Mary Frances (Sanders) Miller |
| Posted 2018-05-19 by Judy Wight Branson |
| Weekly Journal-Miner, Prescott, Arizona Territory Wednesday, December 9, 1908, page 2, column 4 First School Girl Of Prescott Is Buried (From Saturday's Daily) In the presence of hundreds of her sorrowing relatives and friends, the remains of Mrs. Mary Francis Miller were lowered into their last resting place in the Miller Valley cemetery yesterday afternoon at 3 o'clock. Rev. L. W. Wheatley of the Marina Street Methodist church officiated at the obsequies. The funeral was the largest ever seen in Miller Valley and one of the largest known in the history of Prescott. Pioneer families from all over the county were present, many coming from distant parts to pay their last loving tribute to the beautiful character of the noble pioneer woman. Every available conveyance in the city was pressed into service and those unable to secure carriages or buggies walked from the city to the family home in Miller Valley and formed part of the long procession to the cemetery a mile beyond. Mrs. Miller was the first white school girl ever seen in Miller Valley or Prescott. She arrived with her father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Julius Sanders, from California, March 2, 1864. The family settled on the Sanders ranch on the north side of Miller Valley. She was then in her thirteenth year. She rode on horseback with her mother from Fort Rock, where the wagons were abandoned, to Miller Valley. She shared the vicissitudes, privations and dangers of frontier life with her parents in the trip from California, which was through a county infested with blood-thirsty savages hostile to the whites. She attended private school in West Prescott two years and in her fifteenth year was united in matrimony to Samuel C. Miller, who survives her, and who was a member of the Walker party that arrived in the territory in 1862. The Ehle, Simmons, Osborne, Buckman and other pioneer families arrived here after the Sanders and their descendants were present at the funeral today. Transcriber's note: Mrs. Miller is buried at the Simmons Cemetery in Prescott, Arizona. See Also: Arizona Gravestone Photo Project |
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