Collection: Books and Periodicals

About This Item:

Title: A Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California (1891) Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Publisher: Lewis Publishing Company Published: 1891 Copyright: In the public domain or published before 1925 Source(s): Google Books # of Pages: 713 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-07-22 00:25:09 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 03:11:29 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 06:30:36

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

Page: of 713  

496 HISTORY OF NORTHERN OALIFORNIA. with his family to that vicinity, locating the quarter section on which the city of Decatar is now situated, and was the first man to stretch a surveyor’s chain in Illinois under a contract with the United States Land Department, and surveyed from what is now East St. Louia to Chicago. In 1828 Abraham Miller moved with his family to the lead-mine region in southern Wisconsin, where he remained until 1848, engaged in farming and mining. In 1847 the subject of this sketch, as before intimated, joined a wagon train for Oregon, and drove an ox team in consideration for the transportation of his trunk and clothes and subsistence and mutnal protection. Leaving Independence, Missouri, May 10, he arrived at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River in Octooer following. His first work there was the erectiou of a house for the man for whom he drove the ox team across the continent. He and a friend who had come West with him and helped in the building of the house, started up the Willamette Valley to look up a claim, which they located about 100 miles from Portland, on the Willamette River. On returning, and while preparing to purchase supplies and implements to improve their claims, tuey heard news of the Whitman massacre, in which the Indians had killed Dr. Whitman and his wife and all the men but one, who escaped, and took the women and children prisoners, at the Methodist Mission on the Walla Walla River. The local authorities raised a command of about 500 men to fight the Indians, and at the saine time selected nine men to accompany a man named Meek on a trip to Washington, District of Columbia, to enlist the services of troops and obtain other recognition of the Territory of Oregon. Mr. Miller was selected as one of those men. They accompanied the troops as far as the scene of the massacre, having two days’ fight with about 1,000 Indians near the Uninatilla River. After going beyond the Blue Mountains they returned and began to recross the continent. After encounterifig many great difficulties and hardships, they completed their journey, stopping at Fort Boyce and Fort Hall on the way, finally meeting the west-bound emigrants. Meek went on to Washington, while the other men remained in Missouri. The resnlt of Meek’s mission was the appointment by the Government of Territorial officers for Oregon and a detachment of truops for protection against Indians. In the fall of 1847 Abraham Miller sold ont in Wisconsin and moved into Missouri, where Meredith met him on his return to Oregon in the spring of 1848. Remaining in Missouri until the summer of 1849, he joined a party coming to California by way of Santa Fe. In this party there were eighty persons, well equipped with teams and supplies. Near Santa Fe they sold their outfit and came with pack animals the remainder of the trip, reaching California by way of Colonel Cook's road to Los Angeles, and thence they came to San Francisco on the schooner J. R. Whiting, arriving about the middle of February, 1850. Mr. Miller immediately went to the mines on Feather River, reaching Long’s Bar early in March, 1850. He remained in the mines until August, 1851, meeting with good success. He then came to Pleasant Valley and located on a Government claim of 160 acres, on which he lived for thirty-three years. Later he purchased an adjvining quarter section. This ranch he entered with a land warrant which he had re-ceived from the Government for military service in the Black Hawk war in 1832, when he was a member of Captain Moore’s company, which was recruited at Mineral Point, Wisconsin. At his new home here in California he first engaged in the raising of fruit and live-stock, and later he substituted general farming for the specialty of live-stock. He sold his place in 1883 and removed to Vacaville, where all his interests are now centered. He is a member of Vacaville Lodge, No. 134, F. & A. M.; of the Royal Arch Chapter, No. 43, Suisun; and also of the Solano County Association of California Pioneers. In 1852 he made a trip to the East by way of Panatna, New Orleans and Mississippi