James Weston Miller

James Weston Miller was born on November 15, 1815 in Erie County, Pennsylvania.[1][2] His father was Jeremiah Miller and his mother, Elizabeth (Weston) Miller.[1][2] He had eight siblings.[1][2] His family was Methodist.[1]

He graduated from Waterford Academy in 1835 and graduated from Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania in 1840.[1][2][3] He then graduated from the Presbyterian Western Theological Seminary in Allegheny, Pennsylvania.[1][2]

He served as assistant to Matthew Brown, the President of Jefferson College, his alma mater, in 1841.[1][2] He then became a Principal at the Grove Academy in Steubenville, Ohio, where he became friends with Dr Charles Clinton Beatty, the President of Steubenville Female Seminary, until 1843.[1][2]

He moved to Houston, Texas in 1844.[1][2][3] He gave sermons in the Texas Capitol, sometimes attended by Sam Houston, the President of the Texas Republic.[2] A year later, in 1845, he oversaw the construction of the First Presbyterian Church of Houston.[1] He served as Presbyterian minister there from 1847.[1] Theologically, he believed that salvation was for the living, and that one could not repent just before death.[2] He also became a delegate to the Presbyterian General Assembly that same year.[1] He was a member of the Texas Literary Institute.[1] In 1849, he helped decide on Huntsville, Texas as the location of the Presbyterian Texas College.[1] He also helped charter Austin College in Austin, Texas, where he served on the Board of Trustees from 1849 to 1878.[1]

In 1850, he moved to Gay Hill, Washington County, Texas, a small town home to the Mount Prospect Presbyterian Church, where he served as Presbyterian minister for one year.[1] The church was the second oldest Presbyterian church in Texas, having been established by Hugh Wilson in 1839.[2] The following year, in 1851, he became the first clerk of the Synod of Texas in Austin, Texas.[1] From 1851 to 1861, he was a pastor in Washington-on-the-Brazos.[1] Meanwhile, he established the (now defunct) Live Oak Female Seminary in Gay Hill, where he taught many daughters of the Southern aristocracy.[2][3][4][5]

He was a minister to many blacks, included those on the Glenblythe Plantation owned by Thomas Affleck in Gay Hill.[1] During the American Civil War of 1861-1865, he served as a Confederate chaplain under Brigadier General Thomas Neville Waul.[1][2] Shortly after the war, he helped establish many Baptist and Methodist churches, cemeteries and schools for blacks.[1][2]

He taught at the Post Oak Academy from 1865 to 1867.[1] He then resumed his ministry in Washington-on-the-Brazos up until 1876.[1] From 1877 to 1880, he was a pastor in Galatia, Texas.[1] He also served as minister in Round Top, Brenham, and Chapel Hill.[1] In 1881, he joined the Board of Trustees of the Stuart Academy in Austin, founded by his sister-in-law, Rebecca Stuart.[1]

He made mustang wine every fall.[2]

He married Elizabeth McKennan in 1847.[1] They had two sons.[1] She died in 1850, he got remarried to Elizabeth Scott Stuart, his first cousin, in 1852.[1][2] They had two sons and three daughters.[1]

He died on April 29, 1888 in Gay Hill, Texas.[1]