Elias Mills and Mary Jane Breece

Elias Mills and wife Mary Jane Breece. Original picture provided to me by Frank Crooks, great grandson of Lydia Ruble and Isaac Mills, brother to Elias Mills. 

From the "Mills Family Chronicles by Merelyn J. Cumming

    The first record we find of the Mills family starts with Peter Mills, a hatter from Wales who first settled in North Carolina. He was born in 1800 (three years after George Washington died). He moved to a farm in Lucas County, Iowa, where he met and married Mary Stanley, born 1800. They had four children: Isaac mills, 1825-1873; Elvira (Mills) Powell, 1829-1869, Jane of Allen, Nebraska, and Elias Mills, 1839-1919. It is Peter and Mary's fourth child, Elias, whose descendants are traced in these chronicles.

    Peter's son, Elias, was a rather famous, wealthy and prolific father in southern Iowa and northern Missouri. Elias had 18 children, eleven by his first wife, Elizabeth, and seven by his second wife Mary.

    Following is an excerpt from History of Warren County, pages 990-991:   When ten years of age Elias Mills was "bound out" to a Quaker named Joel Paxton, in Jefferson County, Iowa, to which place the family had removed in 1847. He remained with Mr. Paxton until he had attained his majority and then received two suits of jean clothing, a mare worth eighty dollars in money. Subsequently, in 1860, he operated a farm on shares in Jefferson County, receiving a third share. In December, 1860 he removed to Lucas County, Iowa, locating on the farm of his brother, Isaac Mills, which lay partly in Warren County. There he remained throughout the following spring and summer, raising a crop on a neighboring farm.     In the fall of 1861, at Chariton, Iowa, Mr. Mills enlisted as a member of Company C, Thirteenth Iowa Volunteer Infantry, Seventeenth Army Corps. He participated in many important engagements of the war, including the first battle of Shiloh and the engagement at Atlanta. He was also with Sherman on his famous march to the sea and took part in the grand review at Wasington at the close of hostilities. He was three times wounded and at one time his injuries were so serious that he was compelled to spend four months in a hospital at Rome, Georgia. In 1864 he returned to Lucas County, Iowa, on a furlough and was married, but subsequently again joined his comrades on the battlefields of the south, serving in the army until July 31, 1865. Thus for four years he loyally defended the interest of the Union, having re enlisted at the end of this three year's term.     on once more taking up the pursuits of civil life Mr. mills settled on a farm of eighty acres which he had purchased in Lucas county, Iowa being engaged in its operation until 1872, when he came to Liberty Township, Warren County, and has here been successfully and extensively engaged as a farmer and stockman to the present time. He owns and operates his home farm of about seven hundred acres in Warren and Lucas Counties, while his holdings also comprise two hundred and eighty acres in Virginia Township, a tract of land in Missouri and an entire section (a section is a subdivision of land one-mile square, one thirty-sixth of a township) of solid timber in Dallas County.     In addition to his agricultural interest he has also largely engaged in buying, raising, feeding and shipping cattle, hogs and horses, meeting with a most gratifying and enviable measure of success in his undertakings. Since the reorganization of the Bank of Lacona he has served as president of that institution, and is widely recognized as one of Warren County's most influential, prominent and prosperous citizens.     Mr. Mills was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Edwards, who was born in Indiana in 1844, a daughter of Abel and Clarissa (Bennett) Edwards, who resided on the farm on sections 33 and 34, Liberty Township, Warren County, which is now the home of our subject. The Edwards family were comparatively early residents of this county, but the father and mother of Mrs Mills were both deceased, the former passing away in Lucas County in 1895 and the latter in Warren County about 1875. Mrs. Mills was about fifteen years of age when she accompanied her parents on their removal to this county and she acquired her education in the old district school.     By her marriage she became the mother of eleven children, namely: William, of Lincoln Twp. a teacher and coal miner, who is married and has six children; Lucy, who died about 1898, leaving her husband, Ira Stones, and two children to mourn her loss; Eli, who passed away at the age of ten months; Charles Levi who was a farmer of Liberty Twp., and died about 1900, leaving a wife and two children; Laura, who resides at New Virginia, this county, and is the wife of Alva Gripp, by whom she has four children, two who died in infancy; Abel E. of Liberty Twp., who is married and has three children; N. R. (Norvel), an agriculturalist of White Breast Twp., who is likewise married and has three children; Herman, who follows farming near New Virginia and is married and has one child; and Jesse I. of Liberty Center, who is a cashier of the Farmers Savings Bank. Mrs. Elizabeth Mills passed away November 8, 1888, when forty four years of agen, her demise being deeply regretted by many who had come to know and esteem her.  After losing his first wife Mr. Mills was again married, his second union being with Mary J. Breece, of Lucas County. They had seven children, of whom three died in infancy, while those who still survive are Lowell, Zella, Oral and Raymond, aged respectively twelve, ten, eight, and six years.  Mr. Mills has given each of his older children eighteen hundred dollars, thus enabling them to make a good start in life.