Biographical Details
Date of Birth: March 9, 1811
Birth Location: Middletown, PA, USA
Graduation Year(s): 1831
Degree(s) Earned: Bachelors
Date of Death: September 15, 1841
Death Location: Cadiz, OH, USA
Thomas Miller
Life Experience
Thomas Miller was educated at Washington College in Pennsylvania. He moved to Indiana to attend Indiana College (now IU) and was a member of its second graduating class in 1831.
His career in education began as a tutor at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, where he studied law. He was professor of mathematics and ancient languages at Columbia College in Missouri. After trying his hand at academics, he practiced law and became involved in county politics in southern Indiana by being a delegate to various conventions and by once being elected town constable. Theophilus Wylie (Presbyterian minister, college professor, and cousin of IU’s first president, Andrew Wiley) wrote, Miller was “a fine scholar, a brilliant orator and writer.”
During the Second Seminole War, Miller was aid-de-camp to General Richard Gentry. Gentry was the founder of Columbia, Missouri, and fell in the Battle of Lake Okeechobee in Florida in December 1837. In 1840, Miller moved from Indiana to Ohio. His health failing, he undertook a trip to the Rocky Mountains, but died before he could get west of Ohio. His companions buried him on the Ohio plains.
References
- Wylie
- Wikipedia
- historicmissourians.shsmo.org/historicmissourians/name/b/bingham/
- Rising Sun Times 05/13/1837
- Rising Sun Times 05/20/1837
- Vevay Times and Switzerland County Democrat 03/07/1840
- Vevay Times and Switzerland County Democrat 04/04/1840
- Rusk, Fern Helen (1917) George Caleb Bingham (self-published)