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BIOGRAPHICAL AND PORTRAIT CYCLOPEDIA

Masons, Greensburg; William Penn Lodge, No. 50, United Order of American Workmen, of Penn station; Council No. 79, junior Order of American Mechanics, of South Fork, and Corona Lodge, No. 999, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of Conemaugh, of which he is a charter member and Past Grand.     During the late Civil War Mr. Wilson enlisted in September, 1862, in Colonel Jack's regiment, of Westmoreland county, and, after serving two months, was discharged on account of defective sight in the right eye. Active in church and party, and prominent in lodge, as well as patriotic in the Civil War, Joseph P. Wilson has never neglected any duty in his line of work, and has made investments in coal lands and coal enterprises that have become valuable. He is a member of the Mountain Coal company, owning nine thousand acres of good coal land in Adams township, which is now operated by individual coal companies on a royalty. He also owns a one-third interest in a seven hundred-acre tract of coal land in Adams township. He is superintendent of the Dunlo Coal company, of Dunlo, and president of the South Fork Supply and Water companies. When Mr. Wilson entered the coal field it was by severe struggles that men earned a competency, but the cramped conditions of the past have yielded to the wonderful demands of the present, and possibilities have become realities. He is a genial and companionable man, kind but firm, and generous but just. Mr. Wilson has permanently linked his name with the most successful business men of Cambria county, being a man of executive ability and great capacity for looking after the various details of an immense and complicated enterprise.

DR. A. J. MILLER, a successful medical practitioner of Cambria county, located at Portage, is a son of Andrew and Mary (Seymore) Miller, and was born in Carroll township, Cambria county, April 8, 1858. He is of German ancestry, his grandfather, John Miller, having emigrated from Germany when a young man. He located in Bedford county, Pennsylvania, and followed the trade of a blacksmith. Later in life he removed to Cambria county, where he died when about forty years old.     Andrew Miller, the father of the gentleman whose name heads this sketch, was born near Bedford, Bedford county, in 1821. He was educated in the old subscription schools of those early days, when the scholastic advantages were extremely limited. Early in life he began to work on a farm, and having decided likings for agricultural pursuits he became a tiller of the soil and followed farming all his life. When the Civil War threatened the destruction of the Union he gave his services to the country, and enlisted in company B, Sixteenth regiment, Pennsylvania volunteers, and served about one year, receiving his discharge in 1865. He is now located on a farm near Carrolltown, this county, and lives a comparatively retired life. The Carrolltown Water works are located on a portion of his property. In politics, Mr. Miller, Sr., is a democrat, and while taking a personal interest in all local affairs, he has never sought nor held office. He is a consistent member of the Roman Catholic church, to which he gives liberal support.     His marriage with Mary Seymore, a daughter of Nicholas Seymore, of Cambria county, has resulted in the birth of thirteen children, ten of whom are now living.     A. J. Miller received his elementary education in the public schools of his district, and

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