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One of the leading specialists of the Southwest is Dr.
Robert Finney Miller of San Antonio, whose skill in the treatment of
diseases of the eye, ear and throat has made him universally
recognized by the profession and the general public. The specialist is
as necessary a factor to medicine as medicine to mankind, and to him
the practitioner must look when the necessary knowledge and skill are
demanded for the utmost proficiency in the treatment of one particular
subject of the broad range of medical and surgical science.
Paradoxical as the statement may seem, some of the foremost men of the
profession are those who, contracting their scope of activities, have
thus broadened their field of usefulness by an undivided attention to
a related group of organs or to one particular disease. Dr. Miller,
who comes of an old American family and one that was early identified
with Texas, began his career as a physician twenty years ago, and for
a number of years has confined his work to the special branches above
mentioned.
Robert Finney Miller was born at Gay Hill, Washington
County, Texas, in 1866. His family lineage is easily traced back to
the early colonial period in American history. His father was the Rev.
James Weston -Miller, 1). D., who was born in Erie county,
Pennsylvania, in 1815, and was of Scotch and Puritan ancestry,
including the families of Weston, Winston, Cady, Coggsuell. Lincoln,
Delanoy, Alden, Standish, Dunham, Rogers, liarlow, Soule, Grant, and
others. He was a first honor graduate of Jefferson College, Canousburg,
Pennsylvania, in the class of 1840, and came as a missionary to what
is now the First Presbyterian church of Houston, Texas, in 1844,
during the closing days of the Republic, and was installed as pastor
in 1847, that being the first installation ceremony of its kind in the
state. After coming to Texas, he became prominent in all of the
educational efforts of the Presbyterian church. He often had President
Sam Houston and his wife in his congregation at Houston. He became a
charter member of the board of trustees of Austin College when that
institution was founded, at Huntsville, and later was elected
president of the college for a year during the Civil war. He rode
horseback several hundred miles, to Austin, to obtain the first
college charter. He was twice moderator of the Synod of Texas, and
also an original member of the same. Three years after his public
installation as pastor at Houston failing health caused him to remove
to Washington county, where he established the Live Oak Female
Seminary, and continued to conduct it successfully until his death in
1888. Reverend Miller married first Elizabeth McKinnon, who died in
1850. He afterwards married Elizabeth Scott Stewart, daughter of
William and Mary (Cummins) Stewart. Both mother and daughter were born
in an old home in Brooke county, Virginia (now West Virginia), in a
district made famous as the seat of Bethany College, founded by
Alexander Campbell. That house was built in 1783 by Robert Cummins,
her grandfather, who was an ensign in the Revolution, and now, after
more than one hundred and thirty years, is still occupied as a
dwelling. Ensign Robert Cummins was descended from the old Scotch
family of Cummins, as well as the oldest Dutch families of New York,
including Anneke Janse. Mrs. Miller was directly descended from the
High Stewards of Scotland, ancestors of the Royal House of Stuart,
through the same family lines as the Earl of Galloway and Sir Harry
Stewart, Bart, of Fort Stewart, Ireland, and was named for her
grandmother, Elizabeth Scott. -- A
History of Texas and Texans, Volume 3, Francis
White Johnson, 1914. |
