I did it again. Fred Eggers was scheduled to do the blog for yesterday, February 17th, but I forgot about it and wrote my own post. So, today you are getting the post that Fred wrote for February 17th. It is a great article about a person that Fred actually got to know in his childhood days. I know you will enjoy it. I just changed one word. “Today” was changed to “yesterday”.

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The origin of the blog was a text discussion about a month ago with several of my friends, including Perry County Sheriff Jason Klaus. One person raised a question regarding the education of law enforcement officers in our area in the past and the
discussion went on to sixteen text posts including at least a dozen individuals. That discussion made me think about the people that I knew that have served as the Sheriff of Perry County in my lifetime. The late Sheriff Gary J. Schaff, who served from 1997 until his retirement in 2022, provided a history of the department in the Perry County Missouri Bicentennial book published by the Perry County Historical Society. He included a list of the Sheriffs from 1921 to 2021.

I recognized all the Sheriffs that had served during my lifetime and that I knew them all on a personal level except the first, Sheriff William F. Milner. However, I did have some memories of him and decided to research his life and career. I will get to my memories later, but this is the history of Sheriff William “Bill” Milner. Sheriff Milner was born on February 17, 1884, in or near the former town of Claryville in the Bois Brule bottom across the Mississippi River from Chester, Illinois. Yesterday would have been his 142nd birthday. His grandfather, Jefferson Milner, who was born in North Carolina and had lived in Mississippi, migrated to Perry County following the Civil War and his service in the Union Army in the 1st Alabama Cavalry. Bill Milner’s father, John Hudson Milner, was born in Itawamba County, Mississippi in 1851 and died in Perry County in 1893. Sheriff Milner appears in the 1900 census at the age of 16, living with his mother and his siblings in Bois Brule Township.

In the 1910 census he is living with his mother, a brother, and a brother-in-law’s family in the Village of Claryville, and is listed as a farmer.

Milner started his law enforcement career when he was appointed as Constable of Brule Bois Township in February 1911. Each of Perry County’s eight townships had a constable that was elected every two years. They were under the supervision of the county sheriff and were charged with maintaining law and order in their jurisdiction.

On March 28, 1914, he married Emma Isabelle Dorthea Gerlach in Perryville, Missouri. We have both a copy of their Marriage Certificate and a photo of the couple with their attendants, who were his brother and her sister.

In 1916, Milner became the mail carrier to distribute the mail in Perry County from Chester, Illinois. The mail would have arrived at Chester by railroad or steamboat, and he would have picked up the mail and taken it to the post offices in the area.

His 1918 draft registration gives his residence as Claryville and his occupation as Mail Carrier.

He is listed in the 1920 census as a mail carrier with his wife and two daughters, Sarah and Willetta.

About 1920, Milner began working as the pilot of the river ferry between Claryville and Chester. An article from 1942 gave some of the history of the ferry and stated that Bill Milner had been the pilot for twenty-two years.

The 1930 census lists him as a farmer in Bois Brule Township with his wife and four children, Sarah age 15, Willetta age 13, John age 8, and Louise age 2.

He is listed as a Ferry Pilot in the 1940 census with his wife and their two youngest children, but he is now living in the Goose Creek area in St. Mary’s Township west of Perryville.

In 1941 Milner was issued a License as a Ferry Pilot by the United States Department of Commerce. I do not know if this was under new regulations or if this was a renewal at that time. We can see the license and a photo of him that is believed to be for that
license.

His draft registration gives his address on Route 4, Perryville and his employer is R. H. Grah of Chester, who was the owner of the ferry.

The Milner’s son, John, died in August 1943. He had been invalid and confined to a wheelchair for several years following a horse-riding accident. There was a notice of his death in the newspaper, and we have a photo of him.

The ferry closed when the new Chester Bridge opened in August 1942. I could find no record of what Milner did for the next couple of years, except farming. In April 1944 he announced that he was a candidate for Sheriff. Lon Mecker, the Sheriff at that time chose not to run for reelection. There were six candidates for the office, all Republicans. Milner won the election in a close race.

The 1950 census lists him and his wife living in the Perry County Jail which at that time was located on Spring Street in Perryville. There is also a family photo with him and his wife and daughters from that era.

He served as Sheriff for three terms, winning reelection in 1948 and 1952. Perry County was a low crime area in those days, but we can display a headline for a jailbreak in 1950. We also have a campaign ad for him from a 1952 newspaper.

Sheriff Milner retired from office when his term expired in 1956. There were eight candidates for the election that year. Sylvester “Dutch” Zahner was elected to replace Milner. Zahner had previously served as a Deputy Sheriff and Deputy City Marshal of Perryville and had worked as a security guard at the Atlas TNT plant in Weldon Springs during World War II.

William F. “Bill” Milner died on April 3, 1958, at his residence in rural Perryville. His obituary in the newspaper gave some details of his life and death, including his years as a ferry pilot and as Sheriff.

Now back to my memories of Sheriff Milner. Since my father served as Probate and Magistrate Judge of Perry County for 28 years, including the time that Milner served as Sheriff, I made frequent visits to the Courthouse and remembered seeing the Sheriff
there. Sheriff Milner did not hide out in his office to avoid public attention. Instead, he was seated just inside the North entrance to the building sitting on a slatted wooden bench. He had his telephone mounted on a wall next to him and there was a spittoon on the floor next to the bench, probably to collect the ashes from his always present corncob pipe. I came across his only campaign ad that was in both county newspapers when he first ran for office in 1944 and I remembered another thing, he always greeted everyone with a friendly, “Howdy”!

I have not yet visited the new Joint Justice Center in Perryville, so I do not know where our current Sheriff, Jason Klaus, is located, but I doubt that he is as accessible as Sheriff Milner was in his time in office.