San Joaquin County
Biographies
NATHANIEL MILNER
NATHANIEL MILNER, City
Justice and Judge of the Municipal Court of Stockton, was born in Indiana, in
1826, a son of John and Nancy (Case) Milner. The father, born in Virginia, a
son of William and Elizabeth (Ely) Milner, was married in Indiana. His immediate
ancestors of the Milner and Case families were long-lived, the former dying
between the ages of seventy and eighty, and the latter reaching ninety years or
more. The subject of this sketch received a limited education in his youth, was
brought up on his father’s farm, and at the age of eighteen began to learn the
trade of carpenter. After his apprenticeship he worked as journeyman a few
years at wages ranging from $1 to $1.50 a day. He came to California in 1850,
arriving in Georgetown, El Dorado County, in August of that year. He gathered
about $2,000 in two years, and in the fall of 1852 moved into Tuolumne County,
where he followed mining another year, and in 1853 bought a general store in
Shaw’s Flats, which he kept until 1862, being interested in mines at the same
time. Meanwhile he became interested with three others in a saw-mill in 1857,
and continued in that line until 1864, when he sold out. He then went into the
freighting business between Sacramento and Virginia City and Reese City,
chiefly. He was also manager of a lumber interest, with headquarters in
Virginia City, and superintended his freighting business from that point. In
1867 he sold out everything and went into quartz-mining in Tuolumne County,
where he sank all his earnings, about $8,000, in three years. He came to
Stockton in 1870, and earned $2.50 a day packing grain in a warehouse, working
in that line a few years, and from his savings paid off an indebtedness he had
incurred of $1,000. In 1874 he was superintendent of a grain warehouse in this
city, filling that position about one year. He then traveled soliciting grain
storage for the Farmers’ Union Warehouse, and remained in that business at
intervals for three or four years. He was elected city justice in 1882, and
re-elected the three following years. In 1886 he was elected township justice,
holding the position until 1888, when he was again elected city justice, and in
1889 was appointed judge of the municipal court under the new charter, filling
both offices.
Mr. Milner was married in Shaw’s Flats,
June 11, 1877, to Mrs. Jane Elizabeth (Wright) Geer, born in Massachusetts,
August, 1831. She was then a widow with two children, of whom one, Lena Viola
Geer, born in Tuolumne County, survives in 1890, the wife of Eugene C. Mayhew,
a native of the same county, and now of Stockton. They have one child, Lois
Viola, born December 3, 1884. Mr. Milner has been a member of the I. O. O. F.
over thirty-six years, being initiated in Sonora in 1853, and in 1855, at
Shaw’s Flats, became a member of Mount Horeb Lodge, which was afterwards
transferred to Ripon in this county. He is also a member of the American Legion
of Honor and of the San Joaquin Valley Society of California Pioneers.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Page 636. Lewis Pub. Co.
Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
Biographies
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