MILLER, CHARLES (1794-1887)

MILLER, CHARLES, Baptist minister, North Esk parish, 1819-23; b. Auchinbowie, St Ninian's parish, Stirlingshire, Scotland, 1794 (bap. 15 Oct 1794), s/o David Miller and Helen Cowie; m. 1828, Susan D. Thompson, of Livermore, Me.; d. Skowhegan, Me, 21 Nov 1887.

Charles Miller was baptized in the Established Presbyterian Church of Scotland, but his parents were Congregationalists. He was converted to the Baptist faith as a youth and preached for that denomination for four years in Scotland. He mind was impressed with the idea of becoming a missionary in Africa, but he did not pass up an opportunity in 1819 to take "a sea voyage with a Baptist merchant who was opening a business in Miramichi, N.B." After his arrival he accepted an invitation to teach school in North Esk parish.

At the end of the first week of school Miller asked his pupils to tell their parents that on Sunday he would be holding a meeting in the schoolroom. "He was too modest to announce preaching," but when the Rev. Elijah Estabrooks visited North Esk a few weeks later on behalf of the Baptist Association he was so encouraged by the religious initiative which Miller had taken that he "stayed there two or three Sabbaths, baptized a number, and organized the North Esk Church with nine members, including the young school-teacher."

The organization date of the Miramichi (North Esk) Baptist Church was 2 August 1819, and Miller was its first pastor. Prior to his arrival, Joseph Coburn of the state of Maine had preached and baptized along the Miramichi, but Miller would appear to have been the first resident Baptist preacher anywhere on the river. He was ordained at a conference held in Sackville in 1820 and won many converts during four years with the North Esk congregation.

In 1823 Miller was installed as minister of Germain Street Baptist Church in Saint John. Three years later he was called to South Berwick, Me. He was based there and in Turner, Me, for a total of seven years and spent an equivalent period of time in Massachusetts, during which he had pastorates in Cambridge and Boston. He returned to Maine and was finally the Baptist minister in the town of Skowhegan, from the 1840s until his retirement around 1874. He continued to reside in Skowhegan until his death in 1887, at age ninety-three. His son C. Davis Miller was a lifelong resident of Skowhegan.