Gerrit Smith Miller (January 30, 1845 – March 10, 1937) was a grandson of and named for the famous

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

, businessman, and philanthropist

Gerrit Smith Gerrit Smith (March 6, 1797 – December 28, 1874), also spelled Gerritt Smith, was a leading American social reformer, abolitionist, businessman, public intellectual, and philanthropist. Married to Ann Carroll Fitzhugh, Smith was a candidat ...

. His parents were Smith's daughter,

Elizabeth Smith Miller Elizabeth Smith Miller ( Smith; September 20, 1822 – May 23, 1911), known as "Libby", was an American advocate and financial supporter of the women's rights movement.NY History Net (April 21, 2011). Biography Elizabeth Smith was born Septembe ...

, and her husband Charles Dudley Miller. He grew up on the family's estate in

Peterboro, New York Peterboro, located approximately southeast of Syracuse, New York, is a historic hamlet and currently the administrative center for the Town of Smithfield, Madison County, New York, United States. Peterboro has a Post Office, ZIP code 13134 ...

, helping his grandfather by hiding escaped slaves in a barn or attic. Starting in October 1860 he attended the school of Epes Sargent Dixwell in Boston, and in 1867 married Dixwell's daughter Susan Hunt Dixwell. (Justice

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (March 8, 1841 – March 6, 1935) was an American jurist and legal scholar who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932.Holmes was Acting Chief Justice of the Un ...

, married a sister.) He enrolled in Harvard in 1865, but set back by health problems, left before graduating; in 1924 the university awarded him a honorary Master of Arts degree. Because of his contribution as founder of the

Oneida Football Club The Oneida Football Club, founded and captained by Gerrit Smith Miller in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1862, was the first organized team to play any kind of football in the United States.football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

in the United States), Smith Miller was regarded as "the father of football in the U.S."

Overview

Oneida Football Plaque, Boston Common - IMG 8298

Miller was primarily an importer and breeder of Holstein-Friesian cattle. His was the first herd of Holsteins in the country, according to a 1929 souvenir program of a Holstein field day and picnic, held at his farm. In

Madison County, New York Madison County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 68,016. Its county seat is Wampsville. The county is named after James Madison, the fourth president of the United States, and was fir ...

, where Peterboro is located, there were in 1931 more Holstein cattle than in any other county in the country, and more than in most states. More than half of the milk consumed in the United States came from this breed. He was the founder of the

'' in the United States.No Christian End! The Beginnings of Football in America
By PFRA Research (Originally Published in The Journey to Camp: The Origins of American Football to 1889 (PFRA Books)''THE BOSTON GAME''
article by Michael T. Geary at academia.edu
by Roger Allaway at sover.net (archived) Because of this, there was in the late 1940s talk of hosting a national football hall of fame in Cazenovia.) He subsequently played on Harvard's baseball team, and was known later in Cazenovia and Peterboro as "the best base ball player in this part of the country,” according to the page on him in the baseball history section of the

National Baseball Hall of Fame The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-r ...

. He was a member of the New York State Assembly in 1880. He was the donor of land and otherwise supported the

George Junior Republic The William George Agency for Children's Services (formerly the George Junior Republic) is a non-profit residential treatment center for adolescent boys and girls in Freeville, New York, United States. History William Reuben George founded a j ...

Freeville, New York Freeville is a Village (New York), village in Tompkins County, New York, Tompkins County, New York (state), New York, United States. The population was 520 at the 2010 census. The Village of Freeville is in the Dryden (town), New York, Town of Dry ...

, of which he was a trustee from 1897 to 1907. Miller's health failed after the burning on March 2, 1936, of his home, built by his great-grandfather, Peter Smith, in 1803. He died a year later. Fortunately, Miller had already, in 1928, given to the Syracuse University Libraries his grandfather's huge collection of correspondence, business records, daybooks, and pamphlets. Some of his own papers were destroyed in the fire. He and his wife had three sons, of whom two reached adulthood: Gerrit Smith Miller Jr., a renowned zoologist, and Basil Dixwell Miller.

Overview

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Further reading