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Transcribed from "History of North Washington, an illustrated history of Stevens, Ferry, Okanogan and Chelan counties", published by Western Historical Publishing Co., 1904.


     PHILIP MILLER, the most prominent and extensive farmer and fruit grower in the vicinity of Wenatchee, Chelan county, is, also, one of the oldest pioneers in that productive locality.  He is a German by birth, the date of his nativity being February 28, 1835.
     His father, Jacob Miller, a German miner, died in 1870, followed four years after by his mother, Katherine (Bastean) Miller.  At the age of nineteen, in 1854, our subject came to the United States, and for several years he led a life of vicissitude and adventure.  He at first located in Pennsylvania and followed the trade of a carpenter, subsequently going to Minnesota.  At the opening of the Civil War, he was in Missouri, and he promptly enlisted in Company C, Third regiment of the Home Guards of that state, and served with distinction until mustered out in 1864.  He participated in the battles of Shiloh, Fort Donelson and many other serious engagements and skirmishes.  He received one slight flesh wound.
     Removing to Montana in 1865 he worked at his trade and prospected for mineral.  During the seven years of his mining career he was quite successful in Confederate Gulch, where he panned out five thousand dollars the first year.  It was in 1872 that he came to Washington, locating at first near Ellensburg, where for two or three years he engaged in stock-raising.  He then came to his present home, where he has four hundred and sixty acres, forty acres of which are devoted to grapes and other varieties of fruit, and two hundred acres to alfalfa.  In 1901 he disposed of his stock, with the exception of twelve horses and his attention is now entirely given to fruit and hay.  At the time the railroad first came through his vicinity he was offered forty-five thousand dollars for his property.  He annually disposes of from five to six thousand boxes of fruit and one thousand tons of hay.  He lives in a fine cottage surrounded on all sides by a broad veranda, and magnificently shaded by a luxuriant grove.  The fruit-packing house is thirty by fifty feet in size, and his hens are sheltered in a structure that cost four hundred dollars.  He controls the most extensive ranch in the valley and it is one of the sights frequently sought out by visiting strangers.
     Mrs. Miller was, formerly, Miss Lena Ruhl and was united to her husband at Spokane in the fall of 1892.  She is a native of Germany, both of her parents being dead.  She has one brother in Germany, and one sister, Lizzie, wife of John Rupp, of Wenatchee.  She is the mother of one son, Emil H., residing at home.  Mr. Miller has two brothers living, Joseph, at Wenatchee, and Peter, at Malaga, Washington.  Both of them are well known stock raisers.
     Mr. Miller is a member of the Roman Catholic church.  His wife is a Lutheran.  Politically he is a Republican, although not a partisan, and seldom very active in politics.  He is a man of excellent business ability, popular with all, and highly respected in the community.
 
 


 

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