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returned with their glowing accounts of the land beyond the mountains.
Adam listened with deep interest to the descriptions of the Valley where
a native grass grew on which buffalo fattened, where game lived all year
and where a forest fringed the fertile valleys. He decided to go with
some hunters and he found the kind of land which he wanted. Before he
returned to Lancaster he had built a rude log cabin. He returned home by
way of Williamsburg, and soon his wife and sister were getting ready to
set forth. Many of his German neighbors were interested also, and
historians claim he was the first German to build near Massanutten
Mountain.

His neighbors were Abram Strickler, Mathias Selser, Phillip Long, Paul
Long, Michael Rinehart, and Jonathan Rood. Some give the date of this
settlement as early as 1726. Adam Miller took out his naturalization
papers a few years later and today, the visitor may read the quaint
document hanging on the walls of the Miller home, near Elkton, Virginia.

His log cabin was soon outgrown. He was a good farmer and his wife and
sister helped him. His crops were larger each year. Besides, Adam was a
business man. He secured a large land grant and he soon was selling off
farms to other Germans who came from Pennsylvania and from Germany.

The Millers built a larger home and they bought some good sturdy
furniture to replace the crude tables and chairs which were home-made.
They took pleasure in getting the home all ready before they moved into
it. They had even spread the beds with the new hand-woven coverlets
which his wife and sister had made during the long winter nights. The
next night they would sleep in their new home. But during the night, a
fire broke out--no one ever knew its origin--and everything was
destroyed before the family woke up!

The Millers were undaunted, so they built again. We are told what good
neighbors there were in those days. The men took their own axes and cut
down the trees. They dressed the lumber, sawed the timbers by careful
measurements, laid foundations, and built chimneys. It did not take so
long to build a house. The visitor today will see a big white house on
the road between Luray and Elkton, almost beneath the shadow of old
Massanutten Mountain. He will see the marker which tells him that this
house was built by the Miller family. Inside, the visitor will see
priceless early American furniture. He will see rosewood and later
Empire furniture, too, as o