**************************************************************************** File contributed to the Fulton County ILGenWeb Project Copyright 2008, all rights reserved. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format without the written consent of the author at http://fulton.ilgenweb.net. **************************************************************************** Source: The Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Fulton County Munsell Publishing Co., Chicago, 1908 **************************************************************************** The Biography of William M. MILLER Transcribed exactly according to the original complete text by Anne Marie Willis. [Surnames: BERRY, BUCKLEY, KINNEY, LINVILLE, MILLER, MUSTAIN, NESBIT, PECKINPAUGH, POWELL, PURSLEY, WILSON] [starting on page 997] MILLER, William M.--For the past fifteen years the firm of Buckley & Pursley, of Peoria, has been represented in Table Grove by William M. Miller, than whom there is no more efficient and careful grain and seed buyer in Fulton County. Mr. Miller keeps a careful eye upon this important State industry and by paying the best prices and insisting upon the best products encourages high standards among the surrounding farmers. The local elevator has a capacity of 13,000 bushels and the products most in demand are grains of all kinds, clover, timothy and other seeds grown in the Central West. Aside from his business standing Mr. Miller is an interesting personality and furnishes to the youth of the rising generation practical hints on how to succeed in life. In his youth he had few advantages which were not self-acquired, but he is of good birth and his molding influence has encouraged sobriety and industry. Born in Monroe County, Ind., December 18, 1846, he is a son of Isaac and Martha J. (Berry) Miller, the latter a daughter of Colonel William Berry, at different periods a prominent citizen of both Indiana and Illinois. The Miller and Berry families came to Illinois in 1852, settling in Adams County, whence they removed in 1855 to the vicinity of Blandinsville, McDonough County. As a Democrat, in 1860, Colonel Berry was elected to the State Senate for the McDonough district, serving in the Twenty-second and Twenty-third General Assemblies (1860-64), and later removing to Macomb, where he died at an advanced age. Of his nine children four are living: Robert, of Bedford, Iowa; Emma, wife of Albert Peckinpaugh, of Chicago; John A. and Green T. [Page 998] Isaac Miller arose from small beginnings to the class of reliable and substantial farmers. Three generations of the family have been grain dealers. At the age of eight years he was left to assist in caring for his mother and two younger children, and he early put his shoulder to the wheel and rose to the emergency. His youthful strength was enlisted in the effort to supply common necessities, and his book learning was almost entirely a matter of his mature years. The possessor of limited means at the time of his marriage, he advanced to the front with the aid of an economical wife, thirteen children eventually becoming members of their family. Of these William M. is the oldest; Addison H. is a farmer in Missouri; Robert W. died in infancy; Mary M. is the wife of Henry Linville, of Missouri; Jameson M. also is a farmer in Missouri; Alvin B. is a farmer in Oklahoma; Lewis C. owns the old home place in Nodaway County, Mo.; John Milton died in infancy; Effie A. is the wife of E. T. Nesbit, of Colorado; Jennie D. is deceased; Samuel and Thomas were twins, of whom the former is a railroad man in the northern part of the State and the latter deceased, and Martha J. is the wife of John Powell, of Canada. As the oldest son in the family, William M. Miller shouldered responsibility at an early age and had little chance for self-improvement. He remained at home until his twenty-second year, when he married Ellen Mustain, born near Blandinsville, McDonough County, a daughter of Nathan and Hannah (Wilson) Mustain, of whom the former came to McDonough County in 1832. Mr. Mustain died in 1876 and his wife ten years later. They had ten children, of whom Mrs. Miller is the oldest. Mr. Miller followed farming until 1890, when he removed to Table Grove and assumed his present position with the Peoria grain merchants. He has always been the true friend of education, and while in McDonough County engaged in educational work for some time, having fitted himself for the task during the brief leisure permitted on the farm. He was an excellent penman, a branch of instruction of far greater importance then than now, and he taught for a time also in Nodaway County, Mo., where his family lived for a few years. He also filled various township offices while engaged in farming, and was a member of the School Board for fifteen years. Mr. and Mrs. Miller are members of the Christian Church at Table Grove, and Mr. Miller has been an elder in the same for twelve years. In the family are five children: Luna, who is the wife of H. E. Kinney, cashier of a bank in Table Grove, and the mother of two children--Eugene R. and Leon B., the latter deceased; Bessie, a music instructor; Edward N., superintendent of the accident department of the Aetna Life Assurance Company, of Peoria, and Grotus B., Assistant Cashier and Bookkeeper of the Farmers' Bank at Table Grove. Mr. Miller has given his children every possible advantage and all are filling honorable and worthy places in the business world. All are graduates from the Table Grove High School with the exception of Luna, who graduated from the high school at Garner, Iowa. Mr. Miller is among the enlightened and progressive men of the community, a generous contributor to worthy causes and the recipient of the good will and esteem of all who know him.