Individual Details

Miscellaneous

The Milliken Family of Mifflin County, PA
From data in possession of various members of this family, the name of Milliken can be traced to Saxon origin as far back as the thirteenth century, If we may rely on well-authenicated tradition and imperfect church records, the name is of earlier date, as following the conquest of that most warlike branch of the Tentonic race, into France, thence to England, Scotland, and north of Ireland. An old history of Renfrewshire, Scotland, makes considerable mention of the Milliken family their residence, called "Milliken Place," and the estate, called "Milliken Barony." Unfortunately many valuable records, relating to the early history of this family, were destroyed with "Milliken Place" by fire in the last century; the estate was shortly afterwards vested by inheritance in Sir Robert John Milliken Napier, of Milliken, a great-great- grandson of Maj. James Milliken, founder of the Milliken estate in Scotland. About the beginning of the seventeenth century Robert John Milliken, a younger son of Maj. James Milliken, founder of the Scottish estate of that name, removed from Scotland to the north of Ireland, where he purchased an estate near Dromore, County Down. To him, among other children was born a son, James, who married Elizabeth Davis, and in 1772, when quite old, removed to America and settled on the Conewago, not far from the present city of Harrisburg. He soon after died, leaving issue, one son of James Milliken last, above mentioned, and born on his father's estate near Dromore, Ireland, in 1746. He preceded his father, coming to America in 1763, and was the founder of the Milliken name n Eastern Pennsylvania. He settled on the Schuylkill river near Philadelphia, and being imbud with the mercantile spirit of that day, engaged in the manufacture and sale of linen. In the course of his business he made may trips to Ireland, and on returning from one of this trips, was accompanied to America by his father, James Milliken, above mentioned.

Birth

Robert John Milliken, said to have been an uncle of James Milliken Esq., first of the Milliken barony, Renfrewshire, Scotland, was a native of Ayrshire and a scion of an old and respectable family of agricultural persuits, who early established themselves on the southern border of Caledonia. In consequence of religious persecution he, with others of the name, when, a young man removed to the north of Ireland and sat down not distant from Dromore, in the County of Down, where he married Agness MacFarland, descended from an old titled Scottish clan through a junior branct settled in Ireland during the early years of the Plantation of Ulster. There are some reasons for believing that this Robert Milliken was twice married and that sons and daughters were born to him before the advent of James and Hugh through whose letters the name of theri father was found by kindred in America. The fragmentary and disconnected parish records extant, now deposited in Dublin, are not sufficiently complete to establish full genealogical associations; besides, the frequent occurence of the same Chrishian names, of contemporary dates, renders the idenification of iddividuals exceedingly difficult; this hoilds good also with census return records kept in Belfast.