Joaquin Miller

 ( 1837 Births ) 

Spending a short time in the mining camps of northern Idaho, Miller found his way to Canyon City, Oregon by 1864, where he was elected the third Judge of Grant County. His old cabin in Canyon City is still standing.

Miller's exploits included a variety of occupations: mining-camp cook (who came down with scurvy from only eating what he cooked), lawyer and a judge, newspaper writer, Pony Express rider, and horse theft. On July 10, 1859, Miller was caught stealing a gelding valued at $80, a saddle worth $15, and other items.Peterson, 40 He was jailed briefly in Shasta County for the crime, and various accounts give other incidents of his repeating this crime in California and Oregon. Miller earned an estimated $3,000 working as a Pony Express rider and used the money to move to Oregon. With the help of his friend, Senator Joseph Lane, he became editor of the Democratic Register in Eugene,Marberry, 44 a role he held from March 15 to September 20, 1862.Peterson, 50 Though no copies survive, it was known as sympathetic to the Confederacy until it was forced to shut downMarberry, 45 because of its treasonable character. That year, Miller married Theresa Dyer on September 12, 1862, in her home four days after meeting herFrost, 36 in Port Orford, Oregon. He had corresponded with her after exchanging poems with her for critique and chasing away a competing suitor.Marberry, 45–46 She published poetry under the pen name "Minnie Myrtle" and later, as Minnie Myrtle Miller. The couple had three children: Maud, George, and Henry, although Miller would later claim the baby Henry was not his own.

In 1868, Miller paid for the publication of 500 copies of his first book of poetry, Specimens.Marberry, 55 It was unnoticed, and Miller gave away more copies than he sold. Few have survived.Frost, 55 The author's despair and disappointment were reflected in his second book, Joaquin et al., the next year.Lewis, Nathaniel. Unsettling the Literary West: Authenticity and Authorship. University of Nebraska Press, 2003: 98.

Dyer filed for divorce on April 4, 1870, claiming they had a third child, Henry Mark, the year before, and that Miller was "wholly" neglectful.Frost, 44 The court declared them divorced on April 19, and Dyer was granted custody of the baby while the two older children were left in the care of her mother. Miller was ordered to pay $200 per year in child support.Frost, 46 Miller believed the divorce prevented him from being nominated for a seat on the Oregon Supreme Court.Peterson, 58 He never denied her charges that he was neglectful of her and their children and was rarely home.Marberry, 58–59 He also may have had an affair with actress Adah Isaacs Menken shortly into the marriage.Marberry, 47–48

Miller went to England, where he was celebrated as a frontier oddity. There, in May 1871, Miller published Songs of the Sierras, the book which finalized his nickname as the "Poet of the Sierras".Marberry, 93–94 It was well received by the British press and members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, particularly Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Michael Rossetti. He was briefly engaged to Iza Duffus Hardy in 1873.Twain, Mark (1997). Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 5. University of California Press. pp. 408, note 14. ISBN 978-0-520-20822-3.

While in England, Miller was one of the few Americans invited into the Savage Club along with Julian Hawthorne, son of Nathaniel Hawthorne. The younger Hawthorne referred to Miller as "a licensed libertine" but admitted to finding him "charming, amiable, and harmless".Marberry, 85–86 Miller returned to England several times after visiting family on both coasts of the U.S. He eventually stayed in New York.

In 1877, Miller adapted his First Fam'lies of the Sierras into a play, The Danites, or, the Heart of the Sierras. It opened on August 22 in New York with McKee Rankin as the main character.Marberry, 158–159 The anti-Mormons play, which featured hunting the daughter of one of the murderers of Joseph Smith, became one of the most commercially successful in a series of anti-Mormon dramas at the time. The Spirit of the Times, however, attributed its success to curious audience members expecting a disastrous failure and instead discovering a good show: "The play proved to possess more than ordinary merit, and if it is not a great work, it is decidedly not a very bad one."Jones, Megan Sanborn. Performing American Identity in Anti-Mormon Melodrama. Taylor & Francis, 2009: 103. The Danites was extended from a run of only a few days to one of seven straight weeks before moving to another theatre and, ultimately, was performed to such a degree that it rivaled the popularity of Tom Shows.Marberry, 159–160 It was published in book form later in 1877.Peterson, 179 Miller later admitted that he regretted the anti-Mormon tone.Marberry, 160

Miller married for a third time on September 8, 1879 to Abigail Leland, in New York City. They later moved to Washington, D.C. before he returned to California in 1889. Over the next few decades, he traveled to Montana, China, and the Klondike, reporting for newspapers.

Japanese poet Yone Noguchi came to The Hights in 1894 and spent the next four years there as an unpaid laborer in exchange for room and board. While living there, he published his first book, Seen or Unseen; or, Monologues of a Homeless Snail (1897). Though he referred to Miller as "the most natural man", Noguchi reflected on those years as his most difficult in the United States and later fictionalized his experience in The American Diary of a Japanese Girl.Wyatt, David. Five Fires: Race, Catastrophe, and the Shaping of California. Oxford University Press, 1999: 188.

In 1897, Miller traveled to the Yukon as a newspaper correspondent.Marberry, 237 He saw Alaska for the first time on July 30.Frost, 110 His dispatches, many of which were written before reaching Alaska, incorrectly implied an easy and inexpensive trip. Miller himself nearly froze to death; two toes were lost to frostbite.Marberry, 238–242

Miller died on February 17, 1913, surrounded by friends and family. His last words were recorded as "Take me away; take me away!" The poet had asked to be cremated by friends in the funeral pyre he built at The Hights with no religious ceremony and without being embalmed. His wishes were mostly ignored, and the funeral on February 19 drew thousands of curious onlookers.Marberry, 280–281 The preacher who spoke referred to Miller as "the last of America's great poets."Frost, 112 On May 23, members of the Bohemian Club of San Francisco and the Press Club returned to Miller's funeral pyre to burn the urn which contained his ashes, allowing them to scatter. He had left no will and his estate – estimated at $100,000 – was divided between his wife, Abigail, and daughter, Juanita.Marberry, 282–283

Called the "Poet of the Sierras" and the "Byron of the Rockies", he may have been more of a celebrity in England than in his native U.S. Much of his reputation, however, came not from his poetry but from the image he created for himself by capitalizing on the stereotypical image of Western frontiersmen.Lewis, Nathaniel. Unsettling the Literary West: Authenticity and Authorship. University of Nebraska Press, 2003: 78. As poet Bayard Taylor bitterly noted in 1876, British audiences "place the simulated savagery of Joaquin Miller beside the pure and serene muse of Longfellow."Loving, Jerome. Mark Twain: The Adventures of Samuel L. Clemens. University of California Press, 2010: 234. Critics made much of Miller's poor spelling and rhymes; he once rhymed "Goethe" and "teeth". Henry Cuyler Bunner satirized the error in a poem titled "Shake, Mulleary, and Go-ethe".Untermeyer, Louis. Modern American Poetry. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1921: 64. Miller himself once admitted, "I'm damned if I could tell the difference between a hexameter and a pentameter to save my scalp."Marberry, 90

The Westminster Review referred to Miller's poetry as "Walt Whitman without the coarseness".Peterson, 66 For a time, Miller's poem "Columbus" was one of the most widely known American poems, memorized and recited by legions of schoolchildren. Miller is remembered today, among other reasons, for lines from his poem in honor of "Burns and Byron":

In men whom men condemn as ill

:I find so much of goodness still.

In men whom men pronounce divine

:I find so much of sin and blot

I do not dare to draw a line

:Between the two, where God has not.