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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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MILLER, JOHN C. (1839-1918)

MILLER, JOHN C., businessman and sportsman; b. Picton, Upper Canada, 12 Jan 1839, s/o James Miller and Eliza Cumming; m. 1st, 1861, Eliza McLean, of Granby, Que., and 2nd, Catherine (Proctor) Carter (or Parker), of Lindsay, Ont.; d. Newcastle, 10 Feb 1918.

John C. Miller's father was a general merchant at Picton, Ont., until 1856, when he relocated his family in the province of Quebec. Miller attended school in Picton and later studied for a short time at Knox College in Toronto. His father had developed and patented a process for extracting a substance from hemlock bark for use in the tanning of leather, and he joined with him and others in founding the J. & J. Miller Tanning & Extract Co., which had its first manufacturing plant at St Pie, Que.

The extensive stands of hemlock on the Miramichi prompted Miller to establish a branch of the family business and erect a processing plant at Derby (Millerton) in 1869. In the 1870s extract was being shipped from this plant to London, Liverpool, and Antwerp. At this time the firm was also operating extract plants in Jeanette, Pa, and in Hungary and Turkey. In 1881-82 a second New Brunswick plant was built at Mortimer (Beckwith's Corner) in Kent County. The company was reorganized in 1886, becoming the Miller Tanning & Extract Co., the head office of which was in London, England, but John C. Miller continued to be in charge of operations on the Miramichi.

In 1872, as elsewhere noted, Miller became a partner of Robert R. Call in a steam ferry business. In 1878 Call and Miller leased eight telephone sets from the Bell Telephone Co. of Canada and installed a private telephone line, seven miles in length, between Newcastle and Derby, with connections to their homes and places of business, as well as the Newcastle railway station. This was the first telephone exchange on the Miramichi, and it was operated independently for eleven years, until the Newcastle exchange was installed in 1889.

In 1883 Miller was a director of the Northern and Western Railway Co., of which his partner Call was president. He was on the committee of stewards created in 1881 to arrange for regattas on the Miramichi. In 1885-86 he was one of the founders of the Miramichi Yacht Club, and he was its longtime commodore. His yacht Kilbride, which was named after his father's hometown in Scotland, was the fastest vessel entered in the regattas in the mid 1880s. He continued to participate in them for many years and was in attendance as late as 1913. He was residing in Newcastle at the time of his death in 1918, at age seventy-nine.

Miller gave the family surname to the community of Millerton through serving as postmaster there from 1880 to 1895. In 1894 he was a member of the committee for the erection of Millerton's Grace Presbyterian Church. He and his first wife, Eliza McLean, had a son, John W. Miller, who made his home in Newcastle. In 1899 he became the owner of the first automobile in New Brunswick. This was an 8-horsepower machine, with a top speed of 20 m.p.h., which he bought from the Winton Motor Carriage Co. of Cleveland, Ohio, for $1300. In 1905, when there were fourteen cars registered in the province, he remained the only listed owner on the Miramichi, having a 7 1/2-horsepower Cadillac at that time.

The bark extract business attracted several other Miller family members to New Brunswick, including Thomas Miller and his wife Anna Christie, who were the parents of T. Christie Miller; and John C. Miller's brother James Miller. He was manager for some years of the Kent County extract plant and was subsequently in charge of the plant in Jeanette, Pa. In 1895 he settled in Chatham and went into business with his son James W. Miller, the proprietor of the foundry which had been owned formerly by Thomas F. Gillespie.

Sources

[b/m] Can. Album [d] Leader 15 Feb 1918 / Advance 11 Aug 1881, 7 Dec 1893, 22 Mar 1894, 1 Aug 1895; Advocate 4 Sep 1878, 4 Dec 1878, 22 Sep 1880, 17 Aug 1892, 6 Mar 1895, 9 May 1899, 21 May 1902, 14 Feb 1918; Leader 27 Feb 1914, 25 Jul 1984; JLA 1906 (public works report re. registered automobiles); Kee; MacManus; World 9 Aug 1882, 4 Aug 1883, 14 Apr 1886, 18 Sep 1886, 25 Sep 1886, 3 Sep 1913, 13 Feb 1918


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