Biographical Details
Date of Birth: September 25, 1825
Birth Location: Crawford County, IN, USA
Graduation Year(s): 1849
Degree(s) Earned: Bachelors
Date of Death: October 22, 1898
Death Location: Iuka, Tishomingo County, MS, USA
James McDowell Miller
Life Experience
James McDowell Miller was educated in the common schools of Crawford County and at Livonia Academy in Indiana before graduating from IU in 1849. Throughout his life, he was a preacher, farmer, merchant, teacher, and school superintendent. In 1850, he opened and co-founded Hartsville Academy (a prosperous college until it was burned down by an arsonist in 1898). One of its professors was the father of Orville and Wilbur Wright.
Miller held the position of state statistician, was a media correspondent of the agricultural bureau, and was a U.S. Census enumerator in 1870 and 1880. He authored several articles on temperance, agriculture, and spiritualism. He moved to the town of Iuka, Mississippi, where he spent the last years of his life and was buried in Oak Grove Cemetery.
Marriage and Family
In 1849, Miller married Catherine Redus. They had five children together. Miller’s grandson, Wade Herbert Armstrong, was an internationally known painter and illustrator whose artwork (at the time of his death in 1976) was on permanent display at the Library of Congress, the Douglas MacArthur Birthplace and Museum, and the Natchez Trace Museum.
References
- Wylie
- Findagrave.com
- Wikipedia
- The Wabash Courier 09/01/1849
- Indianapolis News 01/31/1898
- Thomas, John Hardin (1915) “The Academies of Indiana,” Indiana Magazine of History March (Vol. 11 #1) pp. 8-39
- The Tupelo Daily Journal 04/24/1976