Legends of the Skyline Drive and the Great Valley of VirginiaWillis, Carrie Hunter
History
Legends of the Skyline Drive and the Great Valley of Virginia
Willis, Carrie Hunter
Shenandoah National Park (Va.); Shenandoah River Valley (Va. and W. Va.) -- History
His neighbors were Abram Strickler, Mathias Selser, Phillip Long, Paul
Long, Michael Rinehart, and Jonathan Rood. Some give the date of this
settlement as early as 1726. Adam Miller took out his naturalization
papers a few years later and today, the visitor may read the quaint
document hanging on the walls of the Miller home, near Elkton, Virginia.
His log cabin was soon outgrown. He was a good farmer and his wife and
sister helped him. His crops were larger each year. Besides, Adam was a
business man. He secured a large land grant and he soon was selling off
farms to other Germans who came from Pennsylvania and from Germany.
The Millers built a larger home and they bought some good sturdy
furniture to replace the crude tables and chairs which were home-made.
They took pleasure in getting the home all ready before they moved into
it. They had even spread the beds with the new hand-woven coverlets
which his wife and sister had made during the long winter nights. The
next night they would sleep in their new home. But during the night, a
fire broke out--no one ever knew its origin--and everything was
destroyed before the family woke up!
The Millers were undaunted, so they built again. We are told what good
neighbors there were in those days. The men took their own axes and cut
down the trees. They dressed the lumber, sawed the timbers by careful
measurements, laid foundations, and built chimneys. It did not take so
long to build a house. The visitor today will see a big white house on
the road between Luray and Elkton, almost beneath the shadow of old
Massanutten Mountain. He will see the marker which tells him that this
house was built by the Miller family. Inside, the visitor will see
priceless early American furniture. He will see rosewood and later
Empire furniture, too, as other generations added to their heritage. But
when one goes into the log cabin kitchen he will stand in reverence
before a collection of early Dutch tables, chairs, platters, plates of
Delft and pewter, spoons of the same ware. There is a huge corner
cupboard which everyone would like to have for his own. This house no
longer has a direct descendant of Adam and his good wife to occupy it,
for the last one of his line recently died.
Adam Miller was not only a good neighbor to his German friends but we
are told they did not have much trouble with the Indians during the
first years he lived in the Valley. However, he was a brave fighter
during the Indian Wars and his record is given in _Henning's Statutes_.
He lived through most of the Revolutionary War and no doubt longed to
fight in behalf of the country which had given him the opportunity to
develop it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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