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From Bob Thompson:
At Vanderbilt he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Phi chi and was
president of Kappa Alpha Order. After completing a residency at Presbyterian
Hospital in New York, Dr. THOMPSON returned to Columbia to practice internal
medicine. He
served during World War II as a U. s. Army battalion surgeon with the rank of
major in the Pacific Theater, where he received the Bronze Star.
Dr. THOMPSON was a member and prast president of the Columbia chamber of
Commerce, the Columbia Rotary Club and the Columbia Country Club. for many
years he served on the official board of the First United Methodist Church.
for 25 years he was a member of the Board of Trustees of Webb School. In 1976
the Columbia Junior Auxilliary named him Columbia's Outstanding Citizen. He
was a member of the Mississippi Medical Association and had been a director of
the
Mississippi Heart Association. In 1987 the Marion County General Hospital
staff presented him with a plaque honoring his 50 years of service to Marion
County medicine. (from obituary in Hattiesburg American, 2 Aug 1988).
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From Bob Thompson:
Ruleville Record clipping, 1945:
President of Ruleville School Board, President County Library Board,
President Draft Board, charter member of Rotary Club, member of board of
Directors fo the Bank of Ruleville and Trustee of Methodist Church. Began
practicing medicine in Ruleville in 1903, immediately after received medical
degree (April 29, 1903) from Memphis Hospital College, now the University of
Tennessee.
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!PARENTS-BIRTH-DEATH-MARRIAGE-CHILDREN: Bob Thompson to Terry McLean; ; gedcom
file, May 1998; ; ;
OCCUPATION: Farmer
EDUCATION: USC, UMS
RELIGION: Presbyterian
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From Bob Thompson:
- Obituary: "she had been a helpless invalid since February 1919 when she
suffered a stroke of appoplexy."
Her father (Yancy WILEY) handsome colonial home "Cedar Grove" is still a
handsome home in that community [College Hill] and is occupied by her second
son"
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!PARENTS-BIRTH-DEATH: Bob Thompson to Terry McLean; ; gedcom file, May 1998; ;
;
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!PARENTS-BIRTH-DEATH-OCCUPATION: Bob Thompson to Terry McLean; ; gedcom file,
May 1998; ; ;
OCCUPATION: Locomotive engineer
DIRECT LINE OF: Bob Thompson;
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!PARENTS-BIRTH-DEATH-BURIAL-MARRIAGE-CHILDREN-OCCUPATION-EDUCATION: Bob
Thompson to Terry McLean; ; gedcom file, May 1998; ; ; DEATH: died in Virginia
(after Gettysburg Battle)
BURIAL: Lot 156, Aberdeen Cemetery.
OCCUPATION: Attorney , Circuit Judge
EDUCATION: Univ. Of S.C.==============================================================================
From Bob Thompson:
Gravestone inscription reads: "H.R. MILLER married Susan Grey WALTON in 1838
at Cotton Gin Port, Monroe County, Misissippi. Col MILLER served his state as
Circuit Judge of the Northern District, as legislator 1842-1843, as a member
of the Committe of Fifteen who drafted the Mississippi Ordinance of Secession,
January 15, 1861. Organized and captained Ponotoc Minute Men, Go.
G, 2nd Regiment Mississippi Volunteers, General Bee's Brigade, Army of
Northern Virginia. Later organized and elected colonel of 42nd Regiment, Miss.
Vols., Joseph R. DAVIS' Brigard of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Mortally
wounded on Cemetery Hill, July 3, 1863 at Gettysburg while commanding DAVIS
Brigade.
A true and loyal son, who with many comrades made the supreme sacrifice upon
the altar of their beloved Southland.
Erected A.D. 1932 by children of his son George MILLER of Oxford,
Mississippi.
-------------
HRM Biography Outline
HRM was born in Abbeville District, S. C. on May 14, 1812, the fifth child
of Ebenezer MILLER and Margery REID. Ebenezer MILLER was a farmer in Abbeville
District.
HRM's first letter apparently was received when he was 18 and still in an
school [Baker's School?] in Abbeville in 1830 [1]. By late 1831 or early 1832,
Miller had entered South Caroline College (probably as a junior--see letter
from his cousin John Henry MILLER Jr. dated 17 Aug 1832 [0]. He remained
there until early 1833, when he graduated with his A.B., then returned in the
fall of that year to study law. By January 1835, he had returned to Abbeville.
By April or May of 1835, HRM had determined to move to Mississippi and
received a letter of recommendation from E. PICKENS:
'He is in search of a settlement which would offer him a good prospect for
the practice of law. He sttudied with a gentleman I know and who speaks well
of his studious habits.'
He settled in Pontotoc, which at the time was a settlement which met the
above description. The Chickasaw Session in October 1832 had opened up to
settlement, gradually but with increasing momentum, the lands in North
Mississippi.
Pontotoc was described by Reuben Davis as follows:
It was the location of the land offices for the Chickasaw Indians. In
consequence, it became a great field for trading and speculating, and wealth
flowed in quickly. Men who had money and knew how to use it were attracted
from all quarters, enormous business transactions were made, paper passed from
hand to hand and fortunes were lost and won as in gambling spectulations.
Litigation was a necessary consequence and the bar number able men among its
attorneys.
-----------
HRM was not the only person from South Carolina who was attracted by the
relatively easy availability of land in the Chickasaw Country. On letter to
him notes he was "surrounded by Carolina friends." Later, in 1835, his
brothers Andrew, Erskine and Robert and his father Ebenezer moved to the area.
From 1835 to 1839, HRM was engaged in law practice at Pontotoc. This was a
period which began in flush times but which also saw the Panic of 1837
followed by an economic depression. HRM was a Southern Whig (perhaps because
of his South Carolina connection to CALHOUN, who was also from the Abbeville
area), but was a friend (and for a short time law partner) of Jacob THOMPSON,
who was elected to Congress in 1939 as a Democrat over Reuben DAVIS, the Whig
candidate. [2]
The hard times still existed; a letter from Edwin MCKEY dated March 3, 1839
stated:
'The times are hard here. There is no money to be had. There will be more
suits brought at our next court by 1/2 than ever brought before.'
Nothwithstanding the hard times, HRM had become engaged to Susan Gray WALTON
and they were married May 9, 1839.
In late 1841, HRM was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives as
a Whig. He was opposed to Governor TUCKER, and in his letter to his wife in
January 1842, he describes Tucker's innauguration as "a most dull and
uninteresting affair." He also railed against the Locofoco anti-bond
Democrats. Apparently, party politics kept much from being accomplished at the
legislative session in 1842. HRM's letter to his wife reflected his
frustration:
'I am sickened to death, listening to the senseless jargon of fools and
villians...I have thought of changing my residence for the last two years. If
I was clear of what little property I have at Pontotoc, and other difficulties
I
would not remain there a single day. I have no means of making a livlihood
except by my profession and it yields nothing at that place now.'
Another letter (2/16/42) refers to debate on "a motion to censure about 30
of us Whigs because we refused to vote on certain resolutions...."
The 1843 legislative session was similar. HRM describes the Democratic
convention, which nominated A. G. BROWN for Governor and among others, Jacob
Thompson, for Congress, as follows:
'The antibond men had everything their way & allowed the bond payers of the
democratic party no share in the offices of the state, and in the convention
treated them with gross disregard.'
Possibly because of the travel and his wife's complaints about his absence,
but more probably because of his polictical frustration and reelection
prospects, HRM did not stand for reelection and returned to full time law
practice.
In October 1841, Samuel MILLER, HRM's youngest brother, killed someone in an
argument with a pocket knife. HRM and his brother Andrew rode to Georgia and
attended and assisted in his trial.
By July 1845, after ten years as an attorney in Pontotoc, HRM was back on
the campaign trail, running for circuit judge, a job which paid $2000 per year.
He had three opponents -- WILSON, WITHERS and HOURY. HRM won (with a
plurality of the vote), polling 4433 votes versus 3216 for HOURY, 2099 for
WILSON and 105 for WITHERS. His judicial district was the seventh, composed of
Desoto, Marshall, Tippah, Tishomingo, Itawamba, Pontotoc, Lafayette and Panola
counties. HRM won the election and served as circuit judge of the seventh
district for the next eight years, until 1853. His letters from this period to
his wife were generally from the towns where the court sat -- Oxford, Holly
Springs, Fulton, Jacinto, Ripley, Hernando. They frequently contained
instructions as to various farm chores for his slaves. HRM had a total of six
slaves in 1850 -- the ones most frequently mentioned in his letters of this
period were Jesse, Patrick and Hannah. The other three were children.
In 1851 Miller, while a sitting judge, ran as a "Southern Rights" candidate
to a state convention called to elect delegates to a convention of Southern
States which was to take place in Nashville, Tennessee. The Southern Rights
group were basically secessionist in outlook, and were led by John A. QUITMAN,
while the Unionist or procompromise forces were led by Henry FOOTE. Quitman
and FOOTE battled in the November 1851 Governor's race, but its results were
predicted by the results in the convention delegate balloting in September,
when procompromise delegates were elected by a 2 to 1 margin. MILLER and the
two other Southern Rights candidates lost by approximately 4 to 3 margin.
By the end of his eight year term in 1853, MILLER had tired of the travel
and seperation from his home life involved in the district judgeship, and he
declined to stand for reelection. He returned to the fulltime practice of law,
practicing from 1853 until 1861. His law partner for most of this period was
his wife's cousin, William H. KILPATRICK, and the firms name was MILLER &
KILPATRICK. In 1854 he was one of the organizers of the Pontotoc Male Academy.
MILLER apparently served as local cousel to the Mississippi Central Railroad
and the Mobile and Ohio Railroad (which was under construction). He was also a
partner in a group which held a contested title to a substantial tract of
property in the Mississippi Delta which the group sought to sell to settlers
who would undertake the necessary clearing and ditching.
By late 1860, secession fever had gripped Mississippi, and HRm ran for
election as a delegate to the Secession Convention following the election of
LINCOLN. In a letter to Eli AYERS, one of his partners in the Delta land
partnership, dated December 8, 1860, he expressed his views:
'I shall be awfully pressed for time this winter. If I am elected, I must
give some time to the country. I am prepared to stake all I have or hope to be
on this issue. It is an issue of life - or death -- liberty or slavery -- and
we cannot avoid it if we would.'
He was elected on December 20, 1860 as a delegate to the State Convention
from Pontotoc County, and that same month he organized and was elected captain
of the "Pontotoc Minute Men." MILLER was one of the "Committee of Fifteen"
that drafted the Ordinance of Secession and along with his brother Andrew, who
was a delegate from Tunica County, signed the document.
Following the Convention, MILLER rejoined the Pontotoc Minute Men, which
were mustered into the Confederate Army as Company G of the Second Mississippi
Regiment. This regiment was ordered to Virginia, where they joined General
Bernard Bee's Brigade. They played a key role in the First Battle of Manassas,
and MILLER was near General Bee when the latter was killed. Following the
victory at Manassas, however, there were no significant engagements for the
Company for the balance of 1861. They remained at winter quarters at Camp
Fisher, near Dumfries, Virginia.
In the spring of 1862, the enlistment of many of the Confederate troops who
had volunteered in the spring of 1861 was up, and the regiments in the Army of
Northern Virginia were "reorganized:" that is, elections were held for the
officer positions. Col. FALKNER, Captain John STONE (later governor) and
Captain MILLER ran for the colonelcy of the 2nd Mississippi. According to Joel
WILLIAMSON's recent book, WILLIAM FAULKNER AND SOUTHERN HISTORY, in the
initial balloting MILLER came in third, with 129 votes to STONEs 250 and
FALKNER's 240. MILLER had already had communication with Joseph DAVIS,
Jefferson DAVIS' nephew, concerning the organization of a brigade comprised
wholly of Mississippi soldiers, and after his election loss, and DAVIS'
securing a generalship, he was appointed Colonel of the 42nd Misissippi, and
authorized to raise a regiment of volunteers. He returned to Mississippi in
the late spring of 1862 to secure his men.
By ______1862, the 42nd Missisippi was organized, and reported initially to
[Grenada]??[to be continued...]
----------------------------------
- Slave schedules to 1850 Census according to information from Sandra Lassen
show Hugh R MILLER with 6 slaves (5 black, 1 mulatto) 1 40 year old male 1 28
year old male 1 16 year old female 1 5 year old female 1 2 year old female
- The 1860 Census slave schedule show Hugh R. MILLER with 10 slaves, all
listed as black, and 3 slave houses. I do not have the ages and sex
information from Sandy Lassen yet.
- Tax Receipts for Hugh R. MILLER show following personal property
4/2/1851: 1 carriage, 1 watch, 1 clock, 7 slaves, 1 pistol
3/31/1852: 1carriage, 1 watch, 1 [2] clock[s], 8 slaves, [1piano]
4/2/1853: 1 buggy, 1 watch, 1 clock, 8 slaves
5/1/1854: 7 slaves
4/10/1858: 9 slaves, 1 piano, 2 watches and clock
3/18/1859: 9 slaves, 1 piano, 2 watches, one clock and saddlehorse.
Based on tax receipts, Hugh R. MILLER's home place apparently was 192 acres
(40 acres in NW1/4 S27 T9 R3E, 100 acres in NE1/4 S28 T9 R3E, 52 acres in
SE1/4 S28 T9 R2E)
---------------------------- [end this source] -----------------------------
DIRECT LINE OF: Bob Thompson;
UPDATE: 1998-05-12
!BIRTH-DEATH-BURIAL-MARRIAGE-CHILDREN: Bob Thompson to Terry McLean; ; gedcom
file, May 1998; ; ;
BURIAL: Lot 156, Aberdeen Cemetery
RELIGION: Methodist
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From Bob Thompson:
In May 1937 became first comptroller of Memphis Tennessee municipal
government. Became Commissioner of Finance and Institutions in 1939 and
Director of Research Department in 1947.
According to 4 Aug 1950 Commercial Appeal "Good-natured, honest and
conscientious, Mr. Miller was pointed out in the courthouse again and again as
the chief example of advancement because of merit regardless of political
influence."
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