Prairie Grove and all of the notable engagements in which his regiment participated in the Southwest, attaining the rank of corporal in Company I of the Thirteenth regiment. He returned to his homestead in Nemaha county after his discharge from the service, was married in 1868, and cultivated and improved his land with considerable success until 1908, when he retired to a home in Sabetha. Mr. Miller accumulated the large total of 480 acres of land during his life time, and was one of the well-to-do citizens of Sabetha at the time of his demise, August 20, 191 1. He was a member of the Grand Army Post of Sabetha, Kans., and was highly respected and liked by all who knew him for his many excellent qualities. Jacob J. Miller was married March 4, 1868, to Mary M. Moorehead, born in Coshocton county, Ohio, August 19, 1847, a daughter of Archibald and Sarah (McRride) Moorehead. Her father was 1iorn near Londonderry, Ireland, in 1818, and died in 1881. Upon his inimigratiim to this country, he located in Ohio, where he was married to Sarah McBride, born in 1822, in Coshocton county, Ohio, and died in 1904. Eleven children were born of this union, namely: Mrs. Anna M. Joy, La Connor, Wash. ; Mrs. Mary Miller, with whom this review is concerned ; Sarah, deceased, wife of Ira F. Collins; William, stockman, deceased ; Archibald, banker, and former county treasurer of Nemaha county, deceased; Richard, former probate judge, representative from Nemalia county and jiresent postmaster of Sabetha ; Nancy, wife of Roy A. Thompson, Ness City, Kans. ; Nettie, deceased, wife of C. Clarkson ; Mrs. Jennie L. Clarkson, deceased. Archibald Moorehead immigrated to America in 1831, when a boy thirteen years old, and after a stay in New York City, he migrated to Ohio. After his marriage in Ohio, he located near Ottumwa, Iowa, where he resided until 1857, and then came West and located on the prairie fi\e miles north of Sabetha, Kans. His first visit to Kansas was made in 1856, at which time he paid $1,300 for 160 acres of land, which included sixty acres of timber. He eventually settled in Rock Creek township, near the farm owned by Jacob J. Miller, where his family was reared. Mr. and Mrs. Moorehead were members of the Presbyterian church. Five children were born to the marriage of Jacob J. and Mary Miller, as follows : Belle, living with her mother, graduated from the Nebraska State Normal School and the Kansas Teachers' Training School at Pittsburg, Kans., taught the second grade of the Seneca schools for four 3 years, taught the seventh grade of the Sabetha schools for one year, and then gave up teaching. Circumstances, however, caused het to teach for three years in her home district, and then in Falls City, Neb., for one year. She also taught at Logan, Utah, previous to retiring from her profession, since which time she has traveled extensively in the United States. Lillie E., wife of J. Lortscher. Fairview, Kans, was also a teacher for four years, and is the mother of four children, namely : Lucile. John, Paul, Loraine and Esther. Prof. Benjamin Leroy Miller graduated from the Kansas State University and taught in Penn College at Oskaloosa. Iowa, for three years, following which he attended the Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, Md., and received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. He then taught at Bryn Mawr College, in Pennsylvania, and is now head of the department of geology of Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa. Prof. Benjamin Leroy Miller is a fine type of intellectual development, physically and morally strong. During 1915 he was granted a leave of absence from his chair at Lehigh and traveled for eight months in geological research in South America. For further particulars of Dr. Miller's accomplishments, the reader is referred to the chapter, "Nemaha Men and Women of Renown," in this volume. Nellie attended the State Normal School at Peru, Neb., and is now residing at Parsons, Kans. Paul, the youngest of the family, is a farmer in Rock Creek township. It was the ambition of Jacob J. Miller to give each of his children an excellent education, and he succeeded in this very laudable desire — thereby bequeathing to his country a family whose members have taken honored and useful places in their respective communities and who revere the memory of a parent whose care and forethought have enabled them to become successful and useful men and women. Mrs. Miller shared her late husband's desire and did her part nobly by assisting in carrying out her husband's ambitions, and was of the greatest assistance to him during the years in which he and she were rearing their fine family and trying to attain to a position of comfort and well being. Mrs. Miller is a member of the Congregational church, the missionary society connected with the church, and is active in church and social doings in Sabetha. She is also affiliated with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. The Sabetha Star, Thursday, August 24, 1911, Pg.1 Volume XVI, No. 34 Miller. Jacob John Miller was born in Hoefen, Wurtemberg, Germany, on August 10th, 1834, and died in Sabetha, Kansas, August 20th, 1911, aged 77 years and 10 days. At the age of 19 he came to this country. For two years he worked on Long Island and then went to Sheffield, Illinois, where he remained four years. In 1859 he came to Kansas where he lived continuously until his death, with the exception of a few months in the summer of 1860, when he drove an ox team with government supplies from Fort Leavenworth to Salt Lake City and during the Civil War from 1861 to 1865. During the war he first served for three months in the Thirteenth Kansas regiment, Company I, serving until the close of the war. On returning from the war he purchased the home farm on Rock Creek where he lived until the fall of 1908, when he moved to Sabetha. He was married on March 4, 1868, to Mary Moorhead, who survives him, together with his five children, Belle, Nelle and Paul of Sabetha, Mrs. John Lortscher of Fairview, and Benjamin of South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In 1902 he visited his old home in Germany, where three brothers and three sisters still live, four of whom are over eighty years of age. His everyday life was his greatest eulogy, so entirely unselfish that in all his good works he never thought of anything as a sacrifice. His nieces and nephews loved him as they did their own fathers, and so often said it made them happy to be around where they could see dear Uncle Jake's face if he didn't say a word. And those closest to him in family relation never heard him speak an unkind word to anybody. His calm spirit and infinite patience during the past two years of continual suffering, with never a moan or complaint, will never be forgotten by his many relatives and friends. The funeral services were held at the Congregational church at 2:30 p. m., Tuesday, August 22, 1911, conducted by Rev. George Brimacombe.