By Carol Powell

Louis Clair Miller was an ex-constable and himself a troublemaker in Prescott who was jailed for forging a check in 1897. In last week's Days Past, I began the final chapter of his life story.

Miller became an accessory to murder while participating in an 1897 Prescott jailbreak with Fleming "James" Parker. A deputy district attorney for Yavapai County was killed during the escape. Louis thus became an accomplice to murder and was a fugitive outlaw. He was apprehended and returned to Prescott. After his trial, Louis spent years in the Yuma Territorial Prison but was eventually paroled and went to Park City, Utah, where he was critically injured in a mining accident in 1913 that cost him his sight as well as his right hand. After being released from the hospital, he married his nurse, Emma Schultz.

My interest in Miller started because he was the brother of my husband's grandfather. When I began researching the family history, he was just a name on a list of ancestors. His older sister, Pearl, had married Fletcher Fairchild, a lawman in Flagstaff. I found bits and pieces of information, finally putting the puzzle together. As I followed each clue, it became a game. I imagined them and their lives, and I had to find the next chapter so I could finish the story! It was a paper chase.

I find it amazing that so many relatives kept newspaper articles. My brother-in-law in California faxed me the story about Louis meeting his wife in the hospital after almost dying in the mine accident. I met Prescott-area historian Parker Anderson online because of his interest in the hanging of Fleming Parker on June 3, 1898. I had become very interested in the life of Fletcher Fairchild, a lawman of high integrity until he was put to the test. Fletcher was married to Louis Miller's older sister and, after the jailbreak in 1897, Louis headed for Jerome where he hid at the home of another sister. After finding his brother-in-law hiding in Jerome, Deputy Fletcher put his unflinching standards aside and secured a private conveyance for him to the jail in Flagstaff to protect him from any mob violence. He also aided in the return of Louis Miller to Prescott for the trial. In the late 1890s, the story of Fleming Parker overshadowed any interest in Miller, but historian Anderson and I both think the life of Louis Clair Miller was the true remarkable adventure.

So what became of Louis Clair Miller after he was blinded in the Utah mine explosion? There is no evidence that anyone in Park City, Utah, realized that the unfortunate miner had once been the man who broke jail with Fleming Parker in Arizona some 16 years earlier. After the accident, he and his wife Emma moved to Seattle, Wash., and then Portland, Ore., where Louis operated some businesses and became a speaker on German-American relations and other domestic political issues! A newspaper from 1916 carried a notice that read: "Blind Orator Will Lecture. Louis Miller, a blind orator from Arizona, will give a series of lectures relating to political economy covering a period of three days from December 13 to 15 inclusive, in the Keystone Hall, Eighth Ave. and Madison Street." Earlier that year, on Feb. 26, 1916, he lectured at the Seattle Press Club and spoke about people working out their own destiny by casting a vote.

In 2009, Louis' great-granddaughter contacted me with the details of his final years. Her mother, the only grandchild of Louis and Emma Miller, had kept newspaper articles and mementos of his speeches. In his lifetime, Louis C. Miller's name appeared in newspapers for various things in Arizona, Washington, Oregon and Utah. There's no evidence that anyone in his later life connected the dots of his involvement with the Prescott jailbreak and subsequent prison time. He lived an extraordinary life, but upon his death in Portland in March of 1932, his wife, Emma, was the informant on his death certificate and listed his occupation as a lifelong civil engineer in the mining industry until his accident in 1913. Actually, he had worked as a miner only several months!

One wonders if Emma ever knew about his checkered past in Arizona. Perhaps, she had married and spent eighteen ears with a man she never really knew.

Parker Anderson/Courtesy photo<br>In 2011, Prescott historian Parker Anderson traveled to Portland, Ore., to meet with descendents of Louis C. Miller. While there, he took this photo of Miller’s gravestone.