MILLER, FRANK Z.--- farmer, Buffalo Township, Ogle County, Ill. We are living in the era of the farmer. After all that can be said for the financier, the merchant, the mechanic and the professional man, it is the farmer who develops the country, builds the city and the railroad and feeds the people everywhere. For many years the farmers of America did a good deal of such work without adequate return, but now they have come into their own and are handling freight. The farmer of today (1909) is a broad gauge man of much knowledge acquired by experience, not only human nature, but of business methods and business possibilities. This is especially true of the younger farmers who, like Frank Z. Miller, are making good headway wherever they may be living.
Frank Z. Miller comes of that sturdy Washington County, Md. stock that is so valuable an element in Ogle County's population. He was born there April 24, 1846, a son of Abraham and Catherine (Long) Miller, the former a Pennsylvanian, the latter of Maryland nativity. His father was a farmer and miller and prominent in the Dunker Church. Both of his parents died in Washington County, Md., his father in his seventy-fifth year, and his mother aged fifty-two years.
The immediate subject of this sketch, who was the fourth in order of birth of the thirteen children of Abraham and Catherine Miller, remained in his native town until 1875, when, in his thirtieth year, he came to Ogle County and settled in Buffalo Township. He had learned farming and stock raising by considerable experience at his former home, and had come to Illinois with the expectation of making his labor as a farmer and stockman pay him better than it had ever paid him before. In that expectation he was not disappointed, as is attested by his fine eighty acre farm, its good buildings and its improvements. His neighbors in Illinois have found him as deeply interested in local affairs as though he were to the manor born. He filled the office of Road Commissioner nine years, during which time about eighteen miles of hard road was built in his township. He has been School Director also, and otherwise has taken an influential and helpful part in township affairs. Mr. Miller was married in Washington County, Md., March 3, 1870, to Miss Sallie I. Keller, who was born at Hagerstown, that State, November 3, 1843, a daughter of Judge Thomas Keller, whose wife was Eliza J. Martin. Mr. and Mrs. Keller died at their home in Maryland. Of their nine children Mrs. Miller was the fifth in order of birth. Mr. Miller is a member and an official of the Dunker Church, and Mrs. Miller is identified with the Presbyterian Church.

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