USA > New Jersey > Genealogical and memorial history of the state of New Jersey, Volume III > Part 16
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John Valentine Mullar (Miller
MILLER or Muller ) lived at Needer
Morsatan, in Pfaltz, Swey- brucken, in Ampt Lantzberg. John Henry Miller ( Muller ) was born May 22, 1728, in Ampt Lantzberg, Germany, and died February 9, 1819. He was a descendant of the Millers who in 1557, under the leadership of Father George Muller (or Miller), pastor of the church in Winnigen, joined the Lutheran Ref- ormation. He left Germany on account of religious persecution, and arrived in Philadel- phia on August 12, 1750, and settled near Ger - mantown, New Jersey, in 1753. On April 1, 1755, he married Maria Catherine Melich, daughter of John Peter Melich, and was born in Bendorf on the Rhine, July 13, 1732, died January 22, 1807. He held the office of town clerk of Tewkesbury thirty-one years. The local chronicles of German Valley are replete with his high ideals and reputation and of the spiritual character of his wife. The Melichs (or Moelichs) were prominent in the town of Bendorf during the seventeenth century. Chil- dren: I. Elizabeth, born July 1I, 1758, died January 6, 1845; married Christian, son of Godfrey Kline. 2. Maria Catharina, born Feb- ruary 12, 1763; died January 7, 1849; mar- ried Baltis Stiger. 3. Henry, born November 7, 1766; married (first ) Miss Baird, (second) Catherine, daughter of John Peter Sharp. 4. David, referred to below.
(II) David, son of John Henry Miller, born April 26, 1769, lived in Middle German Valley, Hunterdon county, and was a man of high principles and strong religious convictions. He was appointed major First Battalion, Second Regiment, New Jersey, February 19; 1794. He married Mary Elizabeth, born December IO, 1776, daughter of William and Dorothea Welsh. He died January, 1844, at Paterson, New Jersey. Children: 1. William W., born 1797. 2. David W., born 1799, died February 12, 1866; married Miss Swan. 3. Jacob W., born October, 1800. 4. Henry, married Miss Shafer. 5. Eliza, married Rev. John C. Vander- voort. 6. Dorothy, married Thomas G. Tal- mage. 7. Mary, married Mr. Van Pelt. 8. Catherine, died unmarried. 9. Lydia Ann, married Moses De Witt.
(III) William W., son of David and Mary Elizabeth Welsh, was born in Hunterdon coun- ty, New Jersey, in 1797. After practicing law a short time in Morristown he moved to New- ark, where he acquired a reputation as an orator of uncommon ability. A speech he de- livered in 1824 in Trinity Church, Newark, in
behalf of the Greeks, was remembered for more than a generation as a specimen of lofty elo- quence. Susequently he was pitted against Thomas A. Emmet in a law suit which required the highest attainments, and the occa- sion of this effort was memorable for the fame which the plea for his client gave him, but his oratory was his death blow, as he was seized with a hemorrhage immediately after and was hurried abroad by his physician. The famous young lawyer died in Paris, July 24, 1825, in the twenty-ninth year of his age. A meeting of the New Jersey bar was called when the news of his death reached this country at which Richard Stockton presided. A fellow member wrote of him: "Never do I take from my shelf the volume once thine, and containing thy name, written with thy own hand, without having thee before me, as thou stoodest in thy beauty and intellectual might, pouring forth thy eloquence upon the very margin of thy grave. Thy last notes were like those of the swan. My thoughts of thee are like the recol- lected tunes of melancholy music, for when I think of thee, I hear that most powerful of all instruments they variable voice, in all the inspirations of high and noble feeling.'
(III) Jacob Welsh, son of David and Mary Elizabeth (Welsh) Miller, was born at German Valley, Morris county, New Jersey, in Octo- ber, 1800, and died at Morristown, New Jer- sey, September 30, 1862, leaving behind him a national, state and local reputation as a man of integrity and high sense of honor. He prepared for college at Somerville, New Jersey, under Samuel L. Southard, who was afterwards in the U. S. senate with his pupil. In 1819 he be- gan the study of law under his brilliant brother, William W. Miller. Mr. Miller was admitted to the New Jersey bar in 1823, and began his pro- fession in Morristown, where he soon acquired a large and lucrative practice, especially in the higher courts, gaining distinction, also as a counsellor. As a lawyer he was remarkable for industry, faithfulness, tact, fervent and im- pressive oratory, and above all, the common sense- more rare than genius, if not more valuable-which marked his career in the sen- ate not less than at the bar, stamping its sage imprint upon his whole life. In 1832 he was elected a member of the state legislature, but in 1833 resumed the practice of his profession. In 1825 he was quartermaster-general of mili- tia, and was prominent the year previous on the occasion of the visit of General Lafayette to Morristown on July 14th. During 1827 he became one of the incorporators as well as the
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first vestrymen of St. Peter's Episcopal Church, the corner-stone of the edifice being laid on May 14, 1828. In 1838 he was nominated for the state senate by the Whigs, and elected by a large majority. He represented his district in the senate of the state for two years with such use- fulness and distinction that at the close of the term in 1840 he was elected United States senator for New Jersey. In that high theatre, then crowded with the most illustrious figures of our parliamentary history, he discharged his duties so ably and acceptably that on the expiration of his term in 1846 he was re-elected, serving two full terms in the upper house of the first legislative body in the world when that body in both branches was at the zenith of its glory. In a senate which included Clay, Webster and Calhoun with Benton, Wright Grundy, Berrien, Mangum, Crittenden, Bu- chanan, McDuffie, Corwin, Reverdy Johnson, Cass, Pierce and Bayard, he was not thrown into the background, but stood out among the principal figures of the scene, commanding their respect, enjoying their friendship, and participating with honor in their most renowned debates. He spoke but seldom, reserving him- self for the more important questions, content for the rest with a vigilant attention to the business of legislation, including a diligent study of proposed or pending measures, prac- ticing as a statesman the industry, thorough- ness and fidelity that had characterized him as a lawyer. It was partly on this account that when he did speak it was with great effect, but it was certainly much more on account of the knowledge, fairness, ability, wisdom and elo- quence which he used.
One of the ablest and most impassioned of his speeches was delivered towards the close of his term, when the annexation of Texas was being discussed in the senate. He opposed the measure as contrary to the constitution, dan- gerous to the public peace, and dishonorable to the national character, declaring that for those reasons he would "reject Texas were she to bring with her the wealth of the Indies," and concluding with a citation from the report made by Aristides to the Athenians in the stratagem that Themistocles had secretly de- vised for their benefit: "Nothing could be more advantageous but at the same time noth- ing would be more unjust."
He bore a prominent and effective part in the discussion over the momentous question of the compromise of 1850. He opposed the com- bination of the several measures of com- promise into a single measure, and after the
rejection of the combination known as the "Omnibus Bill," supported some of the meas- ures when put upon their passage separately, and on the passage of all of the measures in this manner, sustained the compromise as a whole, while not entirely approving every part of it. In one of his latest and most eloquent speeches he states his objections to continued agitation after laws had been enacted. The occasion of this speech was the presentation of certain resolutions of the legislature of New Jersey, under the recently acquired control of the Democratic party, instructing the New Jersey senators "to resist any change, altera- tion or repeal of the Compromise,"-instruc- tions which the Whig senator not unnaturally construed as implying a very unnecessary re- flection upon his fidelity to the measure, and which he treated with derision, as gratuitously feeding the very agitation they condemned. What he thought of this sort of agitation he had told unequivocally enough in an oration delivered at his home in Morristown the previ- ous July : "I will not say," he observed, "that those men who are continually compassing the government with wordy threats of violence, or horrifying their imaginations with the dissolu- tion of the Union, may be legally chargeable with the desire to bring about the death of our King, the Constitution, yet they are justly chargeable with that moral treason which disturbs the confidence of a loyal people in the safety and stability of their government and undermines their allegiance. Let us not be moved by the cry of fanatics, nor alarmed at the threats of secessionists *
% Poli- ticians may fret and fume, state conventions may resolve and re-solve, and Congress itself become the arena of fearful agitation, but above and around, as in a mighty amphitheatre, in undisturbed and undismayed majesty, stands the American people, with steady eye and giant hand, overlooking all, governing all; and wo! wo! to the man and destruction to the state that attempts to resist their supreme Authority."
It was about this period of his senatorial career that the landing of Kossuth on our shores called forth from him two or three of the most admirable speeches of his life. Drawing a broad distinction between Kossuth as a pri- vate individual and as a political agitator, he contended that the brilliant but unfortunate Hungarian should be generously welcomed in the former relation, but in the latter let severely alone, grounding his argument on the Wash- ingtonian policy of non-intervention in the
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domestic affairs of foreign countries. On leav- ing the senate in 1853 he refused to be consid- ered as a candidate for governor.
With the expiration of Mr. Miller's second term ended the line of able and accomplished senators that the Whigs of New Jersey fur- nished to the Union-Frelinghuysen, South- ard, Dayton, Miller- a line never renewed; for, when power again passed from the hands of the Democracy of New Jersey, the Whig party was no more. Against this result no man struggled more zealously than the last Whig senator of the state. In the presidential campaign of 1852 he upheld the Whig banner in a succession of masterly speeches, and when that standard had gone down in what proved to be irretrievable defeat, he still endeavored to rally the flying squadrons, refill the skeleton regiments, and reinforce the army in general, publishing as late as December, 1854, a series of strong and eloquent papers, insisting on the maintenance of the Whig principles, but recom- mending as a concession to the spirit of the times the substitution of the name "American,' and the enlargement of the platform so as "to condense into one efficient power the public fac- tions" into which the people were subdivided. Events proved too powerful for his logic, and in 1855 he abandoned the struggle and cast in his lot with the Republican party, to which with characteristic steadfastness he adhered for the remainder of his life. But the end was near, and the passage to it thick-set with in- firmities, so that he was not able to do all that he would have wished to do for his country in the crisis of her fate. Yet he did much, both with his voice and pen, cheering the de- spondent, convincing the doubtful, shaming the lukewarm, applauding the ardent, and quicken- ing all. His conviction that the Union would be victoriously maintained was clear and abid- ing. He foretold the triumph of his country, but did not live to see it; sinking beneath his increasing infirmities he died, leaving a wife and a large family of sons and daughters, two of the former being in the navy, the elder dis- tinguished for gallant conduct during the civil war, and two lawyers of New York of high abilities and attainments. He married, No- vember 7, 1825, Mary, daughter of George Perrott and Louisa Edwina Saunderson Mc- Culloch (see McCulloch). Children: I. Ed- wina Louisa, born August 20, 1826; died Au- gust 18, 1888; married, as second wife, An- thony Quinton, son of Dr. Edward Quinton and Mary Parry (Aertsen) Keasbey, for whose ancestry see name in index. 2. Elizabeth, born iii-6
September 18, 1828, died August 14, 1852; married, as first wife, Anthony Quinton Keas- bey. 3. Frances Ford, born September 1, 1830, died July 1, 1906; married Luman N. Hitch- cock, February, 1860. 4. George Macculloch, born May 4, 1832 ; referred to below. 5. Lind- ley Hoffman, born March 26, 1834; died July 3, 1864; referred to below. 6. Henry William, born May 8, 1836; died January 30, 1904; re- ferred to below. 7. Francis McCulloch, born September 23, 1839; died August 29, 1854. 8. Leverett Saltonstall, born August 8, 1843 ; died September 18, 1845. 9. Jacob William, born June 1, 1847 ; referred to below.
(IV) George Macculloch, son of Jacob Welsh and Mary McCulloch Miller, was born at Morristown, May 4, 1832. At the age of eighteen he graduated from Burlington Col- lege, and after studying law under his father and taking a course at the Harvard Law School, he was admitted to the bar of New Jersey and of New York. In 1854 he decided to practice in New York City, where he soon obtained a high position as a lawyer and a man of energy and accurate and careful legal habits. He was consequently employed as counsel and attorney for many large institu- tions. In 1871 he became president of the Newport & Wickford Railroad & Steamboat Company ; in 1873 a director of the New York, Providence & Boston Railroad Company, and subsequently was chosen as its vice-president. In 1879 he was elected president of the Provi- dence & Stonington Steamship Company, and was also president of the Denver, Utah & Pacific Railroad Company for the six years ending 1887. For a time he was president of the Housatonic Railroad Company, and for many years has been one of the leading di- rectors of the New York, New Haven & Hart- ford Railroad Company. He founded the firm of Miller, Peckham & Dixon, which is one of the leading corporations of the state. Mr. Miller is also a trustee of the Central Trust Company and the Bank of Savings, as well as of Greenwood Cemetery. He has been fore- most in religious and benevolent activities of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and was one of the original trustees of the Cathedral of St John the Divine, and is still devoting his ener- gies towards the completion of that magnificent edifice. Since 1869 he has taken an active interest in St. Luke's Hospital, and is to-day its president, having been frequently re-elected to that position. He is also president of the Hospital Saturday and Sunday Association of New York, and a warden of St. Thomas
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Church. In politics he has always been a Re- publican, and was one of the committee of seventy to advance municipal reform. Mr. Miller married, in 1857, Elizabeth, daughter of Lindley Murray Hoffman; children: Hoff- man; Mary Louisa (now Mrs. William Bard McVickar ) ; Leverett Saltonstall; Elizabeth Agnes (now Mrs. Godfrey Brinley) ; Edith Macculloch.
(IV) Lindley Hoffman, son of Jacob Welsh and Mary McCulloch Miller, was born at Morristown, New Jersey, March 26, 1834. graduated from Burlington College, 1852, sub- sequently admitted to the bar and practiced law in New York, showing great ability in his profession and as a young orator and poet. Notable among his addresses was one delivered before the Delta Psi fraternity on December 27, 1855, which was considered a memorable effort for a man of twenty-one. The subject was the "Responsibilities of Literary Men." On this occasion a poem was read by Stewart L. Woodford, who was his intimate friend, and afterwards our minister to Spain and presi- dent of the Hudson-Fulton Celebration Com- mission. At the outbreak of the war he joined the Seventh Regiment as a private, serving with it at Annapolis and Washington in 1861, and at Baltimore in 1862. Having lost his wife and only child he accepted an appoint- ment as captain of Company H, First Regi- ment Arkansas Volunteers, and was ordered to Goodrich Landing, Louisiana. This was one of the first of the negro organizations to be mustered into the service. His commission was dated November 5, 1863. He was in com- mand during the fight at Snyder's Bluff, near Roaches Plantation, March 30, 1864, repulsing the enemy and covering a retreat of the cavalry. On April 9, 1864, he was promoted to major, Fifth Regiment Missouri Colored Troops, which afterwards became the Seventy-second United States Colored Infantry. Having con- tracted fever on the Mississippi river, he re- turned home and died at Morristown, New Jersey, July 3, 1864. He married Anne Hunt- ington Tracy, in 1862. She was born June 10, 1838, and died September 5, 1863.
(IV) Henry William, son of Jacob Welsh and Mary (McCulloch) Miller, was born at Morristown, New Jersey, May 8, 1836, and died at Morristown, January 30, 1904. He was graduated from the Naval Academy on June 8, 1857, and June 26, 1857, reported for duty on board the United States ship "Minne- sota," having received his warrant as midship- man June 10. The cruise of the "Minnesota"
to China was memorable both for speed-break- ing records and on account of the new type of sail and steam-frigate which she represented, and the incidents of her career brought reputa- tion to her commander, Captain S. F. DuPont. and strong letters of recommendation from him to Miller. The latter performed special duty with Hon. W. B. Reed at Tien Sing, when our men-of-warsmen held at bay the inhabitants of that populous region. On June 4. 1859, he was detached from the "Minne- sota" at Boston, and reported on board the United States ship "Mohican," at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, November 29, 1859, serving on board that vessel on the coast of Africa, and participating in the capture of the last slaver, the "Erie." The captain of the slaver was later hanged in New York. Miller was promoted to passed midshipman June 25, 1860, and October 24 same year to master. During April, 1861, the "Mohican" was ordered home, arriving at New York about July Ist. Her captain was S. W. Gordon. He was then ordered to Hampton Roads, and the vessel was one of the large fleet which assembled there in the early days of October under Du- Pont. On the way to Port Royal, and on the night of November Ist, Miller, during a heavy gale off Hatteras, rescued, after six hours work, in an open boat, the crew of the "Peer- less," for which act he was commended offi- cially. He participated in the battle of Port Royal on Thursday, November 7, and received the battle flag of the "Mohican" from Gordon, after the action, for duty well performed. On March 4, 1862, he took possession of Fort Clinch, near Fernandina, and also participated in the attacks on Brunswick, Georgia, and other engagements. On July 9, 1862, he was detached from the "Mohican" at Phila- delphia, and reported September 4th for duty as inspector of gunnery at the New York Navy Yard. In October he was ordered to the frigate "Colorado," and was in the engagement off Mobile, and served on board of her in the Gulf until February 18, 1864. From February 23 to March 7 he was on duty on board the "Nererus," and on the latter date joined the "Mendota," Captain E. T. Nichols. During this service he participated in the battles of Fort Darling, Drury's Bluff, Hewletts, Deep Bottom, and other fights on the James river, being detached from the "Mendota" Septem- ber 25, 1864. He was then ordered to the. Naval Academy, reporting there October 24th. On March 3, 1865, he was commissioned lieutenant-commander ; while attached to the
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Naval Academy, he served on board the "Marblehead" from June 13 until September 25, 1865. On April 3, 1866, he was detached from the Naval Academy, and resigned from the navy at Philadelphia, April 10, 1866. He then returned to Morristown, New Jersey, and in 1871 was elected recorder, and in 1880 mayor of the city. For many years he served as president of the Morris County Savings Bank and of the Morristown Safe Deposit Company, and as one of the pilot commissioners of New Jersey. He was a member of various orders, including the Loyal Legion, Navy League, Naval Academy Graduates' Association, and Naval Order, being also a warden of St. Peter's Church. Captain Miller died in the house in which he was born, and was buried in the graveyard of the church which his father had helped organize. A fellow officer wrote of him in the Army and Navy Journal of Febru- ary 20, 1904, as follows: "The uplifting in- fluence of his Christian character can scarcely be overestimated. It permeated the ships in which he served, the locality where he lived. His house was the spot frequented by men to discuss the future of the navy, and recount the deeds of its past. His was the cheerful brightness begotten of broad sympathy with his fellow man. The crowded church on the day of his funeral showed the loving respect of his fellow townsmen ; deputations from cor- porations and military orders filled the pews, while a rear admiral headed the pall bearers, who were his distinguished loving friends and neighbors." He married, August 13, 1862, Catharine Seton Hoffman.
(IV) Jacob William (2), son of Jacob Welsh and Mary (McCulloch) Miller, was born in Morristown, New Jersey, June 1, 1847, and is now living in that place. Entering the Naval Academy in September, 1863, he grad- uated June, 1867, and lived the ordinary routine life of junior officer until 1872, serving on the European, Pacific and West Indian stations. He was then appointed to special serv- ice in connection with the Nicaragua Inter- Oceanic Canal Survey in 1872, and surveyed a portion of the Western Divide, and had charge of the hydrographic work on the San Juan river. He returned to Nicaragua in the autumn of 1873 as secretary to the commission ap- pointed by the United States government to determine the best route for a ship canal across the Isthmus: and after completing this work he was engaged in Washington in writing the report on the Nicaragua Canal. In 1875 he was ordered to the European squadron, and
served in the Mediterranean on board the "Franklin." During the winter of 1877-78 he was on board the "Vandalia," when General Grant visited the Levant in the course of his celebrated trip around the world. Having com- pleted his three years of sea service in Euro- pean waters, Mr. Miller was assigned to duty at the Naval Academy as instructor of ordnance and gunnery, where he remained until 1881, when he was once more ordered to sea, and made his last cruise in the United States ship "Jamestown" as her navigator from San Fran- cisco to New York, when that vessel came to the Atlantic under sail. This was probably the last sailing man-of-war that went around Cape Horn. After returning from this voyage he left the navy and went to Kansas, where he became identified with railroad interests, and was made vice-president and general manager of the St. Louis, Fort Scott & Wichita rail- road. He remained with the above railroad and other corporations in the west until May, 1866, when he was tendered and accepted the position of general manager of the Providence & Stonington Steamship Company, and of the New York, Providence & Boston railroad. In May, 1889, he was elected president of the Providence & Stonington Steamship Company, and subsequently president of the Newport & Wickford Railroad and Steamboat Company. When the Providence & Stonington Steamship Company was merged with the properties of the New York, New Haven & Hartford rail- road, he became vice-president of the New England Navigation Company, a corporation which controlled all the Sound Line steamers, resigning from that position in August, 1909, to accept the vice-presidency of the Cape Cod Construction Company. Mr. Miller was for many years identified with the proposed con- struction of the Nicaragua Canal, acting as president of the Nicaragua Company. He took an active part in the development of the naval militia of the state as the first commander of the New York Battalion at its organization in 1891, and is now commodore of the naval mili- tia of the state of New York. He entered the navy in 1898, during the Spanish-American war, as lieutenant-commander, and had com- mand of the Third District Auxiliary Naval Force. In 1894 he was a member of the com- mittee on docks, Chamber of Commerce, New York, and is still on the committee of nautical schoolship of the city of New York, and in 1009, on the Panama canal committee of the Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of the following clubs: The University, on the
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