Cincinnatus Heine Miller Biography

Dromo's Den

MILLER, Cincinnatus Heine, better known as Joaquin Miller (1841–1913). An American author, born in Wabash District of Indiana, Nov. 10, 1841. In 1854 his parents took him to Oregon. Later he became a gold miner in California. He was a volunteer in Walker's Nicaragua expedition of 1855. From 1855 until 1860 he lived among the Indians of the Pacific coast. He studied law for a while, then edited at Eugene, Oreg., a Democratic paper, which was suppressed by the authorities for disunion sentiments. In 1863 he began to practice law and in 1870 he was appointed county judge of Grant Co., Oreg. After visiting the Eastern States Miller went to England, where (and also in Boston) in 1871 he published his Songs of the Sierras, which made him a "lion" in London society. In London he lived up to the British conception of the American Western type by appearing on festal occasions and in general in flannel shirt, sombrero, etc. He afterward settled in New York, but left that city in order to do journalistic work in Washington, D. C., and in Oakland, Cal. At his Oakland home, which was a feature of the city, he entertained many visiting celebrities. He died Feb. 17, 1913. In accordance with his wish his body was cremated and the ashes carried up into the Sierras and thrown to the winds. In addition to the Songs of the Sierras above mentioned, his work includes: Songs of the Sunlands, (1873); Songs of Italy (1878); Songs of the Mexican Seas (1887); Building of the City Beautiful (1893); in prose, The Danites in the Sierras (a novel, 1881). Miller's play, The Danites, taken from his novel, had considerable success, and his poetry received some favorable notice, more for genuinely romantic content and brilliant if crude color, than for artistic excellence. A collective edition of his verses appeared in 1897. The name Joaquin is supposed to have been taken from Joaquin Murietta, a Mexican bandit, of whom Miller wrote a defense. In the Poems (6 vols., San Francisco, 1909–10) will be found (in volume i) an introduction and an autobiography.

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XV (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 682-683.