Miller, Edward Payson

Edward Payson Miller was a member of the Confederate Army from 1861 to 1865. He was captured in 1864, but was later freed during an exchange of prison­ers of war. He was enroute to rejoin his unit in Virginia when the war ended. He returned to Walthourville and pro­vided for his parents and unmarried sisters.

During those hard reconstruction years, when many plantation owners fled the county rather than trying to survive without slaves, he worked heroically to better himself and all of Liberty County.

He was an active member of the Walthourville Presbyterian Church. He established general stores, sawmills, and turpen­tine stills. He built a two-story home in Walthourville. He knew sadness, because five of his ten children died as chil­dren. He was one of the executors of the John Lambert estate (see Appendix Number 15). He was a member of the Liberty County Board of Commissioners for many years, and its chairman for 16 years. He helped establish the Citi­zens Bank of Liberty County at Ludowici, and served as its president. He served as a postmaster.

When the Liberty In­dependent Troop was reorganized after the Civil War, he was one of its first members. He rose to the rank of colonel of the regiment in the Georgia Militia. When Edward Payson Miller died, he owned 28,000 acres of land, none of which he inherited, and many business enterprises in Liberty County.

He succeeded through hard work and perseverence during the reconstruction years after the Civil War, where many others failed and left the county to live elsewhere. Liberty County survived those reconstruction years largely because of men like Edward Payson Miller.

From “Sweet Land of Liberty, A History of Liberty County, Georgia” by Robert Long Groover; Appendix Number 36, Page(s) 227;  Used by the permission of the Liberty County Commissioners Office