Adam Miller

Who was Adam Miller?

With residency beginning in 1727, Adam Miller is recognized as the first permanent settler in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, USA. Born in 1703 in Schriesheim, Germany, Miller immigrated to America as a young married man, settling in Lancaster County, PA in 1724.

On a trip through eastern Virginia, Miller heard reports about a lush Valley to the west which had been discovered by Governor Alexander Spotswood's legendary Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition. In 1727, Miller and his wife Barbara moved from Pennsylvania to Virginia and staked out a claim on the south fork of the Shenandoah River, near the line that now divides Rockingham County from Page County.

The year of Miller’s 1727 arrival in the Valley is confirmed in a 1742 naturalization proclamation by Virginia Governor William Gooch, which states, “And Adam Miller . . . having Settled and Inhabited for fifteen years past on Shenandoa in this colony. . . .” Miller’s birthplace is also cited in the proclamation, which notes that he was “born at Shesoin in Germany,” but the correct spelling of “Schriesheim” is cited on the reverse side of the original document, written out and signed by Adam Miller.²²