Miller Family

The Miller Family of Miller County, Missouri

(Unknown publication date)

Boyd Miller Sr. was an Irishman who came to America prior to the Revolutionary War. He served under General George Washington. Boyd settled in Greenbriar County, Virginia and married Mary Story. They had 2 children, William Miller born 1795 and a daughter (name unknown). After Mary's death, Boyd married Elizabeth Stephenson and they had several more children including Boyd Jr., Elijah, Jacob, Jefferson, Samuel, John, Anna, Hannah, and Elizabeth. In 1809 Boyd moved his family to Kentucky and stayed until 1815. During this time, Boyd served in the War of 1812 serving with the Kentucky Militia. Circa 1815, they came to the new frontier, sometimes called "Upper Louisiana" and settled in the young city of St. Louis.

In 1818, the Millers moved and settled for a short time near Meramec. For some reason they did not linger there long and moved on to the Moniteau/Cole counties region of Central Missouri. Circa 1819, William and his brother, Boyd, bought the old Factory Fort which stood near the Missouri River about 30 miles west of Jefferson City. By 1821, they moved to the Spring Garden area of present Miller County.

The best I can determine, the nephew of Boyd Miller Sr. was John Miller, who became Missouri's 4th governor in 1825. My conclusion was drawn when I found an old obituary of Charity Miller Clay, niece of William Miller and daughter of Boyd Jr. In her obituary it stated she was a second cousin to Governor John Miller.

Boyd Miller Sr. died about 1824 and was buried at the place where he settled when he came to central Missouri (Old Factory Fort), now called Marion. Many of the Millers who came south into Cole & Miller counties are buried in the Spring Garden cemetery.

For a few years, the Millers had been 'squatters' on the prairie land near Spring Garden before they officially filed a land patent in 1826. William Miller married Sarah Mulkey in Cooper County, MO on 21 August 1820. Sarah was a daughter of John & Polly (Lewis) Mulkey of Rutherford County, So. Carolina. William was born in Virginia 23 Oct 1795 and died in Miller County on 7 Feb 1878. Sarah was born in So. Carolina 13 Dec 1800 and died in Miller County 2 May 1884. Both are buried in the old Spring Garden Cemetery. The father of Sarah, John Mulkey, is buried in a lone spot near present-day Mt. Pleasant in Saline Township. There is evidence that other graves could be there also.

Boyd Miller Jr. married Isabella Mulkey, sister to Sarah. Isabella and Boyd married in Cole Co., MO on March 10, 1825. John Mulkey, father of Sarah and Isabella, was born in Rutherford Co., SC in 1768 and was closely related to Phillip Mulkey, one of the first Campbellite preachers (later called Disciples of Christ) to come into central Missouri. Rev. Mulkey pastored the Spring Garden church, organized in 1840.

William Miller patented many acres of land along the Osage River in Equality Township in April 1833 and it was on this land he built his one-room log cabin in 1834 where he, Sarah and their children lived for a few years. I believe the old log cabin, hidden for many years inside the walls of the Tellman house, was the oldest structure standing in Miller County before it was destroyed by fire in the early 1980s. After 3 years of crop failure, due to high water covering his corn fields, William finally decided to move and trade the land back for his old homeplace near Spring Garden. Three of William's sons continued to farm on the Spring Garden prairie after his death in 1878. The children of William and Sarah (Mulkey) Miller included: Jennetta (Witten); Mary (Stephens); Cerena (Stephens); Delila (Williams); Margaret (Witten); Caroline (Jones); Isabella (Shipley); Pinkney S. Miller; Boyd Miller; John Mulkey Tate Miller; Thomas Hart Benton Miller; and Sarah Miller.

The Miller family played an important role in the settlement and organization of the county. William Miller carried a petition, with many signatures, to Missouri's state legislature to request that Miller County be formed from land north of the Osage river (then Cole County) and an equal amount from the south side (then Pulaski County) and he was instrumental in the final success of county organization. Within the walls of William Miller's log cabin, the wheels of government began to grind on May 1, 1837. It was there, over 160 years ago, that five men met with William Miller and his family and held the first session of the Miller County Court.

William Ernest Miller, a grandson of William and Sarah (Mulkey) Miller, was still alive in Etterville, MO (Saline Township of Miller County) in 1990 when I wrote my book, PIONEER FAMILIES OF MILLER COUNTY, MISSOURI, not far from where his ancestors homesteaded all those years ago. He passed away a few years later. I visited with William Ernest Miller before his death and he realized he had a wonderful heritage. Who among you today can say that when your grandfather was born, George Washington was serving as the first President of the Unites States? In only three generations, William Ernest Miller's ancestral family had lived under the leadership of 42 Presidents from George Washington to George H. W. Bush!