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Reuben G. Miller: Turn-of-the-Century Rancher, Entrepreneur, and Civic Leader
Reuben G. Miller: Turn-of-the-Century Rancher, Entrepreneur, and Civic Leader
BY EDWARD A GEARY
UTAH HISTORY FURNISHES NUMEROUS EXAMPLES of once-prominent individuals whose reputations have been obscured by the passage of time and yet whose experiences and contributions are well worth remembering. Reuben G. Miller was such an individual: proprietor of the largest livestock operation in the Carbon-Emery county region, telecommunications entrepreneur, Price civic leader, and prominent local Mormon church official. His career also reflects a struggle against personal adversity and offers an interesting sidelight on the "peculiar institution" of plural marriage.
No doubt Miller gained some of his entrepreneurial energy from his family background Reuben Gardner Miller was descended on both sides from prominent pioneer families. His maternal grandparents, Robert Gardner, Jr., and Jane McCune (or McKeown), and their family arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in the fall of 1847. The following spring Robert and his brother Archibald erected the sawmill that gave Mill Creek its name. Robert took up land and built a home near the present intersection of Highland Drive and Thirty-ninth South where the family lived until 1861, when they were called to colonize the St. George area. 1 Miller's paternal grandparents, Reuben Miller and Rhoda Ann Letts, came to Utah in 1849 and settled on the north bank of Big Cottonwood Creek near Ninth East. Reuben Miller served as bishop of the LDS Mill Creek Ward from 1851 until his death in 1882.2
In 1858 the Millers' eldest son, James Robinson, married Robert Gardner's eldest daughter, MaryJane. The young couple acquired eighty acres south of Big Cottonwood Creek in the angle now formed by Forty-eighth South and Ninth East. Here Reuben G. Miller was born in a log cabin on November 7, 1861, the second of fourteen children The family moved to a five-room adobe house a short time after Reuben G.'s birth. In 1882 they erected a large brick home. This historic structure has been preserved and now serves as a clubhouse for residents of the Pine Lake condominiums.3
The Millers were an enterprising family. According to a biographical sketch composed in later years by Reuben G. Miller, James and his brother Reuben P. made seven round trips between Salt Lake City and Omaha with mule teams during the pre-railroad years, hauling "farm machinery, mill stones . . . and various articles of hardware and dry goods." The Miller brothers worked with their teams and scrapers on the Union Pacific roadbed in 1868, for which efforts they were "hansomely remunerated . . . and returned home with considerable means and useful impliments." In 1869 they secured a contract to haul ore from the Emma Mine at Alta to the smelter in Sandy, and in 1870 they contracted to build the segment of the Utah Central Railroad between Big and Little Cottonwood creeks
The Miller brothers also developed a farm implement sales business, owned one of the first threshing machines in the area, and owned large farms on Provo Bench and in Cache Valley. James R. Miller operated a flour mill on Big Cottonwood Creek from 1866 to 1896. In addition, he was a progressive farmer and was reputedly among the first in Utah to plant alfalfa, thereby getting three cuttings of hay each year where only one cutting had been harvested previously. Finally, a feed, coal, and hardware store first organized asJ. R. Miller and Company (later known as Miller and Cahoon) was a prominent business establishment in Murray for many years. 4
In a typical pattern for the period, young Reuben G. assisted in the family enterprises from an early age, spending, as he later claimed, "most of his time behind a plow, on a freight wagon, or in the saddle." He recalled being assigned, at the age of nine, to carry beer to the workers on the Utah Central construction crew and getting drunk after he decided to sample the brew. His schooling was irregular, confined to the winters, when there was less farm work He spent two terms at the University of Deseret but expressed regret in later years at "being deprived of schooling and embarrassed when drafted into public service in church and political positions."5
The Miller family entered the range livestock business in the late 1860s when the livestock business began to evolve into a major force in the territorial economy. Under early Mormon settlement patterns, communities were built around agriculture rather than stockraising Horses, cattle, and sheep were pastured in the hills near the towns, typically under the care of young boys. But as livestock numbers multiplied, these conveniently situated grazing lands became depleted. Orson Hyde, speaking to an LDS general conference in 1865, recalled that when the pioneers first arrived in the Salt Lake Valley "there was an abundance of grass" covering the benchlands "like a meadow." Less than two decades later, however, the grass had been replaced by "the desert weed, the sage, the rabbit-brush, and such like plants, that make very poor feed for stock."6
The range livestock industry in Utah had its beginnings when some individuals and families began to assemble herds of surplus animals and take them to the west desert or to the mountain valleys east of the Wasatch Front James R Miller's brothers Reuben P and Melvin undertook such an operation in the Cherry Creek area of the West Tintic mountains, herding cattle at first at a charge per head and later in exchange for a share of the calf crop, which they found to be a more profitable arrangement. Other family members contributed their surplus stock to this growing herd. When James obtained an appointment as pound keeper for the South Cottonwood district, he purchased unclaimed stray animals and sent them to Cherry Creek. The cattle were a motley assortment descended from mixed-breed milk cows, heavy draft animals, and wiry, long-limbed Texas longhorns. In an effort to improve the quality of their herd, the Miller brothers imported purebred shorthorn bulls in 1872 and 1874 "for Range Breeding purposes."7
The western valleys of Utah held a rich supply of accumulated forage when domestic livestock were first taken there Hyrum Bennion, a member of another early stockraising family, recalled, "When we first came to the south end of Rush Valley in 1860 we thought it was the best range in Utah, because we could stay in one place all the year round. But by 1875 it was all et out, and we had to move our cattle to Castle Valley." The Miller brothers faced a similar situation in the Cherry Creek region. Together with another Murray-area resident, Jonas Erekson, who also had cattle in the West Tintic mountains, the Millers moved their growing herd to the Wasatch Plateau in central Utah in the summer of 1875 and then east into Castle Valley for the winter, establishing a camp at the point where Huntington and Cottonwood creeks converge to form the San Rafael River.8
In the mid-1870s Castle Valley, and indeed all of eastern Utah, was virgin range, as the west desert had been fifteen years earlier. Beginning in 1874 or 1875 large numbers of livestock were moved from the crowded ranges of western Utah across the mountainous backbone that separates the Great Basin from the Colorado Plateau. According to Charles S Peterson, "It is difficult to know how many cattle were trailed from the Great Basin into eastern Utah, but it is certain they numbered in the hundreds of thousands." In addition to the Millers, Ereksons, and Bennions, other stockraisers who came to Castle Valley during this period included the Swasey brothers from Juab County, William H. Chipman from American Fork, Mike Molen from Lehi, George and James M. ("Tobe") Whitmore from St. George and Nephi, Orange and Wellington Seely from Mount Pleasant, Lee Lemmon from Mill Creek, William Gentry and the Starr brothers from Springville, Daniel Davidson from Salt Lake City, and a mysterious Britisher who styled himself as Lord Scott Elliott. Under such intensive grazing pressure this range too was soon depleted. A railroad surveyor who worked in the region for several months in 1881 and 1882 reported seeing "great numbers of cattle apparently feeding along the mountainside, although I could not see what in the world they found to eat."9
The grazing frontier was a passing phase Faced with a deteriorating range and the added competition of the permanent settlers who entered Castle Valley beginning in 1877, most of the large livestock outfits left the region within a few years. The Miller brothers remained. In 1876 they had once again trailed their cattle to the Wasatch Plateau; that fall they established a permanent camp on what came to be known as Miller Creek and erected a log cabin that they called the Winter House. The following year they built the Summer House near a spring that still bears that name on the high benches of the Gordon Creek drainage.10
Initially, like most other stockraisers, the Miller brothers established their claim to the public lands by customary use According to a local history, the Millers and Whitmores had an informal agreement whereby "the Whitmores ran their cattle entirely on the north side of the Price River, while the Miller Brothers covered the south side." Over time, the Millers acquired title to key properties that included the Winter House headquarters ranch, the Summer House ranch, several hundred acres of rich meadowland in Pleasant Valley (an area later covered by the waters of Scofield Reservoir), and a 200-acre hay farm near Huntington. From this base in deeded land, the Miller operation dominated more than 500 square miles of the public domain extending from Pleasant Valley to Cedar Mountain and the San Rafael Swell. Pleasant Valley and the 10,000-foot Castle Valley Ridge provided high-quality summer grazing. The Gordon Creek benches, at an elevation above 7,000 feet, supplied an abundant
growth of bunch grass in the spring. The lower benchlands between Price and Huntington were more sparsely vegetated but were seldom covered by snow in the winter.11
Active management of the Miller brothers livestock operations during the early years was in the hands of Reuben P. and Melvin while James managed the business interests in Murray and made only occasional visits to the ranch. In addition to their Castle Valley ranches, the Miller brothers partnership also owned large farms on Provo Bench and in Cache Valley. Young Reuben G. Miller apparently began working on the ranch in 1879 at age eighteen, riding with the cowboys and picking up some habits of which his parents did not approve. In 1880 his father gave him a mare in return for a promise to "quit using tobacco."12
In 1883 the Millers sold most of their cattle to a Colorado buyer and went into the sheep business. This was a representative move in a trend that saw sheep numbers on Utah ranges increase from fewer than one million in 1880 to almost four million by 1900.13 Sheep, though requiring more care, were potentially more profitable than cattle because they returned a double crop of wool and lambs In addition, they were better adapted to survive on marginal grazing lands, which many Utah ranges had become. The Miller brothers purchased 4,000 sheep in California in 1882, and Melvin Miller trailed them to Utah in company with another large herd belonging to Lee Lemmon and Al Starr. The herd spent the winter of 1882-83 in the Deep Creek Mountains on the Utah-Nevada border. In November, young Reuben G went with Al Starr to take supplies to the overwintering herders, a trip that he recalled fondly in his later years.
The Millers enlarged their sheep operation through other purchases in Wyoming and northern Utah and by natural increase until the brothers were typically shearing between 15,000 and 20,000 animals each year at their Pleasant Valley pens They continued to run several hundred head of cattle that wintered at the Huntington farm and on nearby Poison Spring Bench and summered on Cedar Mountain A sizeable herd of horses apparently grazed throughout the year in the environs of the Summer House ranch, and the Millers loaned unbroken horses to local farmers without charge; the farmers would break the horses to work, use them for a year, then return them in exchange for fresh animals Of course, the Millers could then sell the broken-in horses for a much better price than they could get for raw colts.14
Beginning in 1883, Reuben G. Miller assumed major responsibilities in the sheep operation He moved camp and hauled supplies for the herders, brought some crop land under cultivation at the Winter House headquarters ranch, and worked long hours during shearing and dipping operations His duties during the year 1884 included supervising, supplying, and paying seventeen men. 15 He spent much of his time in the saddle, frequently riding more than twenty miles in a day and sometimes repeating this schedule for several days in succession. Every two or three months one of his uncles would take over his camp-moving duties for a few days to allow him a brief visit home to Murray. Reuben G. tried to use these rare visits to the best advantage in his courtship of Anna Winder, a daughter ofJohn R. Winder, a prominent LDS church official.
Miller recorded his activities between 1883 and 1888 in a pocket diary and in retrospective accounts Among his adventures and misadventures were a stint in a rooming house at Pleasant Valley Junction (later renamed Colton), where he contracted an infestation office in the fall of 1883, and a session at a tent saloon in Price, where he got drunk while waiting for the train to go home for Christmas When he was sick all the way to Murray, he resolved to be a teetotaler from that time forward. On the range, he carried books in his saddle bags and read in camp in the evenings and on Sundays, when he tried to avoid physical labor. Sabbath-keeping was not always possible, however, especially during sheep-shearing or dipping operations Miller recorded for Sunday, October 11, 1888, "I am sorry to say we broke the commandments yet we dipped the wether band of sheep."16
Miller's diaries provide valuable information about the annual round of ranch activities during the 1880s. The sheep were divided into several different bands, each of which typically numbered about 3,000 animals under the care of a single herder. It was Reuben's job to keep the herders supplied, to scout out fresh range and assist in moving the bands, and at times to do the actual herding when an employee quit without notice.
InJanuary 1884, for example, bands of sheep were scattered from the benches below the Winter House eastward to the Price River and south to Cedar Mountain and Buckhorn Flat In addition to his weekly fifty-mile circuit of these bands, Miller made a supply-carrying trip to the Summer House and another to Spring Canyon, each of which required round-trip travel of more than twenty miles. In February he was forced to stay with the Buckhorn Flat band for a week after the herder quit. In March, in addition to his camp-moving responsibilities, he helped his uncle Reuben P. and his younger brother Will build a corral at the Winter House. In April he went home for a two-day visit then returned to the ranch to assist in moving the sheep up to the higher Miller Creek and Gordon Creek benches.
On May 9 he carried supplies to the Summer House and spent the night at the cabin of Frank Rhoades, lower on Gordon Creek, where they "talked about the cattle business and how we need to watch our neighbor ranchers." Several days in late May were spent in docking lambs. On June 5 he went to Huntington to help the cowboys start the cattle toward the summer range on Cedar Mountain. On June 9 he began driving sheep to the summer range in Pleasant Valley, where he later spent several days with his father, his brothers, and his uncle Reuben P. constructing shearing pens Shearing began onJune 23 and continued into mid-July, followed by several days of forcing the sheep through dipping vats to control ticks and other vermin Miller went home to Murray onjuly 22 and worked on the farm there, putting up hay, until August 4, when he caught the train for Pleasant Valley. After several more days of dipping sheep, he drove a small herd of calves from the Summer House to Murray, a trip that required four days
After a week at home, Reuben took the train to Richmond, Cache County, for a two-day visit with Anna, who was staying there with her mother. Then it was back to the ranch on September 3 and a circuit of the sheep camps, now located in the Beaver Creek area east of Pleasant Valley On September 21 he went to the Summer House to assist with the horse roundup. Then it was down to the Winter House on October 4, followed by a two-week visit home and a return to the ranch on October 27. The first three weeks of November were devoted to moving the sheep to the winter range On November 24, Miller went home to prepare for his wedding to Anna Jane Winder on December 10. Wedding and Christmas parties occupied the time until December 31; Reuben then left his bride in a refurbished log cabin on his parents' farm and went back to the ranch.17
The next year followed a similar schedule, but Reuben managed more frequent visits home, and Anna spent two weeks at the ranch in June. On the other hand, his duties required him to move sheep camps on Christmas Day The diaries provide only vague insights into Anna's view of this long-distance marriage. During her stay at the ranch, "Anna was croshaing and found it was Sunday 8c said she wouldn't work another bit."18 During a visit home on July 1, Miller recorded, "Anna cried at night"; and on July 9, "I had to cook breakfast as Anna was sick." In the 1888 diary there appears the notation "Anna had the blues" on the day before Reuben's departure for the ranch.19 It is difficult to determine whether these emotional disturbances were caused by her husband's frequent absences, by her pregnancies, or both. The Millers' first child, Gertrude, was born on March 4, 1886, and James Rex was born on September 29, 1888.
During the period when he was employed by the Miller brothers partnership, Reuben G. was apparently paid a salary plus bonuses based on the wool receipts. For the year 1884 he earned $1,570, a good income for that period. InJune 1885 he recorded, "Pap gave me $400 in cash & told me may be there would be a little more if the Boston wool was sold."20 This payment evidently represented a bonus for the previous year's work
The Millers had an exceptionally good summer range, but with the passage of time it became necessary to go farther afield in search of winter grazing. By the winter of 1887-88, Reuben was tending camps in the Woodside area, a considerable distance farther from the Winter House than the ranges used in earlier years. Even there it seems that the feed was insufficient for the numbers of stock. Reuben recorded on February 4, "Went south to look out a place to move camp but found more sheep than country."21
Miller's ranch life was interrupted in 1888 when he was called to the LDS Southern States Mission. He left home on November 6, only a few weeks after the birth of his second child,James Rex. He spent most of the next two and a half years in rural West Virginia, not the most hospitable environment for a Mormon missionary. In a letter to his parents he compared the narrow Appalachian valleys to the finger canyons on the Miller range at the head of Gordon Creek: 'You know when you get on the Ridge going from Pleasant Valley to Summer House you can look down into the heads of dozens of Canyons well down in just such Canyons in this Country are the homes of the inhabitants of this land." 18 It was, he added, "one of the roughest places that ever I saw for people to be living in and all pretending to be farmers."22
On his return from his mission in 1891, Miller assumed the full management of the ranch The early 1890s were a profitable period The 112,867 pounds of wool sheared in 1891 sold for $16,648. The return was almost the same in 1892, and Reuben and Anna used a portion of their dividend for a trip to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. He also undertook several improvements, erecting a new house and barn at the Summer House and fencing property in Pleasant Valley and Gordon Creek. However, the Cleveland Depression hit the wool market in 1894, when the Miller wool brought only $6,408 Perhaps as a consequence of this decline in profits, the Miller brothers partnership was dissolved in 1896, and Reuben G. made arrangements to purchase the ranch holdings.23
Miller's regular diary-keeping did not continue for long after his mission In an isolated entry explaining a two-year lapse, he wrote, "On acct. of the monotony of all days seeming the same neglected this diary and ceased writing from July 1891 till this day July 11th 1893. My time has been passed on the Ranch and only have been home on short visits of a few days at a time during the two years."24 Apparently there would be a few breaks in the monotony, however. In a summary of important events in his life, composed sometime after 1936, Miller wrote that he had made the acquaintance of the notorious outlaws Butch Cassidy and Joe Walker during the period between January 18 and March 31, 1897, evidently while the Miller sheep were wintering in the San Rafael country.
He also recorded, "Was held up by Joe Walker at the point of a Pistol, down in Buckhorn draw, and very much abbused by him in vile words although he did not do me any violent harm." A short time later, after the April 21, 1897, payroll robbery at Castle Gate, the Carbon County sheriff stopped at the Winter House to borrow horses to use in the pursuit of the outlaws. Evidently unimpressed by the lawman's zeal, or lack thereof, Miller noted that he "Killed time to let them get away." The following year, one of Miller's cowhands, Jim Inglefield, was a member of the posse that killed Joe Walker in the Book Cliffs.25
Although he continued to maintain a home in Murray until 1897, Miller was assuming an increasingly prominent role in public affairs in Price and eastern Utah. He was chosen as one of three selectmen (an office roughly equivalent to county commissioner) when Carbon County was created in 1894 In 1896 he was elected, as a Republican representing the five counties of eastern Utah (Carbon, Emery, Grand, San Juan, and Uintah), to the first Utah state senate. In 1897 he moved his family from Murray to "a commodious residence" in Price By this time the family consisted of daughter Gertrude and four sons, Rex, Milton, Byron, and Clarence. Three additional sons were born in Price but died in infancy.26
In 1898 Carbon County voters elected Miller to the state house of representatives. In January 1899 he was installed as president of the Emery LDS Stake with authority over thirteen local wards that extended in a wide arc from Sunnyside, twenty-five miles east of Price, to Castle Gate, twelve miles north, and Emery, fifty-five miles to the southwest. This ecclesiastical position, combined with his civic activities and his large-scale livestock operations, made Reuben G. Miller at the age of thirty-eight the most prominent and influential individual in the Carbon-Emery region
The settlement of the Price River Valley had begun about three years after the Miller brothers first brought their livestock to the region. In 1882-83 the building of the Rio Grande Western Railway provided a crucial stimulus for development, particularly in coal mining Railroad construction crews uncovered a large seam of coal at Castle Gate; the railroad also improved connections to the existing mines in the Scofield area. Through its subsidiaries—Pleasant Valley Fuel Company and Utah Fuel Company—the Rio Grande developed several new mines and dominated coal production in the region for several decades.
In 1900 Price had a population of only 655, substantially less than the coal towns of Castle Gate (1,109) and Scofield (956). However, Price was a more important regional center than its size might suggest. The seat of Carbon County, it was home to several mercantile establishments and a weekly newspaper. The city served as the trading and transportation center for the Emery County communities to the south and was also the most convenient rail connection and hence the main shipping point for the communities, Indian agencies, and gilsonite mines in the Uinta Basin. According to the Utah State Gazetteer for 1900, "In the matter of freight handled [Price] is considered the third station on the R.G.W. Ry. system, ranking next to Ogden." Price counted among its residents at the turn of the century several other stockraisers and business entrepreneurs who would play significant roles in the town's development. The capital and initiative supplied by these individuals, combined with the town's advantageous location for a regional commercial center, fostered growth to a population of 1,122 by 1910 and 2,777 by 1920.27
Reuben G. Miller was one of these businessmen, devoting an increasing share of his time and resources to the growing Price economy. He and his family held a majority of the stock in the Price Cooperative Mercantile Institution, established in 1901 Also in 1901 Miller joined with fellow stockman J. M. Whitmore and others in organizing the First National Bank of Price, with Miller as vice president and director. In addition he served as president of the town board (a position equivalent to mayor) from 1902 to 1904 and as president of the local school board during the same period, overseeing construction of a new eight-room brick school. When the other members of the school board refused to pay the architect's fee, Miller reportedly paid it out of his personal funds.
It is interesting to note that Miller played an important role in supporting both public and church-related education During the same period when he was pushing forward the construction of a new school in Price, he also promoted the growth of the Emery Stake Academy in his role as president of the stake board of education. Founded in 1889 and suspended in 1894, the academy was reopened in 1899 after Miller assumed the stake presidency. Under his leadership a building begun in Castle Dale in 1896 was finally completed and dedicated in 1903, and a competing church-operated seminary at Huntington was closed. Enrollment at the academy grew from sixty-five in 1901 to 140 in 1907. At the 1907 commencement exercises, President Miller announced plans for a new and much larger building to be erected on the bench overlooking Castle Dale.28 This three-story structure was first occupied during the 1910-11 school year. It would appear from his activities that Miller's concept of the roles of public and church-sponsored education was similar to that held by others in the region: the public schools were to provide a primary education (variously conceived of as extending through grades five, six, seven, or eight), with high school-level instruction left to the church academies. The first public high school in the region was not established until 1912, two years after Miller moved away.
With these business, civic, and ecclesiastical responsibilities, Miller was able to give less time to his livestock interests than he had in earlier years. Still, he continued to manage the ranch and spent considerable time on the range. For example, the local newspaper reported in the fall of 1901, "Hon. Reuben G. Miller has been in the hills for some two or three weeks, looking after his sheep, cattle and horses, which he says are all in good condition."29
The early years of the twentieth century brought significant changes to the range livestock industry. The unregulated growth in sheep numbers had resulted in severe overgrazing and watershed damage; in addition to the locally owned stock, so-called "tramp herds" were shipped into Utah by rail in the spring, trailed over the mountain ranges through the summer, and shipped out in the fall. Eventually, farmers and townspeople, becoming concerned about floods from denuded watersheds and about the quality of their water supply, demanded controls on grazing In response to such concerns, the federal government established several national forests in Utah during the first decade of the century. Despite the political clout of the powerful woolgrower lobby, forest managers, with the support of local officials and small farmer-stockmen, succeeded in reducing the number of livestock allowed in the forests and gave preferential treatment to the owners of small herds who also farmed land near the forests. Largely as a result of these efforts, the number of sheep on Utah ranges declined by more than one million between 1900 and 1910.30
The vast public domain outside the national forests remained unregulated except by customary usage. But there, too, changes were occurring. New immigrants whose cultural traditions were deeply involved with sheep raising were coming to Utah. The French were the first of these to arrive in the Carbon County area, some coming from the Basque country near the Pyrenees and others from the Piedmont region in southeastern France. They were followed by the Greeks, who originally came to work in the mines but several of whom soon made their way into the sheep business. Because of their experience and their willingness to stay on the range for extended periods, these newcomers were formidable competitors for the grazing lands. (Pierre Moynier, for example, claimed that he once spent three years out with his herd without ever going into town.)31
The Miller ranch was better situated than most to weather these changes. The mountain range on Castle Valley Ridge where Miller livestock had traditionally grazed was not included in the Manti National Forest, established in 1903. Still, there were some who refused to recognize the traditional Miller claim to this range, and competition became ever more intense for the winter and spring ranges in the valley. The Price newspaper reported in 1902, "Hon. R. G. Miller is figuring on taking to the Eastern market in the near future five to six cars of cattle and horses, because, he says, the range is playing out."32
Probably impelled in part by a perception that the era of the big livestock operation was coming to an end and in part by his growing involvement in other activities, Miller disposed of most of his livestock in 1905 and sold his Carbon County ranches the following year to N. L. Nielson, a sheepman based in Mount Pleasant. The Winter House headquarters ranch was resold in 1907, primarily for its water rights, to the company that was developing the Hiawatha mine.33 Subsequently known as the Millerton Ranch, it is still held by a successor company.
With his ranching career at an end, Miller turned his attention to the fledgling communications industry. In 1890 the first telephone line in the region had been strung from Price to Huntington by the Price Trading Company and was later extended to other Emery County towns. Sometime after 1900 the Harmon Brothers, Levi and Oliver, acquired the line. In 1905 Miller and other Price investors bought the Emery County line from the Harmons for $3,775 and organized the Eastern Utah Telephone Company with both financial and technical assistance from Rocky Mountain Bell. The following year Eastern Utah Telephone purchased the government line between Price and Myton in the Uinta Basin and an independent line between Price and Helper The company also strung new lines to Scofield and Sunnyside and obtained a contract from Rocky Mountain Bell to construct a line from Thistle to Price, thereby linking the Eastern Utah system with the nationwide Bell System.34 Except for some local service in Price and Castle Dale, Eastern Utah Telephone was exclusively a toll service with a single telephone in each community it served, usually located in a store or hotel. The telephone company proved to be a profitable operation from the beginning and for several years was Miller's most valuable asset. He remained active in the company as president and manager until 1910, when he was succeeded as manager by his eldest son, James Rex.
The life of Reuben G. Miller can be divided into two almost equal parts. The first half was characterized by great energy and initiative and an almost unbroken series of business and public successes. Miller was a large man for his generation, six feet tall and weighing about 190 pounds in his prime. He was physically strong and enjoyed excellent health and powers of endurance. He was evidently personable and generally well-liked by his associates, although he could also be somewhat overbearing in pursuit of his goals. The second half of his long life, however, was beset with difficulties as his health broke down and he suffered financial reverses and a series of family and personal problems.
Miller dated his change of fortunes to April 1908, when he was "Injured from being thrown from a buggy and received a bruise on left breast causing a tumorous growth which was removed by Surgical operation. The muscles of the heart were also strained from awful shock received from the fall." However, some seeds of his later troubles had been sown five years earlier when, on June 25, 1903, he contracted a secret polygamous marriage with Martha ("Mattie") Nelson, a thirty-three-year-old teacher at the Emery Stake Academy in Castle Dale. Miller described her as "Good Physique and well developed," an assessment that is borne out by contemporary photographs. She was evidently a popular teacher and an effective public speaker. A talk on "Neglected Opportunities" that she gave at a "conjoint" session of the Castle Dale Ward Mutual Improvement Association in December 1902 was delivered "with such pathos as to bring tears to the eyes of a number of her listeners."35 She was, however, somewhat frail in health, evidently a result of rheumatic heart disease.
Although polygamous marriages were prohibited both by the law and by official LDS church policy as announced in the Woodruff Manifesto of 1890, such marriages continued to be performed clandestinely with tacit approval from at least some church leaders until the so-called "second manifesto" issued by President Joseph F. Smith in 1904. Among the most active proponents of continuing plural marriage were apostles John W. Taylor and Matthias F. Cowley, who were eventually forced to resign from their offices because they refused to yield on the issue.36 Miller was well-acquainted with both apostles and later identified Cowley as having performed the marriage to Mattie Nelson. In addition to Cowley's encouragement, Miller's wife Anna apparently also took an active role in promoting the marriage Miller later wrote of Anna,
It is not clear how widely known this polygamous union was in the Price community or the Emery Stake Mattie's daughter, Anna Argene, was born on April 9, 1904, in Farmington, which would suggest that Mattie was living an "underground" existence at a distance from her husband. The non-Mormon editor of the Eastern Utah Advocate frequently reprinted anti-polygamy articles from the national press, particularly during the debate over the seating of LDS apostle Reed Smoot in the U S Senate And yet there are no apparent hints in the columns of the Advocate of Miller's involvement in polygamy. On the other hand, there are indications that Miller encouraged the contracting of additional plural marriages in the stake, including the marriage of G. F. Hickman, principal of the Emery Stake Academy, to one of his teachers, Chloe Palmer, in 1910. Lowry Nelson, who was a student at the academy during this period, claimed that President Miller was "involved in this matter."38
In November 1908 Reuben and Mattie traveled to California, where they both spent four months in treatment for their heart ailments at the Glendale Sanitarium. Upon his return to Utah in March 1909 Miller entered LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City for goiter surgery but developed pleurisy; as he recorded, "I could not be operated on and death about claimed me and was confined at the Hospital until April 7, 1909, at which time I was shipped home on a stretcher and arrived at Price, Utah at midnight. I remained there in bed until August."39 A few months later he had another "severe attack" of pleurisy and heart trouble that confined him to the home he had purchased for Mattie in Salt Lake City.
The Emery LDS Stake was divided on May 8, 1910, and Miller was released as president. He sold his home in Price and moved Anna and their family to a new house on Seventh East in the Forest Dale subdivision in Salt Lake City. Despite a succession of ailments that sometimes kept him homebound for weeks or months at a stretch, Miller continued as president of Eastern Utah Telephone and the Price Coop. He also became involved in speculative property development. He organized a syndicate to assemble a block of coal land in Spring Canyon that was sold at a good profit to the Rains interests of Los Angeles in 1913 Other ventures proved less fortunate Miller lost a substantial investment in the Trenton Fruitland Company.40
In 1914 he organized the Pingree Land and Townsite Company with plans to develop a large acreage near Blackfoot, Idaho. Over the next several years he liquidated other assets and borrowed heavily to advance the Pingree project. For two or three summers between 1918 and 1922, Miller, by this time in his late fifties, took teams and farm implements to Pingree and worked to bring land under cultivation. The Pingree development was successful in that agricultural land was brought into production and a small community established However, the sales of townsite property failed to meet Miller's expectations. A store at Pingree operated by his son Clarence failed, leaving Miller with debts that forced him to mortgage his Forest Dale home. In addition, Miller claimed that an employee in the company's Salt Lake City office "stole from me."41 In 1922 he deeded his remaining Pingree interests toJ. R. Miller Real Estate Company, the family corporation organized by his mother and brothers and sisters, and for all practical purposes retired from business. He sold his stock in Eastern Utah Telephone when the company was absorbed by Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1924
There were crises in Miller's personal life during this period as well. His plural wife, Mattie, died on January 27, 1912, from "heart failure and dropsy." Although he was an active and respected member of the Forest Dale LDS Ward, serving as chairman of the building committee to enlarge the wardhouse in 1913, Miller apparently continued his association with Mormon fundamentalists who were determined to continue the practice of polygamy. On March 14, 1913, he married Emma Crossland (who also went by the name of Emma Mills) in a secret ceremony performed by John Woolley. Emma was the same age as Miller, having been born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on September 28, 1861.42
The attitude of LDS church leaders toward plural marriages had changed significantly between 1903 and 1913 A few months after Miller's and Emma's marriage, John Wooley was called on the carpet by church leaders and interrogated about unauthorized sealings. He identified Miller as one of those for whom he had performed such a ceremony. Miller was "summoned to appear before a Council of the Twelve Apostles" on January 23, 1914 His excommunication "for insubordination to the disciplines and government of the church" was announced on January 29.43
It was the practice at that period to publish the names of excommunicants in the Deseret News. The publication of Miller's name brought a touching, if unorthographic, letter from an old friend, Bishop Alonzo Brinkerhoff of Emery, who wrote,
Miller replied with expressions of gratitude and admitted, "The trouble was I was over zealous or in other words, using Webster for it, a little Fanatical in my views on doctrinal principles. I tried to make those principles practible and was both deceived and betrayed in attempting to do so. I was deceived in the man whom I trusted was authorized to officiate and then betrayed by him when he was brought in question." Miller responded in a similar vein to an inquiry from a relative in Idaho: "There is a spirit rife among a certain percent of the church members disclaiming that principle has been abolished, or that it ever will be, and that no matter what is done to check it there will be some one authorized to wait upon the worthy. I find many men and women have been imbued with that false impression at the same time disregarding the warning voices of the Authorities. Possibly I am one of them." Notwithstanding the penitent attitude expressed in these letters, Miller apparently continued to maintain a marital relationship with Emma until 1923, when they "agreed to separate and release each other from the bond which had bound us for 9 years and 13 days." Two years later, on December 17, 1925, Miller was rebaptized into the LDS church.45
In 1928 Miller resumed his former habit of recording brief daily entries in a pocket diary The entries made during the months when he was staying in the old family home and caring for his mother (who died in 1929) show that his mind was often occupied with the past He noted on October 28, "My night was full of dreams and especially of handling large bands of sheep." On his birthday anniversary, November 7, he wrote, "67 years ago this morning about 8 o'clock on this location where Mother's parlor is, was a log cabbon in which I was born. The Log cabbin was torn down in 1882 and the Big Brick house was built." Three days later he wrote,
The diaries indicate that during 1929-30 Miller played an active role in the remodeling of the Forest Dale wardhouse, which is still among the finest Mormon structures in Salt Lake City He was engaged with Anna in genealogical and temple work and received occasional visits from former ranch hands and other old friends from the Carbon-Emery area. Emma Crossland (Mills) had moved to St. George after her separation from Miller but continued to see him periodically on her visits to Salt Lake City. These contacts were evidently displeasing to Anna. Miller noted on August 14, 1937, "Anna and I had unpleasant words because of Sister Mills."47
Recurring bouts of illness continued to afflict Miller. He wrote to a cousin in 1944, "I have been a home-bound for over 30 years and undergone 11 surgical operations. One of my afflictions has lingered with me for 15 years caused by a weak heart in a dropsical form. My limbs swell to a bursting condition or has done I have had 18 attacks in the 15 years." He also suffered family losses. Reuben's and Anna's youngest surviving son, Byron, died from influenza in 1920 while a medical student at the University of Utah Son Clarence succumbed to bleeding ulcers in 1933. The wife of eldest son Rex committed suicide later that same year, and Rex died of a heart attack in 1939. Argene, Miller's daughter by Mattie Nelson, died in 1941, leaving eight young children.48 Reuben and Anna sold their Forest Dale home in 1936 and moved to an apartment on North Main Street. Anna's health broke down in 1940, and she died on June 26, 1942.
In the aftermath of his wife's passing, Miller devoted much of his attention to straightening out the complications caused by his polygamous marriages. He was able to meet with David O. McKay, then a counselor in the First Presidency of the LDS church, in July 1942 He reported in his diary, "Pres. McKay told me my family affairs were OK so far as Mattie & Argene were concerned but not with Emma until we went to the temple and sealed." With this information, Miller caught a bus for St George He apparently found Emma willing to be married to him but unwilling to go through another ceremony. Miller wrote, "We had a day of compromise over our previous John Wooley marriage We agreed to live apart—we could not both consider the sealing ofJohn Wooley authentic. She thought it was, and I contended it was not and we would wait until the Malenium for the Lord's version."49
Two years later Miller's apprehensions were reawakened when he became aware of a letter written by Matthias Cowley in 1936 in which Cowley formally apologized to LDS church leaders for his activities in promoting plural marriage after the Manifesto and admitted that his actions had been "null and void." Miller wrote to the First Presidency on February 23, 1944, quoting from the Cowley letter and adding,
At the top of a carbon copy of this letter is written, "March 22, 1944 answer came by telephone to have Mattie and Argene sealed to me in St George Temple by President David O McKay."50
Miller spent the years following Anna's death living in a series of temporary lodgings, the most comfortable of which was a boardinghouse in St. George operated by a widow named Laura Pulsipher. Miller went there at the encouragement of another resident, Levi N Harmon, who had been a friend and business associate during the Price years. For all this past association, however, the two old men evidently made an odd couple in Mrs. Pulsipher's boardinghouse. Miller had been there for less than a month when he recorded in his diary, "Had a tilt with Brother Harmon." A more serious dispute followed a few days later. Miller wrote, "Harmon was off his base this morning and quarreled with us. He left the table in a rage."51 Harmon was so angry that he moved out of the Pulsipher home
In response to several notes from Miller attempting to patch up the quarrel, Harmon wrote a lengthy letter in which he accused Miller of driving him out of the management of the Price Co-op in 1904 and forcing him to sell the Emery County telephone line by threats to establish a competing service Harmon's concluding lines reveal something about the personal qualities of both men:
Notwithstanding my many grievances, I have always felt a strong sympathy for Bro Miller When he wrote to me of his condition in Salt Lake, my heart went out to him as it would to the dearest brother. There are so many fine points about him that I felt all else to be minor. Without special interest for myself, I did what I could to get him comfortably located in St. George. Probably without his intention at all, this proved to be another mistake on my part but with less ability to meet it than any other problem that has ever come to me. Yes, ailing day and night, almost blind that I can hardly see, at the age of 86, I felt that I was compelled to give up what I had cherished so much, a residence at the home of that exceptionally fine lady, Laura Pulsipher.52
A partial reconciliation was achieved, and the two old friends continued to see each other periodically during Miller's residence in St. George, but Harmon did not return to Mrs Pulsipher's
In 1946 Miller became a resident at the Sarah Daft Home in Salt Lake City, where he spent the remaining years of his life. His last surviving son, Milton, was killed in a warehouse accident at the Ogden defense depot that same year His once-substantial financial resources entirely exhausted, Miller was dependent on his daughter, Gertrude Cluff, to pay his expenses. Two grandsons were practicing physicians in Salt Lake and assisted with his medical care. In his last years his thoughts returned often to his ranching days. He wrote a "lengthy letter" to a brother describing an 1883 incident when his horse fell on him while he was chasing a wild steer through the timber. After a sleepless night in February 1951 he wrote, "I reflected back over my old ranch life and ownership of land I once owned and the choice parts of it. I arose at 5:30 A.M. sleepy and disappointed from the fact that I in my drowsiness was planning improvements on the Schults Valley tract by piping Trail Canyon Spring to a choice Resident spot in Schults Valley." Three days later he reflected ruefully, "Wasted hours of time have gone never to come back to me Satisfied myself listening to radio."53
Still, not all was regret and loneliness. Miller received visits from old friends He corresponded with several grandchildren He was honored by a letter from the University of Utah inviting him to attend the 1953 graduation ceremonies as one of the last surviving alumni who had studied with early professors John R. Park, Joseph B. Toronto, and Joseph T Kingsbury Always a handyman by temperament, Miller contrived "safety urinal gadgets" to deal with his incontinence and built traps to control the squirrels and quail that were damaging the gardens at the Sarah Daft Home. Photographs printed with newspaper articles on his ninetieth and ninety-second birthdays show a vigorous and cheerful old man The ninety-second birthday article says, "Since he was a boy on his father's Mill Creek farm, he has never had time for idleness and even now he says there doesn't seem to be enough time to get everything done."54
Despite the growing severity of his physical afflictions, Miller's final instructions for the disposition of his effects show that he remained mentally alert and vigorous up to within a few weeks of his death, which occurred on June 8, 1954. His obituary in the Deseret News identified him as a "pioneer stockman in Carbon and Emery counties" and "a builder of Eastern Utah Telephone Company."55 It might well have added that he was one of the last survivors of a vanished era.
NOTES
Dr Geary is a professor of English and director of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University
1 Delila Gardner Hughes, The Life of Archibald Gardner (West Jordan, Utah: Archibald Gardner Family Genealogical Association, 1939), 25, 37-43
2 "Mill Creek Ward," in Andrew Jenson, Encyclopedic History of the Church offesus Christ ofLatter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Publishing Company, 1941), 503-504
3 "James Robinson Miller," in The History of Murray City, Utah (Murray City Corporation, 1976), 406-407.
4 Miller Brothers Co ranch acreage list, box 3, folder 7, Reuben Gardner Miller Collection (Harold B Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah; hereinafter cited as RGM Collection); biographical sketch ofJames Robinson Miller, box 4, folder 4, RGM Collection
5 Deseret News, November 25 1951, clipping in box 2, folder 1, RGM Collection; notebook, box 1, folder 5, RGM Collection; diary, January 10, 1949, box 1, folder 11, RGM Collection
6 Orson Hyde, "Instructions Concerning Things Temporal and Spiritual," in fournal ofDiscourses by President Brigham Young, His Two Counselors, the Twelve Apostles, and Others (Liverpool, 1867), 11:149.
7 See Charles S Peterson, "Grazing in Utah: A Historical Perspective," Utah Historical Quarterly 57 (Fall 1989): 300-319; biographical sketch ofJames Robinson Miller, box 4, folder 4, RGM Collection; notebook, box 1, folder 5, RGM Collection
8 Quoted in Glynn Bennion, "A Pioneer Cattie Venture of the Bennion Family," Utah Historical Quarterly 34 (Fall 1966): 319; undated letter from RGM to Lamont Johnson in response to an inquiry dated January 14, 1950, typescript carbon copy in box 3, folder 4, RGM Collection
9 Peterson, "Grazing in Utah," 306; Francis Hodgman, "In the Mountains of Utah," Colorado Rail Annual 1992, 29.
10 RGM to LamontJohnson (1950), box 3, folder 4, RGM Collection
11 James Liddell, "The Cattle and Sheep Industry of Carbon County," in Thurseyjessen Reynolds et al., Centennial Echoesfrom Carbon County (Carbon County Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1948), 52; Miller Brothers Co ranch acreage list, box 3, folder 7, RGM Collection
12 Notebook, box 1, folder 5, RGM Collection
13 Peterson, "Grazing in Utah," 305
14 Reuben Brasher and Stella McEIprang, "The Livestock Industry," in Castle Valley: A History of Emery County (Emery County Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1949), 38
15 1884 diary, box 1, folder 6, RGM Collection
16 1888 diary, box 1, folder 6, RGM Collection
17 1884 diary, box 1, folder 6, RGM Collection
18 1885 diary, entry for June 14, box 1, folder, RGM Collection
19 1885 diary, entry for April 29, box 1, folder, RGM Collection
20 1885 diary, entry for June 30, box 1, folder, RGM Collection
21 1885 diary, box 1, folder, RGM Collection
22 RGM to J R Miller, February 10, 1890, box 1, folder 4, RGM Collection
23 1891 diary, entry for July 4, box 1, folder 7, RGM Collection; 1893 diary, entries for July 11-25, box 1, folder 7, RGM Collection; Cattle, Horse, and Sheep Memoranda, box 3, folder 7, RGM Collection; biographical sketch ofJames Robinson Miller, box 4, folder 4, RGM Collection.
241893 diary, box 1, folder 6, RGM Collection.
Memorandum book, box 1, folder 5, RGM Collection.
Eastern Utah Advocate (Price, Utah), September 22, 1898; book of family and genealogical memorabilia, box 3, folder 9, RGM Collection
27 Utah State Gazetteer and BusinessDirectory (Salt Lake City: R L Polk, 1900), 210; Ronald G Watt, A History of Carbon County (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1997), 71-74
28 Paul Robert Tabone, "The History of Emery Stake Academy" (master's thesis, Brigham Young University, 1976), 105; Emery Stake Academy Announcements, 1910-11, Library Archives, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah
29 Eastern UtahAdvocate, October 15, 1901.
30
For a good account of these events on the Manti National Forest see the relevant chapter in Albert Antrei, ed., The OtherForty-niners: A Topical History of Sanpete County, Utah, 1849-1983 (Salt Lake City: Western Epics, 1982); Peterson, "Grazing in Utah," 305
31 Liddell, "Cattle and Sheep Industry of Carbon County," 55
32 Eastern Utah Advocate, August 21, 1902
33 "Notes & bits of information used in making up replies to Mr Johnson," box 3, folder 4, RGM Collection; Emery County Progress, October 19, 1907
Memo book, box 2, folder 6, RGM Collection
35 Family and genealogical memorabilia, box 3, folder 9, RGM Collection; Emery County Progress, December 13, 1902
36 See D Michael Quinn, "LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages, 1890-1904," Dialogue: A fournal of Mormon Thought 18 (Spring 1985): 9-105; see Victor W Jorgensen and B Carmon Hardy, "The Taylor-Cowley Affair and the Watershed of Mormon History," Utah Historical Quarterly 48 (Winter 1980): 5-36
37 Family and genealogical memorabilia, box 3, folder 9, RGM Collection
38 Memorandum book, box 1, folder 5, RGM Collection; Lowry Nelson, In the Direction of His Dreams:Memoirs (New York: Philosophical Library, 1985), 168-69
39 Memorandum book, box 1, folder 5, RGM Collection
40 1913B memo book, box 2, folder 8, RGM Collection; 1915 memo book, box 2, folder 8, RGM Collection.
41 Memorandum book, box 1, folder 5, RGM Collection
42 Ibid.; 1937 memo book, box 3, folder 1, RGM Collection
43 J Max Anderson, The Polygamy Story: Fiction and Fact (Salt Lake City: Publisher's Press, 1979), 140-43; memorandum book, box 1, folder 5, RGM Collection,
44 Undated letter from Alonzo Brinkerhoff to RGM, box 2, folder 3, RGM Collection
45
RGM to Alonzo Brinkerhoff, February 7, 1914, typescript carbon copy, box 2, folder 3, RGM Collection; RGM to "Fred & Lizzie," February 9, 1914, typescript carbon copy, box 2, folder 3, RGM Collection; memorandum book, box 1, folder 5, RGM Collection
461928 date book, box 1, folder 7, RGM Collection
47 1937 diary, box 1, folder 9, RGM Collection
48 RGM to Anna E. Hoxie, February 29, 1944, typescript carbon copy, box 2, folder 3, RGM Collection; 1939 diary, entry for July 20, box 1, folder 9; 1941 diary, entry for July 26, box 1, folder 10; family and genealogical memorabilia, box 3, folder 9, RGM Collection.
491942 diary, entries for July 28 and 30, box 1, folder 10, RGM Collection.
50 RGM to Heber J Grant, J Reuben Clark, and David O McKay, February 23, 1944, typescript carbon copy in box 2, folder 3, RGM Collection
51 1942 diary, entries for December 16 and 29, box 1, folder 10, RGM Collection
52 Levi N. Harmon to RGM, undated typescript, box 2, folder 4, RGM Collection
53 1951 diary, entries for January 11, 16, 19, box 2, folder 1, RGM Collection
54 1953 diary, entry for May 20, box 2, folder 2, RGM Collection; Salt Lake Tribune, November 5, 1953
55 Deseret News, June 10, 1954
