The new roof is up, thank you for your support.

 Some of Henry’s contemporaries said…that he was very quick and agile and had remarkably expressive features. However, he was not a man who at first glance impressed many people.  Henry was relatively short and his stature was round; he had a low forehead, brown eyes and brown hair.  While he always dressed neatly, he did not care for fashion and mostly wore simple, dark clothing.

Henry’s greatest passion was his work.  His marriage and family came second.  In the same year that Miller & Lux was founded, Henry proposed to Lux’s sister-in-law, Nancy Wilmarth Sheldon.  They were married on April 14, 1858.  Tragically thirteen months later, she died during childbirth along with the son that she carried.  Miller returned to his work and the job of amassing a fortune.

One year after his first wife’s death, while on a trip to San Francisco, he asked his deceased wife’s niece to marry him.  Being an impatient sort, Henry gave her one afternoon to make her decision.  Sarah Elizabeth Wilmarth Sheldon said yes and became the second Mrs. Henry Miller the following day, June 10, 1860.  At the time of their marriage, Sarah was twenty and Henry was thirty-two.  The couple were married for 45 years until Sarah’s death on July 21, 1905.

Not a lot is known about Sarah and Henry’s personal lives.  Most of the private correspondence and private papers were lost in the 1906 fire following the San Francisco earthquake.  The remaining papers were apparently destroyed by the Miller’s daughter-in-law, Sara Onyon Miller, shortly before her death in 1925. Sara Onyon Miller was the second wife of Henry Miller, Jr.

What is known about the family is courtesy of friends and employees.  According to all accounts, Sarah was a plain, down-to-earth woman, who was devoted to her family, left all business matters to her husband, and accepted his long absences and domineering manner without complaint.

Sarah and Henry had four children.  The first died in infancy. The second was a son, Henry Jr., born in 1862, who was followed by two daughters, Nellie Sheldon, born in 1865, and Sarah Alice, born in 1871.  Sarah and the children spend most of their time in San Francisco.  A mansion was built at the corner of Harrison and Essex in 1876 and was subsequently lost in the 1906 earthquake and fire.

The Rincon Hill Estate of Henry and Sarah Miller built in 1876.  This location probably had a view of the bay when it was built.  It is now an apartment building with no view, except for the freeway and other buildings.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________Edited by Charles Sawyer, Interviews by Ralph Milliken, One Man Show Henry Miller in the San Joaquin, (Los Banos: Ralph Milliken Museum Society, 2003)

I hoped that you enjoyed reading about Henry Miller’s family, our next edition will continue this theme and will be about Henry Miller, Jr.

Volunteers are joyfully welcomed.  Questions and comments are always welcome. Contact me

(Patti Perino) at 408-410-1495 or email at millerredbarn@outlook.com

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Henry had just arrived in San Francisco…

It was rough and expensive. The question for Henry at this point was what to do. He had planned to go to the gold fields and make his fortune. However, he could not afford the tools for gold panning. Remember that a shovel was $15-$25, a tin pan was $20, a pair of boots was at least $40, and Henry only had $6 dollars when he arrived. Henry was not dumb. Having experienced the hardships of getting to California and, on landing seeing the price of food and land. Henry realized that if he were going to make his fortune it would not be by panning for gold.

On Henry’s first day in San Francisco, he left the ship and set out to find a job. “I asks a man where is a butcher shop,” he later stated. The man pointed to a shack on a hill near where California and Kearney Streets are today. “I finds a man sitting on a box in front of a lean- to. Flies were buzzing around him. He was reading a newspaper, which had come on the boat. He took no notice of me, so I coughed. When he looked over the top of the papers I says, “I just come on the boat; I am a butcher and wants a job.” He refused Henry, and Henry moved on. Later that day he took a job washing dishes. He had his start.

Henry did not wash dishes very long, and he soon knew the city. He met a man named Edward Barron, who had a butcher shop at the head of Dupont Street (Grant Avenue today). Henry was immediately employed butchering sheep for Barron. He again worked for small wages, as he had in New York, and, to save the price of a room, he slept behind the slaughterhouse. He did his own cooking from the scraps. On occasion, he would splurge and eat at a Chinese restaurant. There, he could get a steak, potato and a cup of coffee for a dollar.

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When we left Henry last…

he was lamenting that he had gotten the fever and missed all the money that he could have made in Panama City.

In August of 1850, ships began to arrive in Panama City. Henry, along with 1500 other passengers, boarded the steamer Republic. After 26 days, the Republic steamed into San Francisco Bay on September 24, 1850. Henry landed with his gold watch, clothes, a walking stick and $6 American dollars.

Tents covered San Francisco in 1850 when Henry landed. Fifteen years prior, there had not been a tent in sight. The three “roads” were more like rutted pathways. There was no government, no law and no order. The citizens consisted of gold miners, gamblers, harlots, politicians and other exploiters of humankind. In 1848, a census showed a population of 700. Whites numbered 350; Indians, Negroes or Sandwich Islanders made up 150, and the balance were Mexicans. The census also stated that there were 200 buildings (including tents, outhouses and sheds).

There is a famous quotation about San Francisco’s streets at that time: “This street is impassable, not even jackassable.” The streets had never been graded and were often seas of mud, one side being 10 to 15 feet higher than the other. In the winters of 1849 and 1850, many animals and people actual drowned in the mud.

There where no wooden boarding houses or hotels in San Francisco in the 1850’s. Wood was not nearby and tents were few for the influx of people. Many people lived under the open sky. If you were able to find a bunk or tent to sleep in, it could cost as high as $15 per night. Many were charged $8 per hour to sleep on a plank or table. The prices of goods and services kept even with sleeping accommodations: clothes washing was $20 per dozen pieces, apples went for $5 each and eggs went for up to $50 per dozen. Gold miners’ tools ran $15-$25 for a shovel, a gold pan ran $20, a pair of boots was no less than $40, and any kind of medicine was at the least $10 a dose while laudanum sold for $1 a drop.

On September 9, 1850, California was admitted to the Union. In October of 1850, a cholera epidemic broke out. Henry Miller had come to San Francisco in these were rough and ready times.
Henry’s story up to this point is not any different from any other immigrant that came to California’s golden shores. However, Miller was a young man who could and would take advantage of any opportunity that presented itself. What he made out of that opportunity is what made him one of the biggest cattle barons and landowners in America.

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