Return to the El Dorado County Page Return to El Dorado County TalesWritten by Joanne Burkett from research taken from Paolo Sioli's History of El Dorado County California, from El Dorado Co. birth, marriage, death and land records and often from interviews with descendents.
When James Harrison Miller left his home in Springfield, Tenn., in 1850, a fever raged within him. He was suffering from a malady that had him and thousands of other young men lighting out from all parts of the country for the fabled gold fields of that exotic of places, California.
Although he was the oldest of John and Elizabeth Miller's 10 children, James was a very young man and filled with youthful high hopes of striking it rich. He was sure his future was bright and shiny, just like the golden nuggets others dreamed of finding in California. His, however, would be a different path to success.
He knew the hordes of argonauts clambering over the nooks and crannies of California would need supplies and he had the knowledge and experience to make that happen. It didn't really matter that he had a limited formal education. He had already proven that he had what it took to succeed.
His first years were spent farming with his father, but when he turned 17, he went to Memphis where he found work as a clerk in Connell's dry goods store. Four years later, Miller opened his own business in Pleasant Hill, Tenn.
Then came news of the California gold rush. Miller did not succumb to gold fever right away, but eventually he began to see tremendous potential in heading west, and so, on Feb. 2, 1850, he left Pleasant Hill and the security he had built for himself.
Six months later, on Aug. 13, he arrived in Placerville. However, he immediately became deathly ill. For three long months he was too sick to go on, but finally, in December, he had recovered enough to travel to Logtown, where he found work in the butchering profession, running his own business there until 1857.
It was at Spanish Camp in 1854 that Miller married Montgomery, Ohio native, Eliza Ewing, the daughter of Samuel Ewing. The couple soon began their own family, which would eventually grow to include six children: Tennie A., who later married C.W. Duden, Libbie C., John Lyton, Mary M., Hattie N., and Nettie Francis.
But for whatever reason, in February of that year, 1857, Miller sold his business and headed to San Jose. However, this was a short-lived venture and in May he headed back to the hills of El Dorado, settling first in Georgetown and then in Nashville, where he found work in the mills. Then, it was back to Spanish Camp, where he went into partnership with Lyton Bostick in a general mercantile store.
The men ran the business together until 1861, the year Miller's son John Lyton was born. By then, Miller was suffering some health problems and he left the business partnership, acquired some land in the vicinity of Latrobe and Clarksville and began what would become a large and prosperous 7,000 acre ranching operation. His livestock included 6,000 sheep, as well as 200 head of cattle and from 30-50 horses. For summer pasture, he acquired a sizeable range in the Sierra Nevada mountains, west of Lake Bigler. At some point, he opened a hotel in Latrobe, which at the time was the very busy terminus of the Placerville and Sacramento Valley Railroad. When the town site was laid out in 1863, it was located on a 240-acre tract, owned by Miller, and on completion of the railroad in 1864, it was surveyed and platted by Chief Engineer F. A. Bishop. It was Bishop who suggested the name of the town, after Latrobe, the civil engineer in the construction of the first railroad in the United States.
In the last quarter of the century, Miller's stature in the county grew tremendously. In 1869, 1877 and 1878, Miller, a Democrat, represented El Dorado County in the California State Legislature. John, Miller's only son, was soon an integral part of the family business. By 1880, Miller was considered the oldest settler in the Latrobe area.
But, later, when the railroad was extended on to the west, the town's importance quickly diminished. Its population dwindled, as did business, and one day in 1889, the once-passionate self-made man took his last breath.
His beloved Eliza lived on until 1920.
John, who had taken full management of the family business two years before his father's retirement and death in Oakland, carried on until 1925, when he sold the store and leased out the ranch.
By the time of the elder Miller's death, the little town had grown to include three more hotels, six or seven stores, three blacksmith shops, one wagon/carriage factory, two drug stores (with three doctors in town to write prescriptions), a bakery and several butcher shops - all to serve a population of from 700 to 800.
When John's wife, Mary Etta Barton - herself the daughter of a prominent ranching family - died, he moved to Shingle Springs, bringing his father's El Dorado County adventures almost full circle.
Today, if you take a drive out old Latrobe Road, try to imagine the mournful lowing of cattle and the melancholy bleeting of wooly sheep, grazing amidst the rolling hills of that particular area in that particular time, more than 100 years ago.
Permission is granted by the author to use or republish this article, but proper attribution to the author -- Joanne Burkett -- is requested.
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Last Updated on: 30 May 2006