Miller, Christopher H.

 Submitted by Mike Miller

Christopher H. Miller, the popular and successful wholesale confectionery dealer of New Orleans, is a native Bavarian, his natal year being 1829. His parents, Leonard and Barbara (Serigan) Miller, were also born in Bavaria, in which country the father followed the calling of a baker as well as that of a farmer. Both parents died when the subject of this sketch was ten years of age within ten days of each other and he was left to fight life's battles as best he could. He however, possessed the pluck and perseverance for which those of his nativity are famous, and becoming imbued with the idea that America offered a fertile field for those who possessed enterprises and brains, he came with friends to this country before he had attained to his sixteenth year. He was fairly well educated, and upon locating in New Orleans he attended night school for some time, his days being spent in the pastry department of a bakery where he was learning the trade. He gradually worked into the confectionery department, in which he remained until 1847. He then was employed on Canal street, but in the spring of 1848, left New Orleans for a visit to Cincinnati, having a short time prior to that date been in the employ of a man by the name of Wood ward. In the fall of the same year he returned to New Orleans to resume his former occupation, but being desirous of traveling and seeing the world, he wandered forth again in 1849 and went to St. Louis, Mo., and two days later to Boonville of the same state, and thence back again to New Orleans at the end of two months, once more entering the service of his old employer. In the month of May, 1850, with one of the partners of the house in which he worked, he went to San Francisco, Cal., and there they opened a pastry establishment and did a very extensive business. This business they gave up to change location to Trinidad, that being the port of entry to the gold districts, and shipped all their stock of goods besides other property in a sailing vessel. Not liking Trinidad, they left their house which they had shipped from San Francisco, at the end of four months, and after a journey of a mouth reached Yreka, where a new mine was located, on their way there passing through a very wild district teeming with hostile Indians. For six days their cabin was surrounded by redskins and six of the whites lived together for two weeks for protection. At the end of that time their number was increased by fifteen more men, and the little band set out together on foot for another location and in time reached Happy camp, where Mr. Miller disposed of his stock of goods at a big profit. After remaining there one week to recruit, he started by way of Scotch valley to Yreka, where he bought a lot, built a house and once more started in the pastry business. In 1851 he left that place to go to Jacksonville, Ore., where some new mines had just been opened, but got lost on the way, and after days of wandering among the Indians with little food and for three days no water, they succeeded in reaching their destination worn and weary. In that city Mr. Miller and his partner severed their connection, after which Mr. Miller became associated with John Wingen. Theirs was the first house to have a floor in it in Jacksonville. They did a paying business there and were successful in all their ventures. Religious services were held by a missionary in the house owned by Mr. Miller, and he was one of the few men of these early times in the West to uphold all moral measures. After overworking himself he was taken with mountain fever, from which he did not fully recover until the fall of 1853. In December of that year he started for his old home in New Orleans, via the Isthmus of Panama on the steamer "Winfield Scott," which vessel was wrecked just off the coast of Santa Barbara. The passengers numbered 450 and the crew 150, but all succeeded in safely reaching an island, where, after three days the four lady passengers were taken on board a boat which touched at that point, but the remainder of the passengers and the crew had to remain eight days before they were rescued, receiving one ration a day. They were rescued, by the steamer "California" and on Christmas eve reached Panama. From there Mr. Miller crossed the isthmus on a mule a part of the way thence by railroad to Aspinwall, reaching his old home January 9, 1854. He was intending to make a tour of Europe in search of health, but was glad to rest in New Orleans for a time, and before he could carry out his intentions he met and won for his wife Miss Mary Wetzel, with whom he returned to California six months after their marriage. They went back to Jacksonvllle, Ore., but Mr. Miller was again taken sick there in 1857 and returned to New Orleans, and had his trunks arrived in time, he would have taken the steamer "Central America" for home, which steamer was lost at sea. The vessel in which they sailed later got on a coral reef, but the next morning a man-of-war vessel helped them off, after which they took another steamer for New Orleans, just out from Havana. After residing four months in New Orleans he purchased the pastry establishment at the corner of Jackson and Tchoupitoulas streets, his partner in business being P. W. Dielmann, who had been a former clerk of his. In 1866 Mr. Miller bought the ground, 50 to 54 South Peters street, where he erected the magnificent building he now occupies and began manufacturing confections on a large scale, successfully conducting both houses for two years, when he sold the old establishment He and Mr. Dielmann remained business partners until 1885, when the latter sold his interest in the stock to Mr. Miller. Mr. Miller is the father of ten children: Olivia, wife of A. Elmer; Otto, in business with his father; Alphonse, married to Miss J. Fagot; Viola, Katie, Mamie, Adah, Pearl, Henry and Elnora. Mr. Miller is a democrat politically, is a member of the A. F. & A. M., and is one of the honored and upright business men of New Orleans. His life has been an adventurous one, but he ever conducted himself with uprightness and can look back over his early career without regret.

From Biographical and Historical Memoires of Louisiana, volume 2, pp. 256-257.