William C. Miller

WILLIAM C. MILLER, a physician and druggist in Hamilton, located at this place in 1854. He was born in the kingdom of Wurtemberg, July 31, 1847, being the son of John M. and Frederika (Kemp) Miller, both natives of Germany. The family came to the

United States in 1854. The father was a millwright and master mechanic. He came to this country in fairly good circumstances, and here ' worked at his trade. He built many flouring-mills in the vicinity of Hamilton, and the last job of work was adjusting the shaft in the Niles Tool Works. He was born in 1816, and died in 1872. He was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and gave all of his time to his trade. He cast his first ballot in 1860 for Lincoln. His wife, who was born in 1821, lives in Hamilton. They were the parents of five children.

Our subject in 1864 became drug clerk for Peter Jacobs. In 1870 he clerked for Dr. C. Markt, and in 1871 he formed the partnership of Falconer & Miller. After selling out this business in 1874, he studied medicine and moved to Dayton. In 1877 he graduated from Miami Medical Gollege, and in 1879 he bought his present place, where he has since managed a successful business.

As printed in Memorial record of Butler County, Ohio, containing biographical sketches of representative citizens of the county together with biographies and portraits of all the presidents of the United States (1894). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.

WILLIAM C. MILLER.

William C. Miller was born in the Schwartzwald (Black Forest) district, in the kingdom of Wurtemberg, Germany, July 31, 1847. His father, John Martin Miller, and grandfather, John George Miller, and ancestors for generations before were millwrights. His paternal grandfather, however, was for seven years sheriff of his district and a member of the town council for twenty years. He was a soldier in Napoleon’s grand army in 1812 and saw Moscow in flames, and was one of the few survivors of that terrible campaign. The boys of that district for forty years after, of which the subject of this sketch was one, were taught that when a veteran of the Napoleonic wars passed by they must cease their play, stand erect with hats off until the veteran passed by. Dr. Miller’s maternal grandfather was an ally of Napoleon’s in his early wars and when the dukedom of Wurtemberg was made a kingdom by Napoleon

Christian Kempf was made one of the counsellors of state for life. He was a man of influence and standing in his community, and an adviser and promulgator of all *public affairs, and of inflexible rectitude. Besides his state position, he served his town as magistrate and burgomeister (mayor) for a number of years. He died in 1836. In 1837 Dr. Miller’s father entered the army and became first lieutenant in the First Wurtemberg Cavalry, and was honorably discharged May 9, 1843. He had, on the 24th of June, 1836, received his degree in the Technical School at Tubingen as fellow craftsman in the art of millwright and on the 1 6th of June, 1844, received his diploma as master mechanic at the same university. He married, July 9, 1844, Fredericka, youngest daughter of Hon. Christian and Maria Dingier Kempf. In 1848 he took an active part in the South German revolution, and when it was crushed left his native land for the asylum of all oppressed, the United States of America, with his wife and two children, arriving in New York November ist, and at Hamilton, Ohio, November 4, 1854, after a fifty-days voyage on the Atlantic. He continued at his trade as millwright until his death, August 18, 1872. Dr. Miller, upon his arrival in Hamilton at seven years of age, at once entered the public schools, and for his education in German attended the then parochial school of St. John’s church, held during the summer months and presided over successively by Revs. Gerwig, Goehring and Ileinisch. In May, 1864, he entered the drug store of Peter Jacobs as an apprentice at seventy-five cents a week. He continued in his employ until January, 1870, when Dr. Markt called him at a salary quite in excess of what he was then getting. He served him until July 31, 1871, when he entered business for himself with William B. Falconer, under the firm name of Falconer & Miller. In September, 1874, he sold out to Mr. Falconer, determined on the study of medicine. He matriculated at the Miami Medical College October 1. 1874. and graduated therefrom March 2/, 1877* His vacations were spent in the meantime in the drug store of A. T. Wittich, Dayton, Ohio, and after graduating he was taken in as partner by William Weusthoff in the same store under the firm name of Weusthoff & Miller. His desire to return home to his widowed mother caused him to sell out in Dayton and on the 29th of March, 1879. he purchased the drug store of Barton S. James, recently elected clerk of the court. In January. 1867, he became a member of the United Presbyterian church, the church with which he had been identified since a child of ten years, and this was accomplished linger that most divine and upright man, the pastor of the congregation. Dr. Wm. Davidson, and his Sabbath school teacher, Mrs. David Crawford. In February, 1874, he became a member of the Masonic order, and for five years, from 1893 to 1899. was its treasurer. In 1895 he was chosen deacon of the United Presbyterian church, but resigned the charge in 1898. In 1892 he was elected a member of the trustees of Lane Free Library, and chosen forty-four years of age, Mrs. Erin Corwin Miller was called to eternal rest. She was a woman of the highest culture and refinement; a teacher in the public schools for twelve years, honored and respected by all; of a gentle disposition; poetically inclined; a over of her home, her church and her family above all. September 2, 1896, Dr. Miller married Mary Symmes Hunter, youngest daughter of William N. and Esther Symmes Hunter. Mrs. Hunter was a niece of President William H. Harrison, daughter of Judge Symmes, a nephew of John Cleves Symmes, purchaser of the Miami valley in 1788, and closely connected with Benjamin Harrison, late President of the United States. This last union has been a most happy one— as happy as the one before it— to Dr. Miller. At this writing. December, 1904, he is still at his business. He is a man historically and politically inclined; has written many articles for the press on these topics, and is deeply interested in these subjects as well as medicine and religion His recent paper read before the Butler County Medical Society on the “Trials and Triumphs of Medicine,” was a masterpiece, and his recent deductions as to “Who Crucified Christ?” and “The Republics of the World.” have never been excelled.

As printed in Centennial History of Butler County, Ohio (1905). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.