Sacramento County
Biographies
WALTER
ABOILE MILLER
WALTER ABOILE MILLER was born October 9, 1833, in Onondaga County, New York. His boyhood was spent on the home farm. In 1846 when he was thirteen years of age, the family moved to Wisconsin and located in Walworth County, in the southern part of the State and adjoining the Illinois line, where they remained four years; thence to Columbia County near Ft. Winnebago, where Mr. Miller, father of Walter, bought 260 acres of land, and here they remained until 1860. The family emigrated to California in 1863 with the exception of one daughter. After seeing the family located, H. D. Miller returned to Wisconsin, settled his business there and returned, bringing with him the afore-mentioned daughter. On reaching California, Walter M., carried on the business of hauling freight from Sacramento to Placerville (then known as Hangtown) for two months. He then had sufficient money to purchase the necessary implements to start in farming, and provide for the family who, during this time, had no special place of residence or ready means to live on. For the first two months he rented land in Brighton Township, but in the spring of 1862 he and his brother, W. B. Miller, bought a squatter rights to 160 acres of land and worked it together for two years, up to 1864, when W. B. Miller received a title to it from the Government. W. A. Miller bought and moved upon land adjoining it, and afterward found it to be railroad land and received title from the railroad company to 320 acres. Of this Mr. H. D., bought eighty acres, paying the same price for it as had been paid to the railroad company. Walter A., bought 160 acres more in 1875, making 400 in all. The farm is about one-half bottom land, of a dark loamy soil, particularly adapted to fruit and grapes; twenty acres are planted in orchard consisting of a general variety of fruit; thirty acres with grape, all in heavy bearing, there being some vines that have yielded 150 pounds to the vine; 100 of the vines are twenty-seven years old. For about seventeen seasons Mr. Miller had run a machine, the first six or seven seasons with horse power, and since that time steam power has been used. He has threshed from the Joaquin pretty nearly to the Red Bluff. He was married in Syracuse, New York, August 22, 1871, to Miss Florence H. Hall, a native of Syracuse and daughter of Upson S. and Jane C. Hall. Mr. and Mrs. Miller have two children: Caroline A., born May 29, 1872, wife of Frank Dahn; and Leroy H., born October 8, 1875.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of
Sacramento County, California. Page 617. Lewis
Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.