David W. Miller

As printed in 1897

AVID W. MILLER, superintendent of construction at the national military home, at Dayton, is a native of Montgomery county, Ohio, born August 25, 1841, a son of Jacob and Susannah (Stoner) Miller, and was reared to manhood and learned the carpenter’s trade in his native county.

Jacob Miller, his father, was born in Dauphin county, Pa., February 13, 1809, and descended from a German family, who spelled the name Mueller, and who settled in Pennsylvania prior to the war of the Revolution. Jacob Miller was a carpenter by trade, and in his early manhood came to Montgomery county, Ohio, and here married, in 1835, Miss Susannah Stoner, a native of Maryland, born in 1817. To this marriage were born six sons and six daughters, of whom four died in infancy; William died at the age of fourteen years, and Jacob when eighteen years old. Of the five living, beside David W., Elizabeth is the wife of Noah Kinsey, a farmer residing seven miles north of Dayton; Michael B., a carpenter and contractor, lives in Riverdale, Dayton; Mary Ann is married to Adam Greenewalt, of Mansfield, Ill.; Susannah is the wife of George Leattor, of Elgin, Ill., and Henrietta Williamson lives near Dayton, Ohio. The mother of these children died on the Montgomery county farm, in 1861, and the father took for his second wife Miss Hannah Stoner, a sister of his first wife, with whom he lived until his death in Montgomery county, in 1875; his widow now makes her home with her daughter, Mrs. Williamson.

David W. Miller enlisted, February 7, 1864, in company K, Sixty-third Ohio volunteer infantry, and served until the close of the Civil war, his brother, Michael B., being a member of the same company. The scope of this memoir cannot be expanded sufficiently to permit mention of the numerous battles in which Mr. Miller took part; suffice it to say that he served in the army of the Tennessee, and participated in all the marches, skirmishes, and battles in which his regiment was engaged, including the march of Sherman to the sea and through the Carolinas to Washington, where he participated in the grand review in May, 1865, and received an honorable discharge in Louisville, Ky., in July of the same year, when he returned to his native county and resumed active work at his trade.

January 10, 1867, David W. Miller was united in marriage with Miss Sarah Ann Landis, a native of Montgomery county, and a daughter of David and Rachel (Welbaum) Landis. David Landis was born in Lancaster county, Pa., in 1816; his wife is a native of Montgomery county, Ohio, born in 1821, and both are now living in Salem, in the latter county. They have had born to them a family of ten children, viz: John W., Jacob H., Josiah, Rachel, William W., Lucinda, Mary Catherine, Harvey, Dora Ellen and Theodore. Of these, John W. lives on the old homestead, near Salem; Jacob H. is a bookkeeper in a law office in Dayton; Josiah was a soldier in the Civil war, was married, and died in 1869, leaving one child; William W., teacher, died in 1868, in his twenty-first year; Lucinda died in young womanhood, and Mary Catherine is also deceased; Dora Ellen is the wife of H. C. Boyer, a farmer near West Milton, Ohio.

To the marriage of David W. Miller and wife, seven children have been bom, in the following order: Carrie May, who is the wife of H. H. Prugh, an attorney of Dayton; Lillie Ada, married to Rev. Freeley Rohrer, a Presbyterian minister, of Paulding, Ohio; Wilbert Alfred, a notary public, bookkeeper and stenographer, and in the insurance business in Dayton; Chester Earl, employed in Dayton; Daisy Ann, who died at the age of three years and six months; Mabel Maud, and Charles Howard; the youngest four living of these are still under the parental roof.

Mr. Miller followed his vocation of carpenter and contractor, and that of superintending the business of Beaver & Butt, contractors, until 1888, when he was appointed to his present responsible position as superintendent of construction at the national military home. He has charge of twenty-six regular carpenters, beside a force of forty auxiliaries, and also of all the material used in the various departments of construction and repair.

Fraternally, he is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and also of the Old Guard post, Grand Army of the Republic. Mrs. Miller is a member of the Ladies of the

As printed in Centennial portrait and biographical record of the city of Dayton and of Montgomery County, Ohio, containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens, together with the biographi (1897). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.