pmiller

The Boston Club in New Orleans

 TMM Family
Mar 252011
 

Frederick "Poppy" Miller (left), his brother Jack, and Philip A. L. Miller, Jr. (right). Philip says the photo was taken in the 1980s outside the Boston Club on Canal Street in New Orleans, where Poppy and Jack were members, as were earlier generations of Millers. Photographs were not allowed inside the Club. Philip said that the elderly waiter, who took the photo, was suitably excited when Philip got introduced as a "Miller".

The Boston Club was where Thomas Marshall Miller (1847-1920) routinely lost much of what he had, playing poker, around the turn of the last century. Philip said the gambling was so bad that one year his father had to drop out of Tulane law school because TMM had lost so much money.

Unknown man with baby

 EMM family
Mar 242011
 

Picture found at 2820 Throckmorton in Dallas. Identities uncertain. EMM thinks it might be her father and herself. Her father’s name was Zeke Shumway–Eula and Zeke divorced when EMM was very young. EMM met Zeke once and then, at age 20, she attended his funeral. "My mother made me go to the funeral", she says. EMM played the piano at the funeral.

Thomas Marshall Miller, 1847-1920

 TMM Family
Mar 232011
 

Thomas Marshall Miller, 1847-1920. This is Daddy’s grandfather. Born 19 January 1847 at Port Gibson, Mississippi to William Trigg Miller and Emily Van Dorn. There is a more detailed biography is three formats: HTML (best for on-line viewing, 13 Kbytes plus pictures), PDF (best for printing, 236 Kbytes), and Microsoft Word (284 Kbytes) .

He enlisted in the Confederate Army in the summer of 1862 at age 15 when Port Gibson was threatened, but his mother Emily Van Dorn Miller succeeded in getting him discharged. (She had already sent his older brother off to Port Hudson, Louisiana, as a cadet.)

Miller received LL.B. from University of Virginia in 1869. Married Letitia Dabney 11 April 1872. He was Attorney General of Mississippi 1886-1893, and known as "General Miller" thereafter. With son John Dabney Miller he founded Miller, Miller and Fletchinger in New Orleans in 1895. Died 31 August 1920, buried in Live Oak Cemetery in Pass Christian, Mississippi.

See letter on US politics addressed to "Marshall Miller, ESQ" in "Memorials of a Southern Planter" by Susan Dabney Smedes, p. 312 of the 1965 edition or p. 321 of the electronic edition. The University of Virginia Law School annually awards the "Thomas Marshall Miller Prize" to an outstanding graduate.

Miller argued two cases before the US Supreme Court, the first in 1898 and the second in 1916. As best I can tell, he won the first but lost the second. In both cases, the Court affirmed lower rulings. See Grant v.Buckner and Causey v. US.

Thomas Gregory Dabney, 1844-1929

 TMM Family
Mar 222011
 

Thomas Gregory Dabney was born in Raymond, Mississippi to Philip Augustine Lee Dabney and Elizabeth Osborne Smith. He is the brother of our great-grandmother Letitia Dabney Miller. His seven-page autobiography is available in three formats: HTML (best for on-line viewing, 53 Kbytes plus pictures), PDF (best for printing, 55 Kbytes), and Microsoft Word (66 Kbytes) .

The autobiography describes growing up in Raymond and covers only through age 15. Annotation to the autobiography describes his involvement in the Civil War (enlisted at age 16, traveled to Virginia with the 12th Mississippi, discharged for being underage, re-enlisted, captured, and paroled.)

The autobiography includes a 1901 letter from Thomas to the The Confederate Veteran magazine.