Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/253

 PROF. ROD. E. MILLER.

��225

���PROF. ROD. E. MILLER.

��IF boldness and grandeur of scenery inspire the artist's soul, surely New Hampshire should boast of many a well filled studio. Be that as it may, she has reason to be proud of the paintings of R. E. Miller. Quietly working among her granite hills, he has accumulated no mean collection of views from our own State, as well as from other lands.

Roderick Edward Miller was born February 22, 1830, at Saxton's River, Rockingham, Windham County, Vermont. His father was Edward Darley Miller, from Westminster, Vermont, descended from the Scotch who settled in Londonderry, New Hampshire. His mother was Lucy Bishop, a descendant of the Pennsylvania Germans. He was the eldest of four children, one of whom, a brother, attained some skill in figure painting.

His grandfather, two uncles on his father's side, and three on his mother's, were ornamental painters. One uncle, his father's brother, was very successful as an imitator of wood and marble, a large part of his work having been done in New York city, notably that upon Trinity Church. Thus the idea of paint- ing was insejxarably connected with his childhood.

When the subject of our sketch was ten years of age, the fiimily removed to Chester, Vermont, where he remained four years, after which time he "paddled his own canoe." We then find the boy experimenting with coarse paints, in his first attempts at picture painting.

In 1844, he returned to Saxton's River, where he worked at carriage [and house painting. It was during this time he painted a few sections of a [pan-

�� �