Dewitt Miller (March 1, 1857 – July 29, 1911) was an educator, librarian, journalist, minister, orator, and book collector.
Early life and education
Jahu Dewitt Miller was born in
Cross River, New York Cross River is a hamlet within the town of Lewisboro, New York, at the northern end of Westchester County
Westchester County is located in the U.S. state of New York. It is the seventh most populous county in the State of New York and the mos ...
on March 1, 1857 to Jahu and Phebe (Seymour) Miller. His father was a farmer and blacksmith.
Miller attended public schools and in 1871 he entered the
Collegiate Institute A collegiate institute is an institution that provides either secondary or post-secondary education, dependent on where the term is used. In Canada, the term is used to describe an institutions that provide secondary education, while the word is us ...
at
Fort Edward, New York
Fort Edward is a town and the county seat of Washington County, New York, United States. The population was 10,205 at the 2011 census. The municipal center complex is on U.S. Route 4 between the villages of Hudson Falls and Fort Edward. . Upon graduation, he immediately became a member of the faculty. Although known by his first name, Miller used his middle name professionally.
Occupations
Miller briefly worked as a freelance journalist and as a shipping clerk in a
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
mercantile. In 1880, he returned to teaching as "Professor of History and Mental Philosophy" at Pennington Seminary in
Pennington, New Jersey
Pennington is a borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. The borough is located at the cross-roads between the Delaware Valley region to the south and the Raritan Valley region to the north. As of the 2010 United States Census, th ...
. Miller was also a lay minister in the Methodist denomination, and his sermons were so popular that he left the pulpit for the lecture platform. Among his "popular lectures" were "The Uses of Ugliness", "Our Country's Possibilities and Perils", "The Self-Sufficiency of the Republic", and "The Reveries of a Bachelor". Miller had a very casual style of dressing and rarely wore a hat, which was very unusual for American men at the time. When he did wear a hat, it was usually his antiquated white beaver hat. His dress and his wit often led others to characterize him as a humorous lecturer, which he did not like. "I am not a humorous lecturer," he stated, "Things present themselves to me in a certain light. I state them as I see them. For some reason or other people laugh. But I am not a humorous lecturer!"
Personal library
Miller was an obsessive
book collector
Book collecting is the collecting of books, including seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever books are of interest to a given collector. The love of books is ''bibliophilia'', and someo ...
, which began in his youth. About 1888, he started to appreciate books as works of art by collecting the works of
William Pickering. Miller amassed a nearly-comprehensive collection of the works of
John Baskerville
John Baskerville (baptised 28 January 1707 – 8 January 1775) was an English businessman, in areas including japanning and papier-mâché, but he is best remembered as a printer and type designer. He was also responsible for inventing "wov ...
.
Although Miller was often heard to say "I care nothing for first editions", he owned many and compared first edition copies he owned to those that sold for high prices at auction. His biographer, Leon H. Vincent stated, "No one has heard him say that he cared nothing for his first edition of
Boswell's ''
Johnson
Johnson is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin meaning "Son of John". It is the second most common in the United States and 154th most common in the world. As a common family name in Scotland, Johnson is occasionally a variation of ''Johnston'', a ...
''. When news came of the splendid sum fetched by
Gray
Grey (more common in British English) or gray (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is "without color", because it can be composed o ...
's ''
Elegy
An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...
'' at the Hoe sale, Miller got out his copy for inspection and comment. A very good copy it was, and cost him nearly three dollars."
Throughout his life, Miller kept his collections in several locations and always traveled with many books. The bulk of his collection was kept in an unused country store at
Carmel, New York
Carmel (pronounced ) is a Town (New York), town in Putnam County, New York, Putnam County, New York (state), New York, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the town had a population of 33,576. The town may have been named after Mo ...
where his sister was the "caretaker". In January 1902, this collection became a library at
National Park Seminary
National Park Seminary — later called National Park College — was a private girls' school open from 1894 to 1942. Located in Forest Glen Park, Maryland, its name alludes to nearby Rock Creek Park. The historic campus is to be preserved as t ...
, a girls' school in
Forest Glen Park, Maryland
Forest Glen Park is an unincorporated community in Montgomery County, Maryland and a residential neighborhood within the Silver Spring census-designated place. The community is adjacent to Rock Creek, Rock Creek Regional Park, and to the Uni ...
, founded by his friends John and Vesta Cassedy. The library remained at National Park Seminary until the property was condemned by the U.S. Army during World War II, when the contents were dispersed at a public sale. The building was renovated in May 2008 as a single-family home.
Death
Miller was in good health until a month before his death. He became ill while attending a
chautauqua
Chautauqua ( ) was an adult education and social movement in the United States, highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The Chautauqua bro ...
in
Boise, Idaho
Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown are ...
, and his subsequent appearances in
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
were canceled. Miller died in Boise on July 29, 1911 and was buried on August 7, 1911 in Cross River, New York. The cause of death was given as heart failure.
[Vincent, p. 147]
Published works
* ''The Farmer and His Future'' (Poughkeepsie, NY: Eastman College), 1898.
ontains Miller's essay, "Love, Courtship and Marriage".
Notes
References
* ''First Editions and Superb Association Books: Selections from the Collection of the Late Jahu Dewitt Miller ... to be dispersed at public sale on December 5 and 6'' (New York: s.n.), 1934.
* ''The Library of the Late Fred R. Drake, Easton, Pennsylvania ... Collection of the Late Jahu DeWitt Miller ... Incunabula from the Library of Nathan Comfort Starr ... Books Collected by the Late Harry F. Kanter ... Collection of the Late V. Winthrop Newman ...'' (New York:
American Art Association
The American Art Association was an art gallery and auction house with sales galleries, established in 1883.
It was first located at 6 East 23rd Street (South Madison Square) in Manhattan, New York City and moved to Madison Ave and 56th St. in ...
,
Anderson Galleries
Anderson or Andersson may refer to:
Companies
* Anderson (Carriage), a company that manufactured automobiles from 1907 to 1910
* Anderson Electric, an early 20th-century electric car
* Anderson Greenwood, an industrial manufacturer
* Anderson Ra ...
, Inc.), 1935.
ale catalog* Vincent, Leon H. ''Dewitt Miller: A Biographical Sketch'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Riverside Press), 1912.
External links
Miller Library at National Park Seminary
Online edition of Leon H. Vincent's biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Dewitt
1857 births
1911 deaths
American book and manuscript collectors
People from Lewisboro, New York
People from Fort Edward, New York