His Obituary read as follows: "Like a River of Water in a dry place, Like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land" No other words could more fitly describe the life and character of Daniel McMillan in the community where he resided.

Scotland bred his father in a time when Covenanters and Puritans were made, men of iron-conscious hammered out upon the anvil of adversity. The noble characteristics of a sterling ancestry were transmitted and indelibly stamped upon the son. He was a man of deep religious conviction, and exacting conscious, stern probity and indomitable will. No one could justly say of him that he ever countenanced or did an unjust act. He loved truth and disdained wrong. The stricken-hearted found in him a friend. and the needy a helping hand. His heart, when moved by simpathy, was as tender as a woman's, but when duty called him he was fearless. He had an eye and an iron nerve which few men could withstand whenever he was moved to auction in any matter.

Large-hearted and fearless, he was foremost amoung the few men who first openly stood up against the field of opposition to the freedom of the slaves. He organized the anti-slavery movement in the Genesee Valley in the face of an opposition that burned the buildings in which they met above his head. Smooth-Shaven until Sumter was fired upon, he permitted no razor to touch his face until every slave was free, and ever after he wore his beard as the white badge of freedom.

His father, John McMillan, came from Perthshire, Scotland, during the latter part of the last century and settled in the Mohawk Valley at Johnstown. He had three sons, Duncan, Hugh, and Daniel; and as the two eldest came to manhood they chafed within the narrow limits of their first home and longed for the freedom of the wider range. The fame of the Valley of the Genesee had reached them, and in 1812 the family moved into their forest home and settled at York, on the western slope of this (to them) most beautiful of all the fertile valleys of this or any other country. The first journey from Johnstown to York took 11 days Ten years later the trip was made by carriage over the new state road in five days. The last visit by Daniel to his birthplace was during his 90th year, when the run was made from Buffalo to Fonda, a distance of 254 miles by the Empire Express in five hours.

Daniel was the youngest son. He attended school at Caledonia, and at one time planned to take up the study of medicine, but in 1828 he married Margaret, daughter of Malcolm McNaughton and settled upon a portion of the tract taken up by his father. In this same year, he associated with others and founded the Reformed Presbyterian Congregation of York, of which more than 60 years he was a ruling elder. He was active in the Presbyteries and as late as his ninetieth year he was a delegate to the synods of the Reformed Church.

Born two years after the death of Washington, he lacked less than 7 years of spanning the entire century. His first vote was cast for General Andrew Jackson in 1824, and he lived under every President save two. He knew Red Jacket and sat with him and talked with him about the camp fired 70 years ago in the forests both east and west of the Genesee. He was fond of social companionship and had marked conversational powers. A sincere lover of nature, and of wide range in travel, he had put some of Europe and much of our own country under his feet.

Although his physical strength was depleted, his intellectual vigor continued with him to the end. His life was grand, his death was peaceful--God touched him as he sat at the table dining with his children and grandchildren and the wing of death spread over him and he passed to rest.

As he sleeps in the quiet old churchyard at York the beautiful words his namesake and kinsman seem most appropriate:

"The wind amoung the gravestones softly creeping, Breathes in low sighs the grief it fears to tell. The clouds in sable garb bend o'er him weeping, sent by the hand of Him he loved so well."

Of his ten children, seven lived to maturity, but none survive him save his son, the Honorable Daniel H. McMillan of Buffalo, and Mrs. John Ackroyd West of Peoria, Illinois. His sons, the Hon. Malcolm M. McMillan, and Duncan McMillan died in Boonville, MO. in 1880; John D. died in early manhood in 1854; Anna F. wife of A.F. McKean of York, died in 1871, and Mary C. wifeof the Hon. John H. Hamilton of Rush, died in 1876.
-His House in York was still standing at least as late as 1927.
-McMillan family gravestone is 8 feet highat the Scotch Covenanter's Cemetery
-"Our Country and it's people: a descriptive work on erie county, ny", 1899 entry for Daniel H. Mcmillan says he is a lineal descent of Alexander Mcmillan, whose monumental cross still stands in the family burial ground at Kilmory, scotland. His grandfather was called "john the upright" arbiter of the hollanders in the Mowhawk Valley. "There is a richly sculptured cross in the church yard at Kilmory Knapdale, twelve feet high, on one side of which is a Highland chief hunting a deer and an inscription in Latin in old Saxon letters "Here is the cross of Alexander McMillan." The McMillans obtained most of their possessions in Knapdale by marriage with the heiress of the chief of the McNeils in the sixteenth century.
-Daniel's birthdate was 9-14-1802 although his obit says that it was 10-23-02, and his gravestone says 1801. 9-14-1802 comes directly from the church records in Johnstown.


Sources:
-Birth Source: References Above, American Compendium of genealogy
-Marriage Source:
-Death Source: Will Probate documents.
-1880 US Census : Listed as "retired farmer" in 1880 census, having Irish servant Martha Simpson
-1870 US Census : YOrk, NY with wife, the Hamiltons, and Moses Boyd
-1860 US Census : York, NY
-1850 US Census : York, NY


E-mail Joe C. for any additions/questions!