Butte County
Biographies
JOSEPH MILLER
JOSEPH MILLER.—Among the representative ranchers of Butte County may be found Joseph Miller, who is a native son of the county and who has resided within its confines since his boyhood days. Joseph Miller was born in Frenchtown, November 15, 1857, a son of Ignatz Miller, who was born in Germany and came to the new world of opportunity in the early fifties. He first settled in St. Louis, Mo., but shortly after came to California and engaged in the butcher business at Frenchtown, Butte County. This business he continued until he sold it to his brothers, Joseph and Wendel Miller, and he then returned East, to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he engaged in the butcher business for about nine years, also operating a dairy. His wife died in Cincinnati, and in 1872 the father and son Joseph came back to California. Two years later the father returned East and remained there until his death occurred. He and his good wife were the parents of six children, four of whom grew up. Two daughters now live in Cincinnati, and a younger boy, Fred, died in California.
Joseph Miller, the oldest child in the family, was reared in Butte County except from five to fourteen years of age, which intervening years were spent in Cincinnati, where he attended the public schools. In 1872, he came back to the county of his birth, with his father, and engaged in the butcher business. When his uncle Wendel died, he bought his butcher shop in Cherokee, and continued the business for some years. He later closed out his butcher business—and now devotes his time to looking after his ranch of two hundred forty acres, two and one-half miles south of Nelson. He owns the old Louis Glass home in Cherokee, where he resides, also owning about twelve acres of land adjoining. A loyal son of the county, with an abiding faith in its possibilities, Mr. Miller has watched the advancement of his section of the state with keen interest, his knowledge of conditions assuring him that even greater progress is in store for this favored spot of Nature.
The marriage of Mr. Miller, which occurred in Chico, united him with Miss Mena Rapp, also a native of the county, born near Magalia, a daughter of Andrew Rapp, a native of Germany and a pioneer of Cherokee, where he lived for many years, finally moving to Oroville, where his death occurred; his widow still resides in Oroville. Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Miller: Josephine Ora, who is Mrs. Ellis, of Oroville; Lee J., who died at seven years of age; and Lester Llewellyn, in the employ of the Great Western Power Company at Las Plumas. In political matters, Mr. Miller supports the Democratic party.
Transcribed
by Sharon Walford Yost.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1126-1127, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2009 Sharon
Walford Yost.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies