Levi Miller was born to Peter and Margaret Smith Miller on February 22, 1836 in Harmony, in Warren County, New Jersey.  Levi’s older brother, John, was also a physician  who practiced in Andover and was a “shaker and mover”.    Levi attended and graduated from the Belvidere Academy and apprenticed with his brother for a year.    He then attended lectures and graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York in 1855.   He  moved to Lafayette and set up a medical practice and remained there until August 1862 when he commissioned as Assistant Surgeon to the 1^st  New Jersey Infantry.  The 1^st NJ was part of Philip Kearny’s famed First New Jersey Brigade.   He served with the regiment through the battles of Second Bull Run and Fair Oaks and many others  until 23 June 1864 when he resigned his commission.   In the 1890 Veterans Survey he reported no illnesses or injuries resulting from the war.

In the excellent book by Joseph G. Bilby and William C. Goble,  Remember You are Jerseymen,  a story about Miller is told.  “Similarly in March, 1864, an enraged Assistant Surgeon Levi Miller of the First New Jersey Infantry examined a recruit who had previously received a disability discharge for “epileosia, variocele,  [and] organic disease of the heart,” who had been allowed to reenlist even though his “left arm was powerless due to a disunited fracture of both bones of the forearm of six months standing, and which he carries in a sling.”   Miller went on to assert that recruiters were committing intentional fraud for profit and the recruit had criminal intent as he would be paid a bounty for enlisting knowing full well that he could not serve.  The town would also benefit by increasing its quota of men by one  man.

Returning from the Army he settled in New York City and opened a drug store/office for three years.  In 1858 he returned to New  Jersey and opened a practice  in Newton,  in Sussex County New Jersey and  married Mary E. Cummins of Lafayette on September 30.  They had two sons, Fred Sherman and Sayre Wesley. 

Miller was active in Newton Town government and a generous citizen.  A destructive fire started on Main Street, September 22, 1873 in which $65,000 loss was incurred to buildings.  Hoboken had sent up a “steamer”, a new steam driven fire engine to assist the local firefighters.  They  arrived too late but the leading citizens saw the need for new updated equipment.  Miller, Martin Rosenkrans, Joseph Warbasse, A.W. Price and Emanuel Ackerson formed a committee and voted to purchase a steamer and 1000 feet of hose.   They found one that had been built for the New York State Fair, and purchased it for $5000.   It was delivered on October 9^th and a public trial took place in which water was thrown 265 feet through 150 feet of hose.

The Miller’s son Sayre died in 1879 at the age of three.  In the 1880 US Census, Miller and his wife Mary, son Fred Sherman and Henrietta Cummins, Mary’s sister,  were recorded living in Newton on Main Street.  Levi died in 1895.  At the time his son, Fred, was living in New Orleans, probably studying music and arrived only in time for the internment which was delayed until 7:00 pm.   By 1900, Fred had returned to Newton and was living with his mother and her sister and one servant.   Fred’s occupation was music teacher.  By 1910 was listed as a “Musician, theatrical company”.   He did marry at age thirty but there is no record of that.  In 1930 he was boarding with the family of John W. Barr in Newton.

Levi, Mary and Sayre are all buried in the Old Newton Cemetery in Newton, NJ.

Submitted by: V. Josephson 02/23/2009