Biography of John Mills
From HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
W. H. Beers [Chicago, 1883]
Page 1006
JOHN MILLS, deceased, was born in New Jersey June 24, 1774, and remained in his native State nearly thirty-eight years. On December 28, 1797, he married Sarah Pruden, who was born in New Jersey July 9, 1778. In 1812, they, with four children, emigrated to Tuscarawas County, Ohio, where he became a land-owner, and where he remained until the fall of 1817, when they sold their land, and with the proceeds purchased a large tract near Jefferson, in this county, on which they settled. He here operated a grist-mill that had previously been built by Nehemiah Gates, on Little Darby, about one mile below the present site of Jefferson. He soon afterward added apparatus for sawing lumber, and, as he was a carpenter, he, in 1818, built himself a frame house, probably the first frame house erected in the township. He sawed lumber for and assisted in building many of the houses in the township. He remained a resident of the county until his death, which occurred about 1850, he having previously buried his wife. Their family consisted of eight children, viz., Sarah, Eliza, Hannah, Amos, David, Mary A., Jedediah and Ruth, of whom three are now living. Mary A., the only one who is a resident of this county, was born in Tuscarawas County November 22, 1815, and was two years old when her parents came to Madison County, since which time she has been a resident of this county. She occupies a comfortable home half a mile west of Jefferson, where her parents both died. She and her sister Ruth resided at home, caring for their parents through life, but the latter has since moved to Nebraska. Mary A. was married, June 4, 1854, to William Vickers, by whom she had two children – Charles and William M. Mr. Vickers was born in Dorchester county, Md., April 16, 1796, and, when a child, came with his widowed mother to Clark County, Ohio, where he became a large land-owner. He there married, but, upon the death of his first wife, he was united to Miss Mills, and moved to Madison County, where he died January 9, 1873.
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