John H. Miller
The two most strongly marked characteristics of both the East and the West are combined in the residents of the section of country of which this volume treats. The enthusiastic enterprise which overleaps all obstacles and makes possible almost any undertaking in the comparatively new and vigorous western states is here tempered by the stable and more careful policy that we have borrowed from our eastern neighbors, and the combination is one of peculiar force and power. It has been the means of placing this section of the country on a par with the older East, at the same time producing a reliability and certainty in business affairs which is frequently lacking in the West. This happy combination of characteristics is possessed by the subject of this brief sketch, John H. Miller, who was successfully engaged in the hardware business at West Salem, Wayne county, Ohio.
Mr. Miller is a native of Medina county, Ohio, where he was born September 11,1874. He is the son of Alonzo and Rachel (Inman) Miller, the former of whom was born at Massillon, Ohio, in 1841, and the latter in Medina county. Alonzo Miller is a prominent man in his native county, owning four hundred acres of land, which he successfully cultivates. A Democrat in politics, he has been very active in party affairs and has several times been the nominee of his party for public office. He was the candidate for Congress in 1896 and for State Senate in 1898, but each time the large Republican majority in his district precluded any chance of his election. For a number of years he served as postmaster at Spencer, where he owns and operates a large flouring mill. Besides the subject, he has three other children, namely: Mrs. William Rullkoetter, of Springfield, Missouri; Mr. Rullkoetter is a professor in the Missouri State College; Frank I. Miller, a farmer; Charles E. lives in New Jersey. Alonzo Miller is a man of marked ability and stands high in his community. During the dark days of the Civil war Alonzo Miller evinced his patriotism by enlisting in Company B, Forty-second Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, in which he became a corporal, and he took part in a number of severe engagements during his three years of service, including the siege of Vicksburg,, Fort Donelson, the Red River campaign, and was with General Butler at the battle of New Orleans.
John H. Miller received a good education in the public schools at Spencer, including the high school course. This education was supplemented by a course at the Spencerian Business College at Cleveland. On leaving the school room he was employed in a clerical capacity in Cleveland for three years. In 1900 he came to West Salem and engaged in the grocery business, in which he continued with fair success for four years, at the end of which time he sold that business and started a hardware store. In this latter business he achieved a distinctive success, having been compelled to double his stock during the five years in which he was in business. He is a wide-awake, energetic and progressive business man and received his full share of the public patronage. Courteous in manner, accommodating in his treatment of patrons, and a man of many fine personal qualities, he has made a host of warm personal friends and is considered one of the leading men of the community.
In politics Mr. Miller gives his support to the Democratic party in elections where national policies are involved, but in local elections he takes the stand that the personal fitness for candidates for the offices they seek should be of prime importance. His religious affiliation is with the Methodist Episcopal church, of which he is an earnest and generous supporter.
On April 28, 1903, Mr. Miller wedded Jennie Ferguson, a native of this county and a daughter of Reuben Ferguson, one of the county's representative farmers. To this union have been born two children, Dorothy and Paul. The family move in the best social circles and their home is a center of refined hospitality.
From The History of Wayne County, Ohio, B. E. Bowen & Co., Indianapolis, 1910