Harmon J. B. "Scoots" & Louisa M. (Pierson) Miller

Early Clark County, Wisconsin Pioneers

Harmon J. B. "Scoots" Miller

Manager of one of Clark Co. Wisconsin's First Lumber Mills.

The life of Harmon J. B. Miller has long been shrouded in mystery.  While countless references to appear in the annals of La Crosse history and his name occurs over and over again in the recorded life stories of his friends and contemporaries, of Mr. Miller himself no one has ever furnished a complete account.  The one man able to do so, his nephew, Job Pierson Miller, stoutly refused to discuss the matter with the historians who were pressing him for facts, because he did not wish to have his family publicized.

Harmon J. B. Miller: A True Account

In Trenton, Oneida County, New York on February 10, was born to Hendrik Miller and his wife Mary (Blanchard) Miller.  He was christened Harmon, for a family friend, and J. B. probably for Mary Blanchard's father, although of that we are not certain.  The "Hermon" and "Herman", which appears on his tombstone in Oak Grove cemetery, being a stonecutter's error.  There were five other children born of this marriage, Hannah Jane, William A., Horace B. Mary S., and Hendrick, three of whom later accompanied or followed their father to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.

Shortly after the birth of the last of these children, the father, Hendrick Miller, took his family to Schaghticoke, New York, his old home,  In fact his daughter, Hannah Jane, had been born there, so the family is really a Schaghticoke family.  H.J.M. Miller's familiar nickname "Scoots", thought by many to have been acquired for gay living, is in reality a joking reference to the name Schaghticoke (pronounced Skat-i-cook).

In 1828 we find Harmon Miller and his brothers and sisters with their father, Hendrick, at Penn Yan in the western part of New York State.  Here Hendrick Miller married his third wife, Mrs. Mary Stokes, nee Lawrence, on October 4 of that year.  In 1829 Hendrick Miller's first grandson, Job Pierson Miller, was born in Lansingburg.  Job was the son of Harmon Miller's younger brother, Horace, who was not only the first of the family to marry but the first to break away.  Even he soon returned for in 1831 he has left Lansingburg and rejoined the others at Penn Yan.  Here Mary Stokes Miller died in April 1836, and in November of the same year Hendrick Miller married his fourth wife, Harriett Ketcham.  The family must have migrated westward almost immediately for Hendrick Miller was justice of the peace at Batavia, Ill., for twenty-one years and his death occurred there in 1857.

Shortly thereafter Harmon and William left Batavia to make their own fortunes, Harmon in Wisconsin and William in De Kalb in northern Illinois, where he acquired title to several thousand acres of land.  Unfortunately, there are no dates recorded for the years between 1838 and 1842.  We have only family history which gives us Harmon going on ahead to Prairie du Chien, paving the say for other members of the family.  By 1842, Horace, a younger brother, had established residence in Prairie du Chien with his wife and children.  Here we quote the records of the Old Settlers' Association of Crawford County,  In 1875 in a list of old settlers then alive there appears the name of Horace's son Frederick with the date 1842.  Frederick, in 1842, was a little boy eleven years old, two years younger than his brother Job Pierson, my father.

We would not presume to claim on such slight evidence any distinction for Harmon J.B. Miller, whose death occurred in 1862, was not living to shed light on the puzzle or to defend his own rights.  One man, however, did come forward and in the interests of "the scattered threads" of the "truthful history" of our State tried to establish the claim of his father to residence in La Crosse prior to that of Nathan Myrick.  This man was Henry B. Coons, whose father, John R. Coons, is supposed to have established Colonel Cubbage in 1836,  a trading-house and a land claim at La Crosse.

Mr. Coons does not try to establish these men as permanent residents, only as early ones.  In proving his case he uses the testimony of old settlers and in one place he states: "In regard to the site of the Coons and Cubbage trading-house, I have no knowledge except such as is based upon information given me by one whom I have always understood was not only contemporary with Mr. Myrick but a partner, and as such would be as much entitled to the honor of 'first settler' -- although in the communication (a letter from Nathan Myrick attempting to refute Mr. Coons' first letter) his name is entirely ignored except when quoting from mine.  H.J.B. Miller, a Mohawk valley man, it was, who pointed out the locality who many times said to me, "Had your father had the grit to hand on and come and live as I did, you would be an owner in the town site.'... Nature made 'Scoots' Miller honest and his word was good in his lifetime, an no honorable man would mistake his words after he had passed beyond his ability to refute them."

From this letter, then, it would seem to follow that H.J.B. Miller was not only contemporary with but prior to Nathan Myrick, having been here at the time of Coons and having been possessed of "the grit to hand on."

There are other letters than those of Mr. Coons, too, whole pages of them in the 1881 History Of La Cross County, from Mr. Myrick, from the Western Historical Society, from early settlers and those who had known the -- Folsum, Brunson Smith -- a prolonged correspondence which anyone interested may read to formulate his own conclusions.  Real evidence is scant and one man's contention seems to have as much foundation as another's.  It is noticeable, however, that Mr. Myrick rather studiously avoids all mention of H.J.B. Miller, ignoring him completely save when he is force by Coons or others into acknowledgement; for example, his admission in on letter: "Mr. Miller was my partner and a man of truth."

One bit of actual evidence presented by Myrick is a letter from General H.H. Sibley intended to prove that no one had built a house or settled on the town site prior to Myrick in 1841.  Unfortunately General Sibley says only that there was no claim or settlement at Prairie La Crosse in 1835.  Of the years between then and 1841 he says nother.  Mr. John H. Folsum and Mr. Ira R. Brunson also testify, but only for the years 1836 to 1838, and Mr. Folsum admits to presence of the Cubbage trading house but locates it on the island opposite the city.

Now, it is not our purpose or intent to disparage anyone nor to deprive him of honors which are his due, but we feel with Mr. J. Irwin Smith, another contributor to the controversy, that "we owe it to the satisfaction of history to be correct." In pursuing this contention, Mr. Smith quotes from Colonel J.D. Merritt, then of Winona, who subsequently corrects one or two particulars.  From their communication it seems almost inescapably clear that Coons (which Merritt spells Koontz) and his partner had taken possession of the site of the present city of La Crosse in 1838 but dreading the winter and "seeing but little prospect of realizing any tangible results from the effort to establish a town, took their departure and abandoned the place forever."  There is also some evidence that they sold out their title in about 1840 to a "second party who also preceded Myrick."  It is my recollection (an also that of my sister) of the story as told by our father, who was then in his twenties, that H.J.B. Miller was that man.

Putting together such threads as appear in this controversy with records from the Miller family history, there appears, certainly, a definite possibility that this "second party" was none other than H.J.B. Miller or, at least, that he was at Prairie La Crosse before Nathan Myrick, and hence should be recognized as its first permanent settler.  Again the evidence is slight but the point which we would like to clarify is that no other claim is any more securely established.  Surely one pioneer's word is as good as another's, and both Mr. Coons and Mr. Myrick have established Harmon J.B. Miller as a man of truth.

Her, then, is the story as recounted to my father Job Pierson Miller by his Uncle Harmon and as my father himself recalled it from his boyhood in Illinois and Prairie du Chien.

Sometime during the spring or summer of 1840 Harmon J.B. Miller, who had heard from his friend H.L. Dousman  at Prairie du Chien of the possibilities for development of the the then unsurveyed portion of the Mississippi River bank known as Prairie La Crosse, moved up river to trade with the Indians.  He found at La Crosse the trading house mentioned by Henry Coons and  "a man named Kunns or something similar --", evidently Mr. Coons' father, John Coons.  Returning to Prairie du Chien he found there an ambitious nineteen-year-old named Nathan Myrick, who arrived in May 1841, from Westport, Essex County, New York.  The eager young man so appealed to Miller that he told him of Prairie La Crosse and its possibilities.

In the fall of the year 1841, probably in November, it is stated by the History of La Crosse County (pp. 339, 449), Myrick set out with a suitable outfit of goods.  In the party were other men on their way tot he Black River with goods.  Their names appear twice as Curtis, Wells (Weld) and Reed.  In fact, one would think, after reading Myrick's account that this nineteen-year-old boy, only recently arrived from New York with no knowledge of the Indians or their language, poled and sailed into a strange and unfamiliar territory to establish a permanent residence and a trading post.  With no help and in the face of chill November winds and approaching winter, he says that he built a house on Barron's Island and drove a brisk trade.  Our family tradition contradicts Myrick's story in leaving Miller out of this trip.  In the cold light of history the account seems at least slightly implausible -- especially when we add these facts: H.J.B. Miller was then a man of thirty-five, a seasons traveler who had been pushing westward for years.  He knew the countryside, the river, the Indians, the trading business.  Surely it is at least more logical that he accompanied and sponsored, as it were, the inexperienced younger man.  We know further that Myrick, who could not speak the language of the Indians, nearly lost his life at their hand upon one occasion and that he had no experience as a trader.  In Prairie du Chien he was employed by J. Brisbois in the post office.  There is also some evidence that he and Miller may have been friends before they ever left New York and that Myrick went to Prairie du Chien became Miller was there.  Myrick's wife, Rebecca E. Ismon, was a cousin of Louisa M. Pierson, Miller's wife.  When Myrick returned to New York to be married in 1843, he brought back to Wisconsin not only hi bride, but Miss Pierson, and the Piersons were Miler family friends.  It was for one of them, Job Pierson, Justice and Notary at Schaghticoke, New York, that Harmon Miller's Nephew, my father, was named.  Whether Job Pierson was Louis M. Person's brother or father we are not quite sure, probably the latter, but since Myrick married a cousin of the and also brought Miss Pierson to La Crosse, it does not seem too far removed from possibility that he knew the Millers well in his youth back in New York state.

In further proof of the contention that Myrick could hardly have established himself without Miller we offer from the recorded account of Nathan Myrick the fact that he offered Miller half his claim and profits to become a partner, a definite acknowledgement, it would seem, of his need of the older man.  This, according to Mr. Myrick, was in the spring of 1842.

From this time on the names of Miller and Myrick are almost synonymous in the history of La Crosse.  They build the first house on the city site, their fur trade flourishes, they are the original owners of the river front, the first survey is made for them by Ira Brunson of Prairie du Chien.  In everything they are together -- except in this one thin, their coming to La Crosse.  For what it is worth we have presented our evidence.  Anyone who so wishes may read Mr. Myrick's in the 1881 History of La Crosse County.  Certainly one carries as much weight as the other.

Returning again to our traders on the Mississippi we see them landing at Prairie La Cross at sunset on November 9, 1841.  Finding no fuel on the shore they crossed over to the island which was densely wooded and which provided timber for a log house.  The ruins of a fireplace found on the island may have been from a house built there by Miller the previous year, or one put up earlier by Coons and Cubbage.  Curtis, Reed and Wells (Weld) have disappeared from the picture, presumably to carry on their own affairs.

In December it became necessary for someone to go to Prairie du Chien to replenish the depleted stores.  Myrick was chosen so that Miller, who understood the Indians, might remain at the post.  The several wagon loads of goods and provisions with which Myrick returned in January lasted well into spring, when the furs were sent on down to Prairie du Chien with Myrick, while Miller, in a canoe, took a load of provisions to the Indians then encamped on the Black River where Onalaska now stands.  Before leaving La Crosse, however, the partners had erected their trading-house, not on the island this time but on the prairie at the river front, the first house on the town site.  The second structure on the prairie, Myrick's dwelling house, was built with Miller's help in the spring of 1842 and to this house Nathan Myrick brought his bride and her cousin Louisa Pierson in the fall 1843.  When the winter was over Miss Pierson went to visit her brother, Ed Pierson, a prominent lumber dealer in Galina, Illinois, and here Harmon J.B. Miller married here in November of 1844.

Meanwhile the first plat for La Crosse had been surveyed by Ira Brunson of Prairie du Chien in 1842.  Myrick and Miller were the joint owners and their land extended along the river front from the La Crosse River to the section line on Mount Vernon Street and east to Fifth Street.

The year 1844 proved to be a most eventful one.  It saw the first wheat raised in La Crosse -- ten acres sown by Myrick and Miller near their store, the first raft sent down the river -- a log float sent on a hazardous journey to St. Louis by Miller and Myrick; the first hotel -- Myrick's and Miller's house, the home of all visitors, and the only hotel between Prairie du Chien and Fort Snelling.  There seems to be nothing which these two men would not try.  Indeed the History of La Crosse County says of them, "These men were engaged in every variety of business, from trading with the Indians to entertaining a traveling colporteur". During the fall of this year or the winter of 1845, the genial "Scoots" Miller became metamorphosed upon his election as justice of the peace into "Judge" Miller, with all the name implies.  He is referred to as a man of justice, with a good knowledge of the law, who performed his duties with deliberation, skill, and diplomacy.  Among his early official acts, "Judge" Miller solemnized the first marriage in La Crosse, between Peter and Emma Cameron in the year 1845.

The next major event in the life of "Judge Miller" was the birth of his daughter Martha in 1847, the first birth of a white child in La Crosse. 

In the same year Miller and J.M. Levy were elected to represent the La Crosse territory at a convention at Liberty Pole for the selection of delegates to the Constitutional Convention.  Either this year or the following year, 1848, Miller became the third postmaster of La Crosse, having been preceded by Nathan Myrick and E.A.C. Hatch.  In 1847, too, he and his business partner suffered severe losses on a large investment on the Black River in logs, lumber, booms and other goods, which were all swept away in one of the heaviest freshets ever to occur in that stream.  This event made such a change in Myrick's affairs that he left La Crosse for St. Paul, so perhaps in any event Miller deserves the title of first "permanent settler" of la Crosse.  Certainly Myrick did not figure in its affairs thereafter, although he kept his claim to one-half of the town site, Miller owning the remaining half.  The first survey of a town plat was made in 1850 by William Hood, surveyor for Miller, Myrick, and Lieutenant Governor Timothy Burns.  In 1851 Myrick sold his whole interest in La Crosse to Lieutenant Governor Burns from whom he later repurchased one-fourth of the town site.  At that time the whole site was held as follows: Miller, one-fourth; Burns, one-fourth; Durand and Hill, one-fourth; Myrick, one-fourth.

From 1847 to 1850 La Crosse continued to grow and prosper but without any events of particular significance in the life of Harmon J.B. Miller.  One June Sunday in 1850, however, a boat came up the river which brought delight to all settlers and particularly to Mr. Miller.  On board were the Episcopalian clergymen J. Lloyd Breck, R.L. Wilcoxson, and Dean Holcombe.  We have said that their coming was particularly pleasing to Miller because, contrary to the present popular conception, H.J.B. Miller was a deeply religious man.  The coming of these clerics meant that his small daughter Martha might be baptized into the church of his own faith.  In a letter written by Reverend Dr. Breck to his friends Reverend William Shelby of St. Paul appears the statement that "by request" a special service was held for the baptism of a child.  Not only have with this request as evidence that Miller's church meant much to him but the additonal fact that he gave two lots, a part of the property where the courthouse now stands, to the Episcopal Church of La Crosse.  The account in the History of La Crosse County (p. 573) of these first religious services is considerably at variance with the facts, so we are quoting instead The Life of Rev. J. Lloyd Breck, D.D., complied by Charles Breck (1883).  This contains an excerpt from Wilcoxson's journal and also the above-mentioned letter written by Dr. Breck.  Both give the date of the first services held for La Crosse as Sunday, June 23, 1850, instead of 1849 as in the La Crosse County History.  Both agree tat there were services in the morning and afternoon of that day, but from Dr. Breck's leter we learn that morning service was "on a high bluff, four hundred feet high, two and a half miles to the rear of the river."  This gives approximately the location of the Miller farm.

The afternoon services is located at the house of John M. Levy in our reference but Harmon Miller's daughter was not baptized here, as the History of La Crosse County mistakenly states.  Dr. Breck says that child was baptized at a special service at four o'clock in the afternoon the following day, June 24.  My father, Harmon's nephew, Job Pierson Miller, was then in La Crosse, and often told his children the story of that baptism on our farm and sent us out to look for the tree whereon the cross was cut.  The old tree stood for many years, until the wind blew it down, at about the center of the golf links, directly east of the clubhouse.

In all of this account we have heard little of the wife of H.J.B. Miller.  She figures importantly upon her arrival as one of the first white women in La Crosse and receives due mention upon her marriage, but after that, like most pioneer women, she is shunted rather unceremoniously into the background.  Only now and then in the History of La Crosse County is there a brief reference to her.  We find her in the last of these at the Christmas Ball in 1851.

She was a charming woman, considerably younger than her husband, gently bred and accustomed to some degree of luxury.

Mr. Miller died in the house of Mrs. John Baucus, his niece.  everyone knew H.J.B. Miller liked him, except an occasional individual whose sense of humor did not always carry over to all of Miller's practical jokes.  He had "an inexhaustible fund of wit and humor" and was indeed "more entertaining than a circus."  Facts already stated show that he was respected in his lifetime and honored at his death.  Only those who have lived after him have seen fit to disparage him, but history come back to refute them.  For one last reference we search the pages of the History of La Crosse County.  It has called him just and honest, brave and wise, diplomatic and kind; and it bears us out to the end with its comment that "Scoots" Miller was "proof against the temptations of life on the frontier."  In his death notices which appear in the contemporary La Crosse papers he is both "Colonel" and "Judge", but for him, as for all men, the final word rests with a hewn stone monument.  There is one in Oak Grove Cemetery which reads:

MILLER

Hermon J.B.

son of

Hen'dk & M. Miller

Born

Feb. 10, 1806

Died

Jan. 10, 1862

ONE OF THE PIONEERS

Of La Crosse, Wis.

Here lies one of the Founders of La Crosse

ANOTHER ACCOUNT

Knowledge that there was another direct descendent of H.J.B. Miller did not come to the editor until the above article was about to be place on the press.  A letter from a granddaughter, Miss Louise Parry, of Los Angeles, California, contains the following information:

"I find several errors in this account written by Miss Miller.  My grandmother's name was Marcia Louisa, not Louisa M.  My mother's name was Martha Lucina, not Martha Louisa.  My mother was born in Prairie du Chien, not in La Crosse.  She was the second child of my grandparents.  A son, Irwin, was the first child, who died in infancy.

John Pierson was the name of my grandmother's father.  The names of her brothers were Alexander, Saxton and Fred.  I never heard of Job Pierson.  He may have been a cousin.

It was the parents of my grandmother who lived in Illinois at one time, I presume at the time of which Miller writes."

Comments on Miss Miller's Paper

Albert H. Sanford

It is well to have presented by Miss Miller that account of the original settlement of La Crosse which rests upon the traditions of her family.  However, it is necessary to present facts that are at variance with this version and to state the basis for a conclusion that is contrary to the one at which she arrives.

As to the controversy between H.B. Coons and Nathan Myrick to which the History of La Crosse County in 1881 devotes so much space, it would seem that this has nothing to do with the points of the present contention.  First, Mr. Coons does not set up a claim that his father was the first permanent settler of La Crosse.  He admits that his father failed to remain here or to establish a claim before November 1841, when Myrick came.  Second, H.J.B. Miller's statement to Coons, (as quoted by Miss Miller on p.25.) about the father of the latter, does not imply that Miller came before Myrick, nor with him in 1841. 

This last point is the real one at issue.  Was Miller with Myrick on this trading venture of November 1841, and is he entitle to equal credit with Myrick as founder of the city? An affirmative answer is the contention of the Miller family tradition.

Mr. Myrick's letters, written in 1881 and quoted in the History of La Crosse County of that year, are the earliest of his written accounts of this trading experience.  In these letters and those of H.B. Coons and others the controversy between the Miller family tradition and the Myrick story does not enter, since in them the relations between Myrick and Miller play no part, so they can be ignored for our present purpose.

In 1892, Myrick wrote a long letter to Mayor F.A. Copeland of La Crosse, giving his story in great detail.  This letter was printed in the La Crosse Morning Chronicle, February 11, 1892.  It was reproduced in the Biographical History of La Crosse, Trempealeau and Buffalo Counties (1892), 541 - 569.  In this letter Myrick says that Eben Weld was his partner in the November 1841 trading venture; that it was during the winter of 1842 that he hired Miller to help him haul the logs that he had brought across the river, up from the shore tot he prairie, and that it was in the spring following that they entered into partnership.  Unfortunately, Miss Miller did not have this letter at hand when she originally wrote her paper.  If her contentions are correct, Myrick stands accused of purposely falsifying his story in order to enhance his own reputation at the expense of Miller's.  Is this in accordance with Myrick's character as judged by those people who had dealings with him?  No instance of dishonorable action on his part has come to my attention.  Mr. Frank Winter has added his testimony on this matter in the net article.

The publication of the Myrick letters of 1881 and 1892 did not give rise to any statement from the Miller family or any other person in contradiction.  It may be said, then, that the Myrick account, generally accepted before 1881, has stood unchallenged until this time -- that is, for nearly a hundred years.

Sources: LaCrosse History, Myrick Letters & Biography by Mary I. Miller (great-grand niece).

Contributors

Janet & Stan Schwarze