Henry Miller (rancher)

Henry Miller at the age of 20

Henry Miller at the age of 40

Henry Miller at the age of 60

Henry Miller at the age of 80

Henry Miller , born Heinrich Alfred Kreiser (born July 21, 1827 in Brackenheim , † October 14, 1916 in California ) was a German-American cattle breeder who was one of the largest landowners in the United States in the late 19th century.

Life

Henry Miller was born under the name Heinrich Alfred Kreiser. He was the only son of the married couple Christian and Christine Kreiser, whose families had resided in Württemberg for several generations . Christian Kreiser, like his ancestors, was a master butcher, Christine came from a family of winemakers. Heinrich Alfred had three sisters: Frederike, Elisabeth and Karoline. The boy attended school in Brackenheim between the ages of seven and fourteen. However, he was not particularly interested in this education and much preferred to chase his father's calves to pasture and back again. Nevertheless, he worked as an apprentice to his father for seven years.

When Heinrich was 15 years old, his mother died, after which his grandmother and his sisters took over the management of the household. There were numerous conflicts between Heinrich and his family, so that Heinrich, who suffered under the strict rule of his father, left his home. He first traveled to Holland and then to England , where he worked as a butcher and learned the English language . Finally, in 1847, at the age of 19, he sailed for New York . When he arrived at his destination, he only had a bundle of clothes and 50 American dollars. After a lengthy search he got a job as a gardener with a salary of $ 4 a month and a place to sleep. When he was able to go back to his butcher's profession, he met the American shoe seller Henry Miller, who was about Heinrich's age and became a good friend of his.

As a result of the gold rush , Heinrich Kreiser and his friend decided to travel to California to get rich there. However, the shoe seller got the money for the trip faster than Heinrich and bought his ticket for the New York to San Francisco route via Panama first. But Heinrich Kreiser managed to buy the ticket from the shoe seller. It was only on board that he discovered that the ticket was marked as “non-transferable / transferable”, so he simply passed himself off as Henry Miller. On April 13, 1850, he sails to California as Henry Miller. While in Panama, Miller learned that the only local butcher had a fever, whereupon he took over his job on his behalf. But Henry also got the fever and had to go to hospital from May to August. Because of this unplanned delay, he didn't arrive in San Francisco until September 24, 1850, with only $ 6 in his pocket.

He worked as a dishwasher until he was finally able to resume his job as a butcher and in 1851 got a job with John Center, who owned a shipload of pigs that had to be slaughtered. Center already employed the butcher Henry Lux. But he only managed to slaughter 6 to 7 animals per day, while Miller slaughtered over 100 animals over three days.

After the city fire in June 1851, Miller went into business for himself. As early as 1853, at the age of 26, he owned a small slaughterhouse and butcher shop and was able to employ someone to help. The business was so flourishing that in the same year he was able to buy a herd of 300 oxen for $ 33,000 and drive it to San Francisco. This herd of American cattle was said to be the first to be driven to San Francisco.

In 1857 Miller and Charles Lux, a German with a background similar to Miller, purchased a herd of cattle priced at $ 67.50 per head. The purchase price as well as the profit were shared. This was the beginning of the partnership between Miller and Lux, whose company was named "Miller & Lux" after the owners. Both agreed that in the event of death, the survivor would be allowed to continue the company - for a maximum of seven years.

Miller now frequently noticed cattle that were branded “HH” and were of excellent quality. They were bigger, fatter, and weighed more than other stocks. So he decided to ride straight to the San Joaquin Valley to buy not only these cattle, but also land. He actually managed to get an option on 8,835 acres for $ 10,000 and 7,500 cattle for $ 5 each. On the way back to San Francisco, Miller also acquired more cattle and lands, which enabled him to sell some of his cattle to other butchers. In the years that followed, Miller and Lux ​​bought more land, bringing the partners' total land holdings to just under 3,500 acres in 1858 .

The cheap land prices offered enormous advantages: If the land had to be leased, the lease would have been considerably higher than the income from selling the cattle. The only downside to the land ownership was the fact that the areas were too far from San Francisco to drive the cattle into that city. Still, Miller continued to buy cheap land that often cost him only a few dollars an acre, even though it was often hundreds of dollars in value. Flooded land or marshland that could not be used for cultivation, but could be used, was particularly cheap.

In 1859, at the age of 32, the first violent tragedy in the life of Henry Miller occurred: his wife Nancy Sheldon and their son died in his birth.

The following year Miller married his first wife's niece, Sarah Wilmart Sheldon, with whom he had three children: Nelly, Henry Jr., and Sarah Alice. However, Sarah Alice died in a tragic accident at the age of 12.

During the drought years of the 1860s, Henry Miller recognized the great importance of water in the San Joaquin Valley and from then on tried to buy land that was located directly on the rivers, sometimes taking 50 miles under the entire stretch of the river had his control.

From 1861 to 1862 there was a major flood, followed by a devastating drought that lasted for years, so that prices skyrocketed and a ton of hay cost $ 60. As a result of these disasters, many ranchers were forced to slaughter their flocks, resulting in oversupply and falling meat prices. Miller also lost two thirds of the total cattle herd during the entire drought. Given these conditions, Lux wanted to get out of business, but Miller persuaded him to stay. Instead, they bought 8,000 cattle, the herd of which doubled in less than a year.

In 1867, the cattle bought by Miller a few years earlier were worth $ 20 each, and a year later as much as $ 50.

There were numerous difficulties with passing settlers, so Miller and Lux ​​had a large wooden fence built on the west side of San Joaquin with a length of 70 miles. However, this fence was repeatedly destroyed by the cops who broke through the fence and people passing through took out boards again and again, so that the fence always had to be repaired. To reduce this destruction, Miller built in gates that made it possible to see where a passage was on the fence. However, many planks continued to be broken out and the owners were forced to use barbed wire from now on, although this was more dangerous as it could catch panicked horses or cattle and injure them. Miller installed numerous windmills and water tanks at the gates for the travelers so that they could have water for themselves there.

But the settlers created further problems: Miller's herds, which had to be driven through the country again and again, inevitably mixed with the animals of other owners. However, since Miller's herds comprised between one and two thousand animals, it was nearly impossible to separate the herds. To avoid arguments, Miller simply bought the animals from the other owners, which is why some people deliberately moved their cattle close to Miller's herd in order to get a good, fatter cattle at a reasonable price as compensation.

Miller and Lux's company was the largest taxpayer in the area and one of the largest in California. After Lux's death in 1887, Miller, at the age of 60, owned the entire company.

The most important of Miller's farms was called "Bloomfield" and was Miller's ancestral home, which includes the following facilities: fields and feeding grounds for up to 3000 cattle, a dairy, own power supply, a forge, a machine shop, a tannery, granaries, Horse stables, barns for hay, a slaughterhouse, a poultry house, a warehouse, a general store, a reservoir with 1,000,000 gallons of water and mills that could grind up to 150 tons of beets a day. The mansion was built in 1888 for $ 50,000. It could accommodate 165 workers, 160 boarders as well as the family and guests in 19 bedrooms. In June 1923, however, the villa burned down completely.

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  Bloomfield, home of Henry Miller, completed in 1887 for $ 50,000.

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  Bloomfield Farm, looking east to west

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  Bloomfield farm in the background with cattle and cowboys near the reservoir on the top of the hill west of the ranch.

Miller's wife Sarah died in 1905 at the age of 65. His son died of rheumatism two years later at the age of 42. Henry Miller himself survived both of them until October 14, 1916, when he died at the age of 89.

After Miller's death, the newspapers read that he left over 14,500,000 acres of real estate. In California alone he owned lands in 19 counties. Until that day, no one knew how much land they actually owned.

literature

• Marjorie Pierce: East of the Gabilans . Western Tanager Pr, Santa Cruz, ISBN 978-0-934136-11-2 , pp. 194 (English).
• Edward F. Treadwell: The Cattle King . A Dramatized Biography. Great West Books, Lafayette, California 2005, ISBN 978-0-944220-20-7 , pp. 256 (English).
• Charles Sawyer: One Man Show . Henry Miller in the San Joaquin. Loose Change Publications, Los Banos 2003, ISBN 978-0-944707-07-4 , pp. 324 (English).
• David Igler: Industrial Cowboys . Miller & Lux and the Transformation of the Far West, 1850-1920. 1st edition. University of California Press, California 2005, ISBN 978-0-520-24534-1 , pp. 282 (English).

Web links

Commons : Henry Miller  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

• Los Banos dedicates statue to founder ( Los Banos dedicates a statue to the founder)
• Henry Miller: The Cattle King of California (1827-1916) on the website of the German Historical Institute in Washington