Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/208

696 confronted by the same conditions which the majority of young men of that day had to face. He took up his task courageously, and accepted a clerkship in the town of Charlottesville at a salary of fifty dollars per year and board. However, he did not remain for any great length of time upon this small salary, but obtained a better position with T. J. Werntenbaker, at that time the leading clothier and merchant tailor of the town, with whom he remained for about eight years. In January. 1875, Mr. Walker entered business for himself, at Rectortown, Virginia, where he conducted a successful mercantile house for twenty-two years. Retiring from business at Rectortown, in 1897, he returned to Charlottesville, and soon after his return there was appointed city treasurer, and has since been three times elected to that office. While engaged in business in Rectortown he (in conjunction with D. P. Wood) organized and founded at Warrenton, Virginia, the hardware house of D. P. Wood & Company, in which Mr. Walker owns a half interest, and which continues a successful business. He has other important business connections at Charlottesville, being president of the Charlottesville Hardware Company, founded in 1889. He is a director of the Albemarle National Bank and a director in various other enterprises.

A lifetime Democrat, he has never held any political position, unless one should class the office of city treasurer as political. This office, which he yet holds, he has filled one term by appointment and three by election. He is a Mason, an Odd Fellow, a Knight of Pythias, and is a member of other fraternal orders. He is a member of the Christian (or Disciples) church, of which he has been an elder for the last fourteen years, and for a number of years has served as superintendent of the Sunday school.

He married, in Danville, Virginia, in May, 1873, Roberta Carroll, born in Albemarle county, Virginia. daughter of Major Andrew and Mattie C. (Payne) Carroll. While he has attained success and position in the business world, Mr. Walker has won a place in public regard that cannot be estimated in worldly values. He has won this regard by upright dealings with every man and by a consideration for the rights of others that has ever forbidden him to take an unjust advantage. He is interested in the welfare of his community and generously aids by his means and influence the charities and institutions therein located. He now owns and occupies as his home the handsome old colonial home of ex-Governor Gilmer, and is owner of the Walker building, which he erected to meet the needs of the increased business of the Charlottesville Hardware Company, the largest and most modernly equipped business house in the city. He frankly owns that he feels some little pride in the fact that he was able to plant the Walker building on the spot where once stood the house in which he commenced his business life at a salary of four dollars and sixteen cents per month. Godfrey Lewis Miller, M. D. For nearly all of his professional career Dr. Godfrey Lewis Miller has been connected with the city of Winchester, Virginia, as city physician, a half of a century covering the period thus spent. The medical profession has in Virginia no member whose single-hearted devotion to his duty, whether it led him to the homesick or upon the shot-swept battlefield, has more endeared him to the hearts of his people, and the loving regard in which Dr. Miller is held in his home has been engendered by a life of unselfish service, in which love for his fellows has been the dominating force.

The family of which Dr. Miller is a member is of German descent, his father, F. Godfrey Miller, having come to the United States from Saxony, Germany, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, his death occurring when he was sixty-two years of age. He was a merchant of Winchester, Virginia; he married Katherine Elizabeth, daughter of John Shultz, who fought under General Daniel Morgan in the revolutionary war. F. Godfrey and Katherine Elizabeth (Shultz) Miller were the parents of eleven children, one of their sons, Godfrey Lewis, of whom further; the others: John A., a druggist of Mount Jackson, Virginia, a soldier in the Confederate army during the civil war; George F. deceased; and William, deceased; their daughters were: Katherine, Rebecca, Annie, Emily, Elizabeth, Betty.

Dr. Godfrey Lewis Miller, son of F. Godfrey and Katherine Elizabeth (Shultz) Miller, was born in Winchester, Frederick county, Virginia, April 23, 1837. He was a student in private schools and the Angerone Seminary and the Winchester Academy of Winchester. His professional training was