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millingroundireland · 7 months

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The story of Joseph B. Mills

This was originally part of the the third chapter in my family history on the Mills family, and published on WordPress, but has been broken up into various parts for this blog.

Born in Warren County in 1844, Joseph B. Mills had worked as a farm laborer, carpenter, miller, and mechanic, from his youth until 1880. He later would also work as a wheelright and become the sheriff for Pottersville, NY in the 1890s and be part of a famous trial where a man named Samuel T. Guilford sued him. Thanks to photocopies from the Warren County Records Center and newspaper articles which are digitized online, the rest of his story becomes even clearer.

By 1885, Joseph was a supervisor in Chester, with a man named James Mills an inspector for the same same town. In 1886, some of his acts were made legal by the New York State Senate in May 1886, including selling and conveying the cemetery lot in Chester as part of a public auction. After that, he became the sheriff in Warren County, living in Lake George, staying in that position until 1891. If that wasn’t enough, he served as the chairman of the Warren County Board of Supervisors in 1888 and from 1894 to 1896, as a supervisor in the town of Chester in 1888 and 1893–1897, and Glens Falls supervisor in 1881 as a Republican and re-elected in 1886. Clearly, he had an important role in the local government of the county without a doubt. For instance, he oversaw a sheriff’s sale in 1890, audits in the town of Chester in 1894, an official canvas in 1894, and wrote a letter to the citizenry in a local paper in 1895 which outlined a new county law, to name a few duties. He later worked to become the sheriff in 1897, of Chestertown, after he was nominated by the GOP. After his victory, he was congratulated by state capitol employees who said he is endeared to everyone in the building because of his kindness and courtesy with “the capitol work” he had done. By 1898 when he was listed with his amount of compensation, he was listed a supervisor in Warren County. He was even sued in 1899 by George E. Morehouse to recover the value of an unknown amount of hay, and in a different suit by Mary A. Hammond, possibly related to his sister Hattie Mills who married Hannibal Hammond.

Joseph was a dedicated Republican as newspapers attest. In 1894 he was a “second teller” at the Republican County Convention held in Warrenburg’s Hocksday Hall and was a representative at a convention the following year for Chester. In 1896, the state chapter of the GOP nominated him for supervisor in Chester. So the party seemed to respect him as well.

On November 29, 1899, Joseph wrote his last will and testament. Living in Caldwell, he first ordered his executors to pay his funeral expenses and “just debts.” He secondly gave all of his property to his brother John C. Mills, while saying that daughters of this brother, Bessie and Lenita, would be granted the portions of his estate which he had bequeathed to John C. He finally appointed his brother John C., his friend Frank S. Packard, and his friend Jesse S. Smith as executors of his estate. This was different from the time many year earlier Joseph named a horse he owned “Edward Mills” hilariously enough. After all, he was apparently a “gentleman well known throughout the county.” This John C. Mills was likely the same mentioned in 1895 article as a steward at the Grand Hotel in Binghamton.

On May 5, 1900, Joseph died at age 56 and was buried in the Pottersville New Cemetery in Warren County. Only three years prior it was reported in the paper that he was sick at Lake George “for some time” and had recovered while an obituary that year in the Washington County Post in North White Creek, NY reported he had been confined in his room in his official residence in Caldwell after being in ill health for months and suffering from pulmonary trouble. He had spent the previous winter in Virginia in hopes of improving his condition, which had been horrible for years, but this did not happen. Joseph was so prominent that his funeral was “largely attended” and held at the courthouse in Caldwell. Not everyone has a funeral at a town courthouse!

After his death, the Daily Times of Troy, NY announced the death of Joseph in Caldwell, calling him a sheriff of Warren County. The same year, the Glens Falls Morning Star printed a notice honoring Joseph by members of a Masonic lodge, noting that “it has pleased God...to permit death to enter our chapter once more and remove from our midst or worthy brother, Joseph B. Mills.” By July 1900, Joseph’s last will and testament was executed. At that time, Frank S. Packard prayed for the probate of the will (perhaps because Joseph’s estate was over $2,000) listed in a letter of administration and testamentary, and the next of kin were listed as “Bessie Mills, Lenita Mills, Robert Packard, Charles Packard, Marian Packard, Mable Packard, John Packard & Margaret Packard,” with a man named W.L. Kiley appointed “special guardian” to “take care of their interests in this proceeding.” These individuals, apart from Bessie and Lenita Mills, were the children of Dora and Cyrus. This record also seems to say that, at least legally, RBM II’s last name was still Packard at the time, unless the person writing it down got it wrong.

The obituaries of Joseph told a bit about him and the Mills family. The one printed in Troy New York’s Daily Times, on May 7, 1900, was short, but included interesting tidbits:

Sheriff Joseph B. Mills...had always been an active Republican...for a number of years he held a position under the Superintendent of Public Buildings in Albany. He was born in Bolton, but had lived in Pottersville from his early youth. He was a millwright by trade. Sheriff Mills was a man of unquestioned integrity and a most aggressive political opponent. He was unmarried and is survived by six brothers and sisters, John [C.] Mills of Caldwell, Robert B. Mills of Cincinnati, Edward [E.] Mills of Colorado, Thomas Mills of California, Mrs. Thomas Cosgrove [Margaret E. Mills] of Providence, R.I.[,] and Mrs. Packard [Dora Mills?] of Massachusetts. He was a member of the Glen Dale Lodge...of Pottersville and a life member of the Glens Falls Chapter, R.A.M., of Glens Falls.

The Morning Star of Glens Falls printed an obituary on the same day titled “Death of Sheriff Mills.” It was significantly longer. While naming the same siblings, it said he was survived by “four brothers and two sisters.” It was also noted that he was born in Bolton, moved to Pottersville when “quite young” to a place considered the family home ever since, that he learned the millwright trade and was a farmer when he didn’t hold public office. Beyond this, he was described as a man of “the strictest integrity” and one of “most aggressive of foes” engaging in fair methods as he had a “positive character. The Warrenburg News had a similar obituary published on May 10, titled “Obituary.” It did say however that Joseph was a “man of strict integrity and possessed many admirable traits of character.”

In May 1901, at the meeting of the Warren County Board of Supervisors, Robert Laurie Esq. addressed the board “relative to a claim of estate of Joseph B. Mills” which was partially rejected by the board.

While the photographs of Joseph B. Mills are missing from the office of the Warren County Sheriff, as of 2010, he will continue to be remembered in this family history and elsewhere as he was in a 1911 article in the Daily Times of Glens Falls celebrating Warren County’s 100th year anniversary.

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