Henry Miller

Henry Miller was the son of Henry Miller and Catherine Ely Miller.

There has been a lot of speculation for many years on whether it was Henry Miller Sr. or Henry Miller Jr. who first owned this land. In 2001, I decided to try and solve this mystery. One of my main reasons for doing so is that I hoped to establish legal proof that Henry Miller Sr. was a Revolutionary War Soldier to help Margaret Megill confirm his service to the DAR. Margaret was descended from Henry Sr. & Catherine's son Daniel, and she had tried several times to establish this proof with the DAR, but was unable to do so. My husband is a land abstractor here in Wapello County, Iowa, and we hoped that we could possibly prove this land was not purchased but was awarded to Henry for his Revolutionary War service.

We made two trips to Union County, Indiana, and during our first trip, we found that the "First Land Book for Union County" shows that Henry Miller filed on this land on February 21, 1807. However, there is no entry in the Grantor Indexes of Union County showing a sale of this land from Henry Miller to someone else. (The Grantor Indexes list the sale by the seller's name and the Grantee Indexes list it by the buyer's name.) When land is sold, both husband and wife usually sign the deed, and knowing who besides Henry signed the deed would prove who actually owned this land. Also, even though there should have been a patent to Henry Miller from the US Government for this land, we could not find a patent recorded for it.

We finally located a Cincinnati Land Sale Book, listing the U.S. patents. There was a patent #969566, listed for Henry Miller of Butler County, Ohio, for that southeast quarter of land. After we came home, we requested and received a notarized copy of this patent from The U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management, which is shown here. Both the Cincinnati Land Sale Book and the patent itself showed it was patented on November 17, 1925.

We went back to Union County, Indiana, to look at their land record books again, and we found that this patent was indeed recorded in 1925. Obtaining a patent in 1925 for a sale that was made in 1807, might seem strange; however, it was a fairly common practice. When land was first purchased after the territories were opened up, people often did not bother with obtaining patents. Years went by and the land often passed from generation to generation in the same family, or even between good friends, and an abstract of title was not made. However, many years later when an abstract had to be made, a patent had to be obtained in order to establish the original ownership; a chain of title was then worked from there. I did find in the Grantor/Grantee Indexes in Union County that this land did change ownership at the time this patent was recorded in 1925.

However, since there was no entry in the Grantor Indexes showing Henry Miller eventually selling this land, we still did not know which Henry the land was granted to. Since this land was purchased, it obviously wasn't awarded to anyone for service in the Revolutionary War, but by now, I really wanted to know just which Henry bought this land. Our next step was to see if this land might have passed through an estate for Henry Miller Sr. There is no estate for him in Union County. I had received information that this land was still part of Wayne County when Henry filed on it, so we traveled over to Wayne County to see if there might be an estate there, but there was no estate for Henry in Wayne County. We had learned that there was a Henry Miller in Dearborn County in 1807, so we went over to the county seat in Lawrenceberg; however, that Henry Miller was a different man. Since Henry had lived in Butler County, Ohio, when he filed on the land, we also went over to Hamilton, but there were no estates for Henry Miller in Butler County.

Having determined that this land did not pass through an estate, we were running out of ideas, but on our last night there, I came up with the idea of working the chain of title backwards in the Grantee Indexes from the time the patent was recorded in 1925. Within minutes I found the "lost" deed in the Grantee Indexes of "Union County Deed Book D," Pages 203 & 204. Due to what could only be an error, it had never been recorded in the Grantor Indexes.

This deed and the one detailed below to Isaac Miller proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was Henry Miller Jr. who purchased this land. One hundred and sixty three and 19/100 acres were sold by his heirs on January 7, 1832, to George Witt for $1200.00. My husband drew the legal description out and found that this sale was actually for 160.45 acres - 79.54 acres in the southeast quarter of Section 24, and 80.91 acres that extended up into the northeast quarter of Section 24. This deed was recorded on February 29, 1832.

The heirs of Henry Miller who signed it were: Esther Miller, Caleb Neal, Anna Neal, Thomas Smith, Mary Smith, Moses Snyder, Elizabeth Snyder, Michael Snyder (Guardian of Eve Miller). All resided in Union County, except Caleb and Anna Neal who lived in Darke County, Ohio.

These heirs would be Henry's wife, Esther; daughter, Anna, married to Caleb Neal; daughter Mary Polly, married to Thomas Smith; daughter, Elizabeth, married to Moses Snyder; and daughter Eve, represented by her guardian, Michael Snyder. Henry and Esther's son Isaac, married to Jane Smith, did not sign this deed for the following reason:

Another deed was found in "Union County Deed Book C," Pages 546 & 547, in which the same heirs who signed the above deed, signed a Quit Claim Deed on March 17, 1830, deeding eighty and thirty three hundredths acres, "Beginning at the southwest corner of the southeast quarter of Section twenty four, in Township twelve, Range two, west in the County of Union aforesaid . . ." to Isaac Miller. The consideration was "the said Isaac Miller having made & executed a release to the balance of the real & all the personal estate of the said Henry Miller deceased." Even though it was signed in 1830, it was recorded March 17, 1832, seventeen days after the deed to George Witt.

From this deed, we learn that Isaac Miller was given eighty and thirty-three hundredths acres of Henry Jr.'s land, in return for relinquishing his rights to, "the balance of the real and all the personal estate of the said Henry Miller deceased." Copies of these deeds can be requested from the Union County Recorder's Office in Liberty, Indiana.