Collection is open for research.
Acquired prior to 1995, most likely between the late 19th and mid-20th century.
John Ferguson Miller was born in 1825 in Kentucky. In 1845, he joined the U.S. Army, and served in the Mexican-American War. In 1850, he emigrated to Oregon, taking residence in Jackson County. In 1853, he was elected as a representative in the Oregon Territorial Legislature. That same year, he led a volunteer company to fight Native peoples of the Rogue River Valley, and later was briefly an Indian agent in southern Oregon. In 1862, he was a Democratic candidate for governor of Oregon, but lost to A. C. Gibbs. In 1873, he fought with the U.S. Army in the Modoc War.
Miller married Zarilda Jackson in 1849; the couple had four children. In his later years, Miller lived in Salem, Oregon, and was president of that city's first woolen mills company. He died in 1901.
Sources: Obituary in the Statesman Journal (Salem, Oregon), February 20, 1901, page 7; obituary in the Oregonian, February 21, 1901, page 5; obituary for Zarilda Miller in the Statesman Journal, October 25, 1913, page 1; vital records via Ancestry.com.
Due to fragility, the muster roll requires special handling to view.
John F. Miller papers, Mss 2297, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Other papers of John F. Miller at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library are in the Matthew Deady papers, Mss 48.
The collection consists of three items relating to John F. Miller, an early emigrant to Oregon. These are: a muster roll for a company of mounted volunteers that Miller led in a campaign against Native peoples of the Rogue River Valley in 1853; a photostat reproduction of an 1859 letter Miller wrote to Commissioner of Indian Affairs A. B. Greenwood concerning plants that Native people on the Grande Ronde Reservation used for medicine; and an 1886 quitclaim deed leaving property in Salem, Oregon, to Miller's daughter Ianthe (written as Iantha).
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