[p. 645] who owns and resides upon a fine farm of eighty acres located in Little Beaver Township, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, is also a wholesale meat dealer at Mahoningtown. He was born on his father's farm in Chippewa Township, Lawrence County, December 16, 1856, and is a son of John and Sarah Jane (Paden) Miller.
John Miller was born at Newport, Big Beaver Township, in Lawrence County, his father having come from Germany and settled in the woods, in the pioneer days. The grandfather lived there until his death and was survived some years by his widow, Mrs. Jane Miller, by whom he had seven children, as follows: Lysle; Smith; John; Mary Jane, wife of John McCaskey; Margaret; and two who died young. These children inherited a farm of 113 acres from their parents.
John Miller, father of Robert J., was born in a log house on the home place at Newport, which then was known as Irish Ripple. He spent his boyhood days on the farm, and later took up the trade of a stone mason, which he followed in association with his brother, Smith, for many years. The evidences of his workmanship still exist in many of the buildings now standing in that vicinity. After abandoning the trade of a mason, he bought a farm in Chippewa Township, which he subsequently sold, and then rented a farm for four years. At the end of that time he purchased the farm now owned by his son, Robert J., of William Witherow, and lived there until his death in 1882, at the age of seventy-six years. His widow survived him two years. He was joined in marriage with Sarah Jane Paden, who was reared near Galilee, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, and the following children were born to them: Martha, wife of Robert Douglass; Sarah Ann, deceased, wife of Albert Douglass; Robert James; Mary, who died at the age of sixteen years; and Amanda, who died at the age of fourteen years.
Robert J. Miller was quite young when he was taken by his parents to live at his present home, and he received his educational training in the public schools of the township. He has lived on this farm ever since and engaged in general farming and dairying with uninterrupted success. He also raises and deals in stock quite extensively, and conducts a wholesale butchering establishment at Mahoningtown. He also is financially interested in the Citizens' Telephone Company.
On July 15, 1881, Mr. Miller was joined in the bonds of matrimony with Mary Jane Watson, a daughter of John and Margaret Watson, and they became parents of the following children: May, deceased, wife of George Stewart; John, who married Lucy Raney and has a daughter, May; Edna, wife of Charles Douglass, by whom she has a son, James; Charles; and Bertha. In political affiliation, Mr. Miller is an unswerving Republican. Religiously, he is a member of Bethel United Presbyterian Church.
20th Century History of New Castle and Lawrence County Pennsylvania and Representative Citizens Hon. Aaron L. Hazen Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company, Chicago, Ill., 1908
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