BAY COUNTY
HON. ALBERT MILLER FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE MICHIGAN STATE
PIONEER
SOCIETY.
Albert Miller, the first President of
the Pioneer Society of the State of Michigan, elected February 3, 1875, was born
at Hartland, Windsor county, Vermont, on the tenth day of May, A. D. 1810.
He is a descendant from the old Puritan stock of New England, and spent his
childhood and youth in his native town, where he had the advantages of a common
school education. Being but seven years old when his father died, he had
to make his own way in the world, and when he was in the twenty-first year of
his age he took the course that Horace Greeley afterwards recommended for young
men, and came west. At that time, in New England, Michigan was
considered the far west.
Arriving in Detroit on the 22 d day of September, 1830,
he proceeded towards Saginaw, his place of destination; but on his arrival at
Grand Blanc, where he met acquaintances from his native town, he was persuaded
to remain and purchase a farm in that vicinity. In May, 1831, his
mother and his tow sisters joined him at his new home in the wilderness.
In October, 1831, his youngest sister was married and removed to Saginaw.
On Mr. Miller's first visit to Saginaw in 1832, he got
a view of the broad river, skirted by its dense forests, and beautiful prairies
with their rich soil, the river teeming with fish and wild fowl, and the forest
stocked with game; which so exactly corresponded with the imaginary
picture he had previously formed of the locality, that he decided to have a home
on the banks of the Saginaw.
In the autumn of 1832 he sold his farm at Grand Blanc
and made preparations for a home on a lot of land that he purchased from
government, on the east side of the Saginaw river where it is formed by a
junction of the Shiawassee and Titabawasse rivers, to which point he removed in
February 1833; since which time his home has been at different points within a
half mile of the Saginaw River.
At the organization of Saginaw county in 1835, Mr.
Miller was appointed Judge of Probate and a justice of the peace for the county;
which offices he held for many years. He was a member of the
Legislature in 1847, and has held many other offices of honor and trust in
township, county, and State.
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