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History of Orange County
Town of Montgomery
Page 25
In stature he was of medium height, strongly and firmly made; his frame muscular and compactly knit together, calculated for strength and endurance; his face open, manly and highly intelligent—of sanguine temperament, with blue eyes deeply set in his bead. He was of that general appearance and outline which indicated strength of body and mind, with firmness and determination. One faculty he possessed in an eminent degrees self-control. This was not wholly natural, but, in part, the result of cultivation, and he was proud of the degree of perfection to which he had arrived in schooling himself.
Soon after the war closed his neighbor Johannes Smith proposed to sell his farm of 125 acres, which adjoined him on the north, at ten dollars per acre. Miller contracted to purchase, but was unable to meet his contract—Smith refused to take paper money, and specie could not then be had in the county. He proceeded to New York to borrow the amount, but they asked a premium of five per cent, besides the legal interest. This he concluded not to pay and returned without the money. Determined to have the land, he issued twenty notes of £25 each, payable at different periods, without interest till due, which Smith received, finding he could pay for a farm in Shawangunk with them, and which he had agreed to purchase. These notes were all paid at maturely when presented, except four which had found their way into the pocket of some friend at Hackensack in New Jersey, and were not presented for several years after due. This would be thought a small specimen of raising the wind at this day of financial improvements and kite flying, yet the reader must remember that Mr. Miller was just of age, of no financial experience, an uneducated and illiterate young countryman, with no father to guide, no friend to counsel. Judging the whole circumstances of the case, we think it was an exhibition of tact and enterprise, marked the energetic character of his youth, and foreshadowed the ability of riper years.
Feeling the deprivation of a good early education, he resolved to remedy the defect, and became an extensive reader on the subjects of theoretic and practical agriculture, and no farmer in the county had a more extensive library. Ambitious in this, he was no less so in becoming a politician, and his reading extended to that and kindred object, and he settled down firmly in the school of Washington. He was early known as a Federalist, and so continued till his party was dissolved by the forty thieves, when he become a Whig, and so continued till he died. He was a hearty opposer of Mr. Jefferson, his gun boat system and ultra democracy.— From 1798 to 1806, politics raged and ran mountain high in this county as indeed they did everywhere else in the country, and Mr. Miller was deeply and actively engaged in all their depths and shallows to sustain his party and accomplish its objects. This brought him into fierce contact frequently with the heated partizans and leaders of the opposite party. In zeal and bigotry the palm was about equally divided between them.
That our narrative may be truthful, and present the shades
as well as the lignts of character, we are compelled to state a that the subject of remark was not, wholly free from some of
the vices of the times in which he lived. One dark night, returning from Goshen, where he had been attending a political county meeting, he was waylaid, attacked and knocked from his horse, though not dangerously injured. From some old hostile feeling still subsisting between himself and one of his neighbors, and from something which had transpired that day in Goshen, he judged who his assailant was, and without due reflection called him to the field of honor. Capt. William Tremble, of Neeleytown, accepted the invitation, but on a meeting of the parties, procured by mutual friends, the matter was adjusted to their satisfaction. Capt. Tremble was not unlike Mr. Miller, proud, high-minded and honorable, but more impulsive, headstrong and passionate. The writer recollects him very well, as he was a near neighbor to his father. Those who knew Mr. Miller never doubted but that he would have met the crisis like a true man, and nobly discharged his duty according to the laws of honor, though astonishingly false and desperately wicked.
This gentleman was very friendly to the manufacturing interest of the country and internal improvement by roads and canals, and we believe his friendship and the hostility of government cost him many thousands of dollars. He was mainly instrumental in getting up the cotton factory at Montgomery, which, if we recollect right, failed before it made a yard of cloth or spun a pound of cotton. In 1801 he was very active in procuring the charter for the Newburgh and Cochecton turnpike, and afterwards in procuring the stock to be taken and the road built. For years he was the soul and body of the company.