Sacramento County
Biographies
ALBERT De
FOREST MILLER
ALBERT De FOREST MILLER, farmer, Brighton Township, arrived here with his father, Henry Miller, October 12, 1860. He was born in Onondaga County, New York, February 7, 1844. His father was also a native of New York and his mother, nee Julia Adams, was a native of Connecticut. In 1846 his parents emigrated to Walworth County, Wisconsin, and in 1848 into Columbia County, that State, in which county one of his neighbors, G. W. Scott, was keeping a general store, and is now a prominent citizen of Yolo County, living two and a half miles from Madison, having come to this State in 1851. The Miller family, numbering thirteen individuals, came to California overland with five wagons. Leaving their Wisconsin home May 7, 1860, they arrived in this county October 12 following. In the party were W. B. Miller, now living in Ventura County, this State; and one married sister, Mrs. James Powderly, with husband and three children. On his arrival here, Mr. Miller, Sr., located in Brighton Township, renting two years. In the winter of 1862-’63 he returned East for a year, and from 1864 till his death made his home here. Both finished their days at the residence of their son, the subject of this sketch. Their children were: W. B., now of Ventura County, a farmer and stabler at times; Mrs. Schaper, whose sketch appears elsewhere; W. A., who lives in Brighton Township; Sophia, who first married Mr. Powderly and afterward Mr. Townsend, and is now deceased; Allen De Lorin, of Sacramento; Sarah, who died in New York State between two and three years of age; the next in order of birth was the subject of this sketch; Sanford De Lorin, who died in Wisconsin, at the age of fifteen years, from poison given ignorantly by a drunken physician; George Alonza, residing near Yreka, this State, when last heard of, about ten years ago. Frederick, a farmer in Oregon; Miner Adelbert, a farmer in El Dorado County; Henry, living at Salmon Falls, same county, also a farmer; Josephine Elizabeth, wife of Henry West in Sacramento; and Sarah, now the wife of Charles Robinson of Sacramento. When his father went East, the subject of this sketch was left in charge of the family, all younger then he, farming on the river near Brighton. During the flood of 1861-’62 he was on a piece of land rented from McCloy of Sacramento. A wind moved the house ten or twelve feet, upsetting everything within and carrying the kitchen fifty yards away, but injuring no one, although eight persons were in the house. They were rescued by boats. Mr. Miller plowed and sowed between floods and raised 1,700 bushels of wheat and barley that season, hauled it to Folsom and sold it at the low rate of seventy-five cents a cental (100 lbs.). In 1862 he moved upon the farm of A. B. Davis just south of Brighton. From 1863 to 1867 he followed teaming, using six horses to the wagon. In 1864 Mrs. Bennett, now Mrs. Schaper, came here a widow from Wisconsin with four children, making the family to be supported about thirteen in number. That year he was cultivating 160 acres, and it proved a hard year, the barley yielding only twelve bushels to the acre and bringing only four and a half cents a pound. During the fall of that year he worked on the canal in Yolo County, employing two teams; but, finding it unremunerative, quit it at the end of sixty days. In 1866 he purchased eighty acres of land in Brighton Township, built a house upon it and followed farming and teaming for others. In the fall of 1867 his mother died. Afterward he followed his agricultural pursuits and speculated in livestock, hay, etc., and made money,—the foundation of his present good fortune. In 1868 he rented 320 acres in Yolo County, which he also cultivated. His farm in Brighton Township now consists of 240 acres, largely devoted to stockraising. December 28, 1868, he married Mrs. Margaret J. Lea, who was born on Prince Edward’s Island July 4, 1848, reared in Boston, Massachusetts, and came to California in 1862. By her first husband she had one daughter, in 1867, named Annie R. Mr. And Mrs. Miller have five children, besides the one who died in childhood, namely: Mina Alberta, born November 13, 1869; Arthur Eugene, February 27, 1872; Amy Elizabeth, July 23, 1874; Bertha Belle, September 9, 1877; Ruby May, who died February 19, 1885, aged twenty months; and Leland Stanford, born January 27, 1886.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of
Sacramento County, California. Pages 618-619. Lewis
Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.