The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 44, July 1940 - April, 1941 Page: 407

THE SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
VOL. XLIV APRIL, 1941 No. 4
THE LIFE OF COLONEL R. T. MILNER'
ROSALIND LANGSTON
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION
On June 21, 1851, in Cherokee County, Alabama, there was
born at the plantation home of Mary and Arnold Milner their
third son, Robert Teague. Four or five months later the young
parents and their children, Williamson, Henry Bowden, and the
baby, Robert T., turned their backs upon Alabama and set
their faces westward, bound for a new home and sanguine pros-
pects in Texas. Upon reaching East Texas, Arnold Milner
stopped. He, like many newcomers, pursued the course of least
resistance, or what appeared to be this course. East Texas at
that time offered great opportunity and was easy of access.
After a brief inspection of the available land, Arnold Milner
chose the site of his family's future home upon a steep hillside
that looked down upon a small creek which encircled its base.
There, seven miles east of the town of Henderson, he broke
land for tillage and on that land he spent the thirty-two years
constituting the remainder of his life.
Arnold Milner's ancestors were descendants of English,
Scotch, and Irish stock. The English branch, bearing the name
"Milner," came to the new world before the days of the Revo-
lution.2 William H. Milner, Robert T.'s grandfather, a native
'Acknowledgment of valuable aid is hereby rendered to Mr. E. W. Winkler,
bibliographer in The University of Texas Library, and to Mrs. R. T. Milner,
without whose scrap book of Colonel Milner's early writings this biography
could hardly have been written. Even more do I owe Colonel Milner,
who made my work easy by portraying his own character through his
writings and actions in such a vigorous manner that there was little need
for elaboration on my part.
Where I have used quoted materials, I have refrained from the use of
learned abbreviations to indicate mistakes noted in the text. These quota-
tions have been checked carefully against errors of the writer and are as
true to the originals as they could be made.
2L. E. Daniell, Personnel of the Texas State Government, (1887), 157.