The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-04-24
DARIUS MILLER RECALLS PRICES
 OF CIVIL WAR
(Hartford Times)

Darius Miller, who has been in l business here nearly 70 years and who | will be 89 years old in October, came across some war price lists of dry goods, issued in New York city, Aug ust 27, 1864, among his papers the other day. They were marked flor this day only" indicating that the prices of goods were changing from | day to day in those times as they are now.
 In the prints, the purchaser would f have found on that midsummer day, a good assortment but at prices which were almost prohibfttve. Cocheco prints were selling at 50 cents a yard and Amoskeag shirting at Al cents. In ginghams, the lowest priced was the Roanoke, selling at Al cents yard. Canton flannel was 80 cents a yard and upward. Dentns you could buy as low as AS cents, but the May maker brand cost TO cents a yard. Brown sheeting was 55 cents a yard and more. Bleached cotton was bringing A cents for the Plainfeld and Il cents for the Androscoggin For the sheeting and pillow cases it would have cost you $1.60 a yard for the Pepperell, S1.35 for the Monad- nook, while the Waltham could be purchased for 65 cents a yard. It was little wonder the people in those days complained they could carry their money to market in wheel barrow and bring home their pur- chases in their pocketbooks.
 When asked if he recalled the bus mess situation during the Civil war nE T FNT~- get that Prices were very high. He get a substitute.
 q had business, and I couldn't go to war" said Mir Miller. His brother, Frank Miller of the City bank of Bridgeport, and who is younger served in the Civil war, how ever.
 In the Late 4O's
 When MT. Miller came here from Middletown, in the late 40's, where he had been a clerk in the dry goods store of Patrick Pagan, the square in front of his store where the sold ier's monument now is was a swamp: Near the '. M. c. A. was one house. A little to the north was another house. Down near the South church was another store. That is about all there was. There were no sidewalks and in the spring the mud was ankle deep in front of the store. In the entire community, perhaps, there = were 5000 people.
 When MT. Miller bought the land to the south of his store, to erect the block where he now lives, he paid f but SAP a front foot for it. That was in the sos What it is worth now is problematical, but if person back F in the sos could have looked many years into the future they could hard } ly have chosen with keener judge ment a tract of land that would in crease in value. This is but another = testimony to the unerring discern ment which has marked all of MT.
 Millers business transactions, and 5 which has made him a marked man | in New Britain, and almost prover- U bial in matters pertaining to sagac- l ity and foresight.
 New Britain people have wondered 5 many times, perhaps, why the store s which he now occupies is but one [ story high. MT. Miller laughs about . this when you ask him. He owns
 the fine high block just south of the
 store, and has occupied one of the
 floors of this building many years
 as his home. The First church some
 years ago owned the land where his
 one-story building now is. The d church was in debt and was planning
 to sell the land. MT. Miller knew
 that if some one else bought it he }, would erect a large block which = would cut ofA the view and light from the windows of his home in the n block just to the south.
 "So I bought it myself chuck1ed U MT. Miller, ''and built this nine-pi1
 alley of a store.
 c One-StOry Building.
 That is why visitors to New Brit. y ain see a one-stoFy building on one L. of the most valuable business sites
 in town remaining as tranquilly upor t it's costly location as if it were a. ten.
 story block All New Britain knows !, though, that if MT. Miller wants tc u indulge himself in this way he car F afford to do so. His holdings have
 been variouSly estimated, but they
 are very large and have been ac
 quired through an almost uncanny
 understanding of the future in busi
 ness enterprises. His advice is sough
 by many now and he gives it a
 pleasantly and as graciously as if h, = were conferring no favor at all. H. Q is one of the kindeSt-disposed ant
 simplest men one could meet.
 e MT. Miller casts just a bit of gloon h over the future. He says taxes arr
 to be enormous in the days that ar t- to come, and public improvement .o will have to suffer. There will be n
 money available for them. He ha d faith in the industries in New Britail
 however, and considers some of then
 as very low now and a good buy. 'e For more than fifty years MT. Mil I Ter has been a reader of the Hartforr
 Times. He can recall the days whe,
 he had to go into Hartford to get tn D. paper. He recalls with vividness tn issues of the New York Herald, dur
 ing the Civil war, which carried re
 markable reports of the war doing
 and which established an enviabI
 reputation for the paper.
 In the early days here his brothe
 Charles, and a young man name Ut Peck, were his clerks. Finally the Ic wanted to start in business for them 1" selves and went to Waterbury an le opened the Miller and Peck dry good
 store. Most Connecticut people knoy
 what the result was. With the Mid IS, as-touch that seems to be the gift C ,o these remarkable brothers the bus 10 nesss prospered enormously and whe h. Charles Miller died several years az lg lions The Miller & Peci to etore e"A ln fO ha 6oiDp 1,,,e