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Dr. Lorenzo John Miller

Lorenzo John Miller, my great-grandfather, was the third child of Charles T. and Anna McNeil Miller. He was born on June 7, 1828 near the Crandon section of Giles County now Bland County on Walkers Creek. There is little known of his youth or his basic education. If he had been around 20 years old when he began his medical training it would have been around the year 1848. By then, well-established medical schools could be found in the eastern United States. Was his father Charles so successful that he could afford higher education or did Lorenzo receive his medical training with loans or other financial help? Lenore Miller Jarrell relates that she was told her grandfather attended Baltimore Medical College as well as his son Daniel. Our search for Lorenzo’s graduation date was not found from this now defunct medical school’s rolls. However, there is little doubt that he formally attended medical school at an established institution of the day. This industrious young man became a practicing physician in Bland County for the remainder of his adult life. He acquired land, some of which came through family inheritance, but Giles County records showed that he often bought and sold land. -On October 1, 1853 Lorenzo John and his wife Martha Lois purchased land from William N. Harmon for $700., a tract of land on Nobusiness Creek containing 143 acres, more or less . This tract later became the location of the Samuel V. Morris and Octavia Miller’s (daughter of Abraham W. Miller) home.

-On September 20, 1854, Lorenzo John and Martha Lois granted to Charles Miller a parcel of land on Kimberling for $500.

-On September 16, 1854 Abraham W. Miller and his wife Rachel sold to Lorenzo John 215 acres for $120. 29

At the age of 22 Lorenzo John married Martha Lois Bird in Floyd County, Virginia on February 12, 1850. Martha Lois was 21 years old and was the daughter of John Bird and Elizabeth Brown Bird. John and Elizabeth Bird had eleven children one of whom was Benjamin Valentine Bird born on February 14, 1814. Benjamin Valentine Bird married Catherine Cole Saunders and they also produced eleven children. One of who was George Thomas Bird born October 9, 1865. George Thomas Bird married Carrie Louise Burton and they in turn had eleven children the youngest of which was Daniel Woodrow Bird born on July 6, 1912 and married Elizabeth Kegley Dunn. They had four children. Janet Elizabeth Bird was their oldest child whom I, David S. Miller, II, married. So in essence I married a distant cousin. How ironic! Martha Lois was Janet’s great -great-aunt and my great-grandmother. (NOTE: For the ancestry of this Bird family see the Bird Genealogy now in the possession of my wife Janet Elizabeth Bird Miller).

29 Giles County Deedbook, p. 325, 437.

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