His father, George W. Miller, was a large landholder east of Pikeside near Opequon Creek in Berkeley County. His grandfather, Samuel Miller, came to the area and bought
a large tract of land around the beginning of the 19th century. When Milton S. Miller was 7 years old, a Confederate soldier drew his musket and was going to shoot his grandfather, Samuel, who was
elderly, because Samuel didn�t vote for the secession of Virginia at the beginning of the Civil War. The grandfather told him to shoot since it wouldn�t deprive him of many years of his life; that bold
affront probably saved his life because the soldier lowered his gun and walked away. Young Milton had to stand by, a trembling witness to that attempt on his grandfather�s life.
George W. Miller volunteered to serve in the Confederate Army but was rejected because of a physical disability. During the Civil War, there was no undertaker at Martinsburg
and an epidemic killed a number of residents of the county. George W. Miller offered his services to bury the deceased. At one time he swam the Opequon at Boley�s Ford, the waters of the creek too high
to cross with a team, with a coffin under one arm to bury Benjamin Boley, grandfather of Frank E. Boley, the hardware merchant of Martinsburg.
Milton S. Miller was the brother to R. Seaton Miller, the merchant on North Queen Street and at one time a farmer east of town.
Back to biographies
Back to Berkeley County GenWeb
Milton S. MILLER was Berkeley County Deputy Sheriff and Jailer under Sheriffs E.S. Tabler and Harry S. Miller. He was a member of the Arden Board of Education with
George D. Pitzer and David Hudgel � those three brought the efficiency of the district up to a higher standard by locating and building eight new school houses throughout the district at that time.
The building program extended over a number of years and the taxpayers realized no burdensome taxation by that policy.
Submitted by Marilyn Gouge and extracted from History of Berkeley County, West Virginia, 1928