Miller (Family)

These families originated in Massa­chusetts, but Hugh and Elizabeth Scarth Miller were already in Liberty County near the beginning of the nineteenth century. Their son, David Anderson Miller (1810-1876), married Margaret Rebecca Norman, widow of Donald Fraser with no children and eldest child of Joseph and Mary Wilson Stacy Norman. Their children were Elbert, William Inman, Joseph Norman, Mary Eloise, Edward Payson, Harriet Eliza­beth, Julia Rebecca, Sarah Margaret, and Laura Adel (“Dell”) Miller. Elbert Miller (1833-1863) married Susan Catherine Floyd (1837-1901) on April 3, 1859. He was a member of the Confederate Army during the Civil War, and died during the Battle of Stone River at Murphreesboro, Tennessee.

 

Their son, Elbert Calhoun Miller (1860-1925), was born at Salem, Alabama, but spent most of his life and died in Liberty County. He married Carrie Linda Brooks (1865-1926) of Salem, Alabama, in 1888, and their children were Floyd Elbert, Aurelia Belle, Mary Mildred, Leila Layton, and Minna Cay Miller.

 

Floyd Elbert Miller (1890-1959) married Bertha Eve Waite (1898-1977), daughter of James Richard Chad­wick and Ellen Bertha Fleming Waite of Liberty County. He was the adopted son of Reverend J.T .H. and Annie Agnes Abbott Waite, who settled in Liberty County just after the Civil War. Their other surviving children were Agnes Rox­bury Waite, who married Fred L. Lyons; Willard Preston Waite, who married Rebecca E. Busby; Abbott Lee Rich­mond Waite, who married (1) Ida Ebal, and (2) Louise Krem­mer; Arthur Hamilton Waite, who married Mary B. Varnedoe , and Harry Gordon Waite, who married Elizabeth (“Lizzie”) O. Winn.

 

Floyd Elbert and Bertha Eve Waite Miller had one child, Carrie Brooks Miller, born in 1926, who married Thomas Brock Maertens in 1946, and their children are Thomas Brock Jr., Floyd Kameil, and Alice Nelle Maertens. Home of this family in 1984 was Senaca, South Carolina.

 

William Inman Miller married Carrie Schwartz, and they had no children. Joseph Norman Miller (1836-1893) married Mary Elizabeth Mcf’cllough , eldest daughter of James Sulli­van and Hannah Elizabeth Quarterman McCollough of Walt­hourville. Mary Eloise Miller never married.

 

Edward Payson Miller (1840-1910) married Melissa Edwards, daughter of William Henry and Sarah J. Sands Edwards, and their surviv­ing children were William Edward, David Clinton, Francis Carroll, Eunice Louise, and Margaret Eliza Miller. William Edward Miller became a medical doctor, married Carrie Branche Morrow, and settled in Jacksonville, Florida.

 

David Clinton Miller married Annie Blount, resided at Allenhurst, and their children were William Henry, Gloria, and Dorothy Miller, all of whom married but had no children. Francis Carroll Miller married (1) Mamie Keller, and their one child was Francis Carroll Miller Jr., and (2) Susie Cordes, and their children were Lawrence, Carroll, Julia, Le Roy, Curtiss, and George Lewis Miller.

 

These families reside in North Carolina and Jacksonville, Florida, and are the last to bear the surname of Miller commenced in Liberty County by Hugh Anderson Miller at the beginning of the eighteenth century, with the exception of William Henry Miller, who in 1984 was residing on Long Island, New York. Eunice Louise Miller married (1) John Hammond, an d their children were Cecilia Louisa and Eugenia Edwards Hammond, and (2) Strong Ashmore, and they had no children.

 

Margaret Eliza Miller married (1) Albert Lafayette Jones, and their one sur­viving child was Marian Alberta J ones, who married C.W. Harper, and (2) Richard S. Helm, and their children were Richard S. Helm Jr. (1918-1981), who never married, and was the last Miller to reside in Liberty County, and Dahlia Margaret Helm, who married Louis L. Castilian, a dentist, of Dubois, Pennsylvania.

 

Their five children are Mary Margaret, born in 1948, who married Vernon C. Hardy of Statesboro, Georgia, and they have one child, Jennifer Hardy, born in 1969; Louis, born in 1952; Richard Stockton (1953-1959); Cecelia Jean (1957-1976), and Amelia Marie, born in 1961, who married Armando S. Miccoli III of Sylvania, Georgia, in 1982. The Castilian family home is in Savannah, Georgia. Harriet Elizabeth Miller married Ezra Myddleton, and their one child was John Myddleton, whose wife was named Leola. Julia Rebecca Miller never married. Sarah Margaret Miller never married. Laura Adele (‘~Dell”) Miller married J .L. Mattox, resided at Walthourville, and died at the age of 27.

 

Edward Payson Miller was the last of David Anderson Miller’s sons to remain in Liberty County. Elbert W. Miller died while a federal prisoner during the Civil War. William Inman Miller, after the Civil War, operated a boarding house on Jones Street in Savannah, Georgia, which is now known as “Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House.”

 

Joseph Norman Miller was postmaster at Walthourville before and during the Civil War. He became postmaster at Hazelhurst, Georgia, after the war.

 

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.