American socialite and expatriate; father of author Agatha Christie.
Frederick Alvah Miller was born in New York City, probably in a boarding house in Lower Manhattan; date and city of birth are given on an 1899 passport application. His father, Nathaniel Frary Miller, was then a clerk working at a mercantile house in Cedar Street; his mother, Martha Miller née Messerve*, was the daughter of a New York City butcher who late in life became a policeman. In the 1850 U.S. census, Fred was living with his parents, his mother's half-sister Clara D. Messerve, and an Irish-born maid in a few rented rooms in Brooklyn's 4th Ward, alongside other lodgers and the family of their landlord, Daniel F. Fernald.
Fred had no siblings: His mother's health was delicate, and in September 1851--perhaps to avoid the harsh winter coming--he sailed southward with Martha and her half-sister, first to Charleston, South Carolina, and then on to Savannah, Georgia. Nathaniel joined them in time for Christmas, then brought his family home in early January 1852. Less than four weeks later, Martha died from pulmonary tuberculosis at their Brooklyn lodgings. Her son was only five years old.
In consequence, Fred was raised in Massachusetts by paternal relatives--initially his grandparents, later by a married aunt. He attended the Williston Seminary in Easthampton, and also spent one year at Highland Military Academy in Worcester. He apparently finished his education at a Swiss boarding school in Vevey on Lake Geneva; there he became friends with Martin Pirie, who would later serve as best man at Fred's wedding, while Martin's mother Charlotte would be a godmother to Fred's first-born child. The Piries lived in Torquay, Devon, in the 1860s, and Fred may have visited them there on holidays.
In July 1851, his father was promoted to junior partner of successful wholesale dry goods firm Claflin, Mellen & Co., renamed H.B. Claflin & Company in 1864. (In 1890, the firm was renamed for the final time as H.B. Claflin Co.) From the mid-1850s, Nathaniel lived and worked primarily in Manchester, Lancashire, England. He married again in April 1863, to an Englishwoman, Margaret West*; 16-year-old Fred became so attached to his stepmother that he called her "Mother".
In 1871, Fred stood as godfather to his first cousin and namesake (1871-1940), the eldest surviving son of his uncle Alvah Miller junior. This cousin later worked as a hotel proprietor in New Rochelle, New York.
According to his wife, Fred himself never held a job: He inherited a moderate fortune from his father, and employed it liberally in enjoying himself. Fred became a member of New York's exclusive Union Club in 1870, and was listed in the New York Social Register after that directory began publication in 1887; he also belonged to London's Windham Club in St. James's Square (fellow members included Sir Henry Irving and Bram Stoker). In Devon, he was a member of the Victoria Club, the horticultural society, a clay pigeon-shooting club, a racquet club, a group that staged public concerts of classical music, the tennis club, the RSPCA, and the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, & Art. Above all, he was devoted to the Torquay cricket club, "never more content than when he was scoring in a match at the club's prettily situated ground in the Barton Road", as a local newspaper said; from 1898 until the club's demise in 1901, he served as its Vice President. (Shortly after his death, a New York newspaper mistakenly stated that he had been a stockbroker in that city; the reporter had gotten Fred mixed up with his cousin Nathaniel Welles Miller. This error has been repeated by modern writers.)
An easy-going, sociable man, Fred was an excellent pianist and singer, collected furniture and pictures, and enjoyed traveling, amateur theatrics, dogs, and whist. He never applied for British citizenship, and patriotically kept a stuffed American bald eagle in a huge glass cabinet in his drawing room. Some of his friends called him "Joe".
On 11 April 1878, Fred married his stepmother's niece, Clarissa Boehmer, at St. Peter's, Notting Hill, Kensington. Probably on the recommendation of the Pirie family, the couple settled in Torquay, where in early 1881 they completed the purchase of the long-term leasehold of a pleasant villa called Ashfield. (Their leasehold expired 30 June 1932.)
In the early years of their marriage, two children were born: Margaret Frary and Louis Montant. Ten years after Monty's birth came their third and final child, who grew up to become author Agatha Christie. The last baby's godparents offer a good overview of the Millers' social circle: Edith Janet Kennedy Kitson (1842-1922), wife of Torquay banker William Henry Kitson, whose father was a co-founder of the Torquay Cricket Club in 1851; Catherine Allen Fuller Sullivan (1843-1935; a direct descendant of Mayflower passenger Edward Fuller; her sister Mary Reed Fuller was married to Frederick Sturges, a brother of Amelia Sturges, childless first wife of John Pierpont "J.P." Morgan senior), wife of New York-based merchant James Sullivan; and Captain the Honourable Archibald Robert Hewitt (1844-1925), Royal Navy, a younger son of the 4th Viscount Lifford, who in 1913 succeeded his brother as the 6th Lord Lifford. When Agatha was a child, Fred taught her basic arithmetic. He also took over the household accounts, to spare his mathematically-challenged wife the aggravation.
Ashfield was not always idyllic. On New Year's Eve 1892, he discovered that their gardener, William Henry Callicott, had hanged himself in their stables. Showing a steady head, Fred sent the maid for a doctor and himself telephoned for the police. (The Millers had a home telephone by 1889--a great rarity. Their number was 82.) He also had to testify at the inquest. (Agatha would fictionalize this tragic event in her 1934 novel Unfinished Portrait.)
Fred made multiple trips to the U.S. following his marriage; Clara rarely accompanied him. In December 1895, however, the pair sailed together with their eldest aboard the Campania with 13 large pieces of baggage, for Madge's social debut in New York City. On her 17th birthday, her proud father escorted her to a ball co-hosted by Mrs John Jacob Astor at the Hotel Waldorf on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan; 600 socially prominent people sat down for supper at 1:30 a.m. (New-York Daily Tribune, 10 January 1896, page 7). The family returned to England in May 1896 aboard the Majestic--whose captain was Edward J. Smith, later to go down with the Titanic.
By the late 1890s, the income from Fred's trust fund had declined significantly, due to poor management, market crises, property deterioration, and--perhaps--chicanery. To save money, Ashfield was rented out for a year in early 1899.** Madge and Agatha accompanied their parents abroad. (Having failed scholastically, Monty remained behind, working at a job in a Devon shipyard.) They lived for six months in the Pyrenees, followed by a week in Paris that August, then went on to Dinard; they spent most of the winter on Guernsey, before returning to Ashfield around March 1900.
Family finances by now were distinctly strained. Fred's health declined; in the last months of his life, he believed he'd suffered literally dozens of what he recorded as "heart attacks" (which may have been what we would today diagnose as anxiety or panic attacks, but certainly were not heart attacks--even today, a heart attack suffered outside a hospital has a death rate of 90% or worse) . Weakened by chronic nephritis, Fred died from pneumonia at the home of his stepmother, Margaret West Miller, in Ealing. His beloved wife Clara, daughter Madge, and stepmother Margaret were later buried with him.
The Torquay Times (29 November 1901, page 8) said, "With regret we announce the death of Mr. F. A. Miller, of Ashfield, Barton Road...Mr. Miller had many friends by whom his genial personality will be greatly missed."
_____________________________________
*Margaret West Miller is mistakenly listed as "mother" rather than "stepmother" on Fred's death registration, as well as in the Torquay Times article announcing his death. His real mother's surname Messerve has been misspelled in some biographies about Agatha Christie. Martha Messerve had married Nathaniel Frary Miller on 4 July 1845 in New York City (New-York Daily Tribune, 10 July 1845, page 3).
**When writing her autobiography decades later, Agatha Christie was unsure when this trip had taken place, but thought it might have begun when she was 6--that is, in early 1897. Her biographers misread this passage and concluded that the trip began in 1896. But this long sojourn cannot have occurred at any time 1895-1898, because contemporary newspapers and emigration/immigration records clearly indicate the presence of family members at various places in England and the U.S. throughout that period. For instance, on 16 July 1896, when the biographers state the Millers were in France, in actuality Fred, Clara and Madge attended Teignbridge Ladies Day, an annual cricket outing in Devon; similarly, on 25 August 1897--when Agatha suggested the four of them were in France--Fred, Clara, Madge, and Monty, along with Clara's brother Harry Miller Boehmer, were all attending Teignbridge Ladies Day. The trip to the U.S. December 1895-May 1896 is well-documented in contemporary records. 1898 is impossible, because Fred chaired a meeting of the cricket club in Torquay in May, at which he was elected Vice President. Finally, it is known that he applied for a U.S. passport in London in January 1899, intending to visit Egypt with his family; he was refused, because he would not state that he intended to return to the U.S. within two years in order to "take up the duties of citizenship". France, which could be visited without a passport, must have seemed an acceptable substitute. Passports did not become mandatory for many European countries until WWI.
--Tosca-by-the-River 2019
Frederick Alvah Miller was born in New York City, probably in a boarding house in Lower Manhattan; date and city of birth are given on an 1899 passport application. His father, Nathaniel Frary Miller, was then a clerk working at a mercantile house in Cedar Street; his mother, Martha Miller née Messerve*, was the daughter of a New York City butcher who late in life became a policeman. In the 1850 U.S. census, Fred was living with his parents, his mother's half-sister Clara D. Messerve, and an Irish-born maid in a few rented rooms in Brooklyn's 4th Ward, alongside other lodgers and the family of their landlord, Daniel F. Fernald.
Fred had no siblings: His mother's health was delicate, and in September 1851--perhaps to avoid the harsh winter coming--he sailed southward with Martha and her half-sister, first to Charleston, South Carolina, and then on to Savannah, Georgia. Nathaniel joined them in time for Christmas, then brought his family home in early January 1852. Less than four weeks later, Martha died from pulmonary tuberculosis at their Brooklyn lodgings. Her son was only five years old.
In consequence, Fred was raised in Massachusetts by paternal relatives--initially his grandparents, later by a married aunt. He attended the Williston Seminary in Easthampton, and also spent one year at Highland Military Academy in Worcester. He apparently finished his education at a Swiss boarding school in Vevey on Lake Geneva; there he became friends with Martin Pirie, who would later serve as best man at Fred's wedding, while Martin's mother Charlotte would be a godmother to Fred's first-born child. The Piries lived in Torquay, Devon, in the 1860s, and Fred may have visited them there on holidays.
In July 1851, his father was promoted to junior partner of successful wholesale dry goods firm Claflin, Mellen & Co., renamed H.B. Claflin & Company in 1864. (In 1890, the firm was renamed for the final time as H.B. Claflin Co.) From the mid-1850s, Nathaniel lived and worked primarily in Manchester, Lancashire, England. He married again in April 1863, to an Englishwoman, Margaret West*; 16-year-old Fred became so attached to his stepmother that he called her "Mother".
In 1871, Fred stood as godfather to his first cousin and namesake (1871-1940), the eldest surviving son of his uncle Alvah Miller junior. This cousin later worked as a hotel proprietor in New Rochelle, New York.
According to his wife, Fred himself never held a job: He inherited a moderate fortune from his father, and employed it liberally in enjoying himself. Fred became a member of New York's exclusive Union Club in 1870, and was listed in the New York Social Register after that directory began publication in 1887; he also belonged to London's Windham Club in St. James's Square (fellow members included Sir Henry Irving and Bram Stoker). In Devon, he was a member of the Victoria Club, the horticultural society, a clay pigeon-shooting club, a racquet club, a group that staged public concerts of classical music, the tennis club, the RSPCA, and the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, & Art. Above all, he was devoted to the Torquay cricket club, "never more content than when he was scoring in a match at the club's prettily situated ground in the Barton Road", as a local newspaper said; from 1898 until the club's demise in 1901, he served as its Vice President. (Shortly after his death, a New York newspaper mistakenly stated that he had been a stockbroker in that city; the reporter had gotten Fred mixed up with his cousin Nathaniel Welles Miller. This error has been repeated by modern writers.)
An easy-going, sociable man, Fred was an excellent pianist and singer, collected furniture and pictures, and enjoyed traveling, amateur theatrics, dogs, and whist. He never applied for British citizenship, and patriotically kept a stuffed American bald eagle in a huge glass cabinet in his drawing room. Some of his friends called him "Joe".
On 11 April 1878, Fred married his stepmother's niece, Clarissa Boehmer, at St. Peter's, Notting Hill, Kensington. Probably on the recommendation of the Pirie family, the couple settled in Torquay, where in early 1881 they completed the purchase of the long-term leasehold of a pleasant villa called Ashfield. (Their leasehold expired 30 June 1932.)
In the early years of their marriage, two children were born: Margaret Frary and Louis Montant. Ten years after Monty's birth came their third and final child, who grew up to become author Agatha Christie. The last baby's godparents offer a good overview of the Millers' social circle: Edith Janet Kennedy Kitson (1842-1922), wife of Torquay banker William Henry Kitson, whose father was a co-founder of the Torquay Cricket Club in 1851; Catherine Allen Fuller Sullivan (1843-1935; a direct descendant of Mayflower passenger Edward Fuller; her sister Mary Reed Fuller was married to Frederick Sturges, a brother of Amelia Sturges, childless first wife of John Pierpont "J.P." Morgan senior), wife of New York-based merchant James Sullivan; and Captain the Honourable Archibald Robert Hewitt (1844-1925), Royal Navy, a younger son of the 4th Viscount Lifford, who in 1913 succeeded his brother as the 6th Lord Lifford. When Agatha was a child, Fred taught her basic arithmetic. He also took over the household accounts, to spare his mathematically-challenged wife the aggravation.
Ashfield was not always idyllic. On New Year's Eve 1892, he discovered that their gardener, William Henry Callicott, had hanged himself in their stables. Showing a steady head, Fred sent the maid for a doctor and himself telephoned for the police. (The Millers had a home telephone by 1889--a great rarity. Their number was 82.) He also had to testify at the inquest. (Agatha would fictionalize this tragic event in her 1934 novel Unfinished Portrait.)
Fred made multiple trips to the U.S. following his marriage; Clara rarely accompanied him. In December 1895, however, the pair sailed together with their eldest aboard the Campania with 13 large pieces of baggage, for Madge's social debut in New York City. On her 17th birthday, her proud father escorted her to a ball co-hosted by Mrs John Jacob Astor at the Hotel Waldorf on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan; 600 socially prominent people sat down for supper at 1:30 a.m. (New-York Daily Tribune, 10 January 1896, page 7). The family returned to England in May 1896 aboard the Majestic--whose captain was Edward J. Smith, later to go down with the Titanic.
By the late 1890s, the income from Fred's trust fund had declined significantly, due to poor management, market crises, property deterioration, and--perhaps--chicanery. To save money, Ashfield was rented out for a year in early 1899.** Madge and Agatha accompanied their parents abroad. (Having failed scholastically, Monty remained behind, working at a job in a Devon shipyard.) They lived for six months in the Pyrenees, followed by a week in Paris that August, then went on to Dinard; they spent most of the winter on Guernsey, before returning to Ashfield around March 1900.
Family finances by now were distinctly strained. Fred's health declined; in the last months of his life, he believed he'd suffered literally dozens of what he recorded as "heart attacks" (which may have been what we would today diagnose as anxiety or panic attacks, but certainly were not heart attacks--even today, a heart attack suffered outside a hospital has a death rate of 90% or worse) . Weakened by chronic nephritis, Fred died from pneumonia at the home of his stepmother, Margaret West Miller, in Ealing. His beloved wife Clara, daughter Madge, and stepmother Margaret were later buried with him.
The Torquay Times (29 November 1901, page 8) said, "With regret we announce the death of Mr. F. A. Miller, of Ashfield, Barton Road...Mr. Miller had many friends by whom his genial personality will be greatly missed."
_____________________________________
*Margaret West Miller is mistakenly listed as "mother" rather than "stepmother" on Fred's death registration, as well as in the Torquay Times article announcing his death. His real mother's surname Messerve has been misspelled in some biographies about Agatha Christie. Martha Messerve had married Nathaniel Frary Miller on 4 July 1845 in New York City (New-York Daily Tribune, 10 July 1845, page 3).
**When writing her autobiography decades later, Agatha Christie was unsure when this trip had taken place, but thought it might have begun when she was 6--that is, in early 1897. Her biographers misread this passage and concluded that the trip began in 1896. But this long sojourn cannot have occurred at any time 1895-1898, because contemporary newspapers and emigration/immigration records clearly indicate the presence of family members at various places in England and the U.S. throughout that period. For instance, on 16 July 1896, when the biographers state the Millers were in France, in actuality Fred, Clara and Madge attended Teignbridge Ladies Day, an annual cricket outing in Devon; similarly, on 25 August 1897--when Agatha suggested the four of them were in France--Fred, Clara, Madge, and Monty, along with Clara's brother Harry Miller Boehmer, were all attending Teignbridge Ladies Day. The trip to the U.S. December 1895-May 1896 is well-documented in contemporary records. 1898 is impossible, because Fred chaired a meeting of the cricket club in Torquay in May, at which he was elected Vice President. Finally, it is known that he applied for a U.S. passport in London in January 1899, intending to visit Egypt with his family; he was refused, because he would not state that he intended to return to the U.S. within two years in order to "take up the duties of citizenship". France, which could be visited without a passport, must have seemed an acceptable substitute. Passports did not become mandatory for many European countries until WWI.
--Tosca-by-the-River 2019
American socialite and expatriate; father of author Agatha Christie.
Frederick Alvah Miller was born in New York City, probably in a boarding house in Lower Manhattan; date and city of birth are given on an 1899 passport application. His father, Nathaniel Frary Miller, was then a clerk working at a mercantile house in Cedar Street; his mother, Martha Miller née Messerve*, was the daughter of a New York City butcher who late in life became a policeman. In the 1850 U.S. census, Fred was living with his parents, his mother's half-sister Clara D. Messerve, and an Irish-born maid in a few rented rooms in Brooklyn's 4th Ward, alongside other lodgers and the family of their landlord, Daniel F. Fernald.
Fred had no siblings: His mother's health was delicate, and in September 1851--perhaps to avoid the harsh winter coming--he sailed southward with Martha and her half-sister, first to Charleston, South Carolina, and then on to Savannah, Georgia. Nathaniel joined them in time for Christmas, then brought his family home in early January 1852. Less than four weeks later, Martha died from pulmonary tuberculosis at their Brooklyn lodgings. Her son was only five years old.
In consequence, Fred was raised in Massachusetts by paternal relatives--initially his grandparents, later by a married aunt. He attended the Williston Seminary in Easthampton, and also spent one year at Highland Military Academy in Worcester. He apparently finished his education at a Swiss boarding school in Vevey on Lake Geneva; there he became friends with Martin Pirie, who would later serve as best man at Fred's wedding, while Martin's mother Charlotte would be a godmother to Fred's first-born child. The Piries lived in Torquay, Devon, in the 1860s, and Fred may have visited them there on holidays.
In July 1851, his father was promoted to junior partner of successful wholesale dry goods firm Claflin, Mellen & Co., renamed H.B. Claflin & Company in 1864. (In 1890, the firm was renamed for the final time as H.B. Claflin Co.) From the mid-1850s, Nathaniel lived and worked primarily in Manchester, Lancashire, England. He married again in April 1863, to an Englishwoman, Margaret West*; 16-year-old Fred became so attached to his stepmother that he called her "Mother".
In 1871, Fred stood as godfather to his first cousin and namesake (1871-1940), the eldest surviving son of his uncle Alvah Miller junior. This cousin later worked as a hotel proprietor in New Rochelle, New York.
According to his wife, Fred himself never held a job: He inherited a moderate fortune from his father, and employed it liberally in enjoying himself. Fred became a member of New York's exclusive Union Club in 1870, and was listed in the New York Social Register after that directory began publication in 1887; he also belonged to London's Windham Club in St. James's Square (fellow members included Sir Henry Irving and Bram Stoker). In Devon, he was a member of the Victoria Club, the horticultural society, a clay pigeon-shooting club, a racquet club, a group that staged public concerts of classical music, the tennis club, the RSPCA, and the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, & Art. Above all, he was devoted to the Torquay cricket club, "never more content than when he was scoring in a match at the club's prettily situated ground in the Barton Road", as a local newspaper said; from 1898 until the club's demise in 1901, he served as its Vice President. (Shortly after his death, a New York newspaper mistakenly stated that he had been a stockbroker in that city; the reporter had gotten Fred mixed up with his cousin Nathaniel Welles Miller. This error has been repeated by modern writers.)
An easy-going, sociable man, Fred was an excellent pianist and singer, collected furniture and pictures, and enjoyed traveling, amateur theatrics, dogs, and whist. He never applied for British citizenship, and patriotically kept a stuffed American bald eagle in a huge glass cabinet in his drawing room. Some of his friends called him "Joe".
On 11 April 1878, Fred married his stepmother's niece, Clarissa Boehmer, at St. Peter's, Notting Hill, Kensington. Probably on the recommendation of the Pirie family, the couple settled in Torquay, where in early 1881 they completed the purchase of the long-term leasehold of a pleasant villa called Ashfield. (Their leasehold expired 30 June 1932.)
In the early years of their marriage, two children were born: Margaret Frary and Louis Montant. Ten years after Monty's birth came their third and final child, who grew up to become author Agatha Christie. The last baby's godparents offer a good overview of the Millers' social circle: Edith Janet Kennedy Kitson (1842-1922), wife of Torquay banker William Henry Kitson, whose father was a co-founder of the Torquay Cricket Club in 1851; Catherine Allen Fuller Sullivan (1843-1935; a direct descendant of Mayflower passenger Edward Fuller; her sister Mary Reed Fuller was married to Frederick Sturges, a brother of Amelia Sturges, childless first wife of John Pierpont "J.P." Morgan senior), wife of New York-based merchant James Sullivan; and Captain the Honourable Archibald Robert Hewitt (1844-1925), Royal Navy, a younger son of the 4th Viscount Lifford, who in 1913 succeeded his brother as the 6th Lord Lifford. When Agatha was a child, Fred taught her basic arithmetic. He also took over the household accounts, to spare his mathematically-challenged wife the aggravation.
Ashfield was not always idyllic. On New Year's Eve 1892, he discovered that their gardener, William Henry Callicott, had hanged himself in their stables. Showing a steady head, Fred sent the maid for a doctor and himself telephoned for the police. (The Millers had a home telephone by 1889--a great rarity. Their number was 82.) He also had to testify at the inquest. (Agatha would fictionalize this tragic event in her 1934 novel Unfinished Portrait.)
Fred made multiple trips to the U.S. following his marriage; Clara rarely accompanied him. In December 1895, however, the pair sailed together with their eldest aboard the Campania with 13 large pieces of baggage, for Madge's social debut in New York City. On her 17th birthday, her proud father escorted her to a ball co-hosted by Mrs John Jacob Astor at the Hotel Waldorf on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan; 600 socially prominent people sat down for supper at 1:30 a.m. (New-York Daily Tribune, 10 January 1896, page 7). The family returned to England in May 1896 aboard the Majestic--whose captain was Edward J. Smith, later to go down with the Titanic.
By the late 1890s, the income from Fred's trust fund had declined significantly, due to poor management, market crises, property deterioration, and--perhaps--chicanery. To save money, Ashfield was rented out for a year in early 1899.** Madge and Agatha accompanied their parents abroad. (Having failed scholastically, Monty remained behind, working at a job in a Devon shipyard.) They lived for six months in the Pyrenees, followed by a week in Paris that August, then went on to Dinard; they spent most of the winter on Guernsey, before returning to Ashfield around March 1900.
Family finances by now were distinctly strained. Fred's health declined; in the last months of his life, he believed he'd suffered literally dozens of what he recorded as "heart attacks" (which may have been what we would today diagnose as anxiety or panic attacks, but certainly were not heart attacks--even today, a heart attack suffered outside a hospital has a death rate of 90% or worse) . Weakened by chronic nephritis, Fred died from pneumonia at the home of his stepmother, Margaret West Miller, in Ealing. His beloved wife Clara, daughter Madge, and stepmother Margaret were later buried with him.
The Torquay Times (29 November 1901, page 8) said, "With regret we announce the death of Mr. F. A. Miller, of Ashfield, Barton Road...Mr. Miller had many friends by whom his genial personality will be greatly missed."
_____________________________________
*Margaret West Miller is mistakenly listed as "mother" rather than "stepmother" on Fred's death registration, as well as in the Torquay Times article announcing his death. His real mother's surname Messerve has been misspelled in some biographies about Agatha Christie. Martha Messerve had married Nathaniel Frary Miller on 4 July 1845 in New York City (New-York Daily Tribune, 10 July 1845, page 3).
**When writing her autobiography decades later, Agatha Christie was unsure when this trip had taken place, but thought it might have begun when she was 6--that is, in early 1897. Her biographers misread this passage and concluded that the trip began in 1896. But this long sojourn cannot have occurred at any time 1895-1898, because contemporary newspapers and emigration/immigration records clearly indicate the presence of family members at various places in England and the U.S. throughout that period. For instance, on 16 July 1896, when the biographers state the Millers were in France, in actuality Fred, Clara and Madge attended Teignbridge Ladies Day, an annual cricket outing in Devon; similarly, on 25 August 1897--when Agatha suggested the four of them were in France--Fred, Clara, Madge, and Monty, along with Clara's brother Harry Miller Boehmer, were all attending Teignbridge Ladies Day. The trip to the U.S. December 1895-May 1896 is well-documented in contemporary records. 1898 is impossible, because Fred chaired a meeting of the cricket club in Torquay in May, at which he was elected Vice President. Finally, it is known that he applied for a U.S. passport in London in January 1899, intending to visit Egypt with his family; he was refused, because he would not state that he intended to return to the U.S. within two years in order to "take up the duties of citizenship". France, which could be visited without a passport, must have seemed an acceptable substitute. Passports did not become mandatory for many European countries until WWI.
--Tosca-by-the-River 2019
Frederick Alvah Miller was born in New York City, probably in a boarding house in Lower Manhattan; date and city of birth are given on an 1899 passport application. His father, Nathaniel Frary Miller, was then a clerk working at a mercantile house in Cedar Street; his mother, Martha Miller née Messerve*, was the daughter of a New York City butcher who late in life became a policeman. In the 1850 U.S. census, Fred was living with his parents, his mother's half-sister Clara D. Messerve, and an Irish-born maid in a few rented rooms in Brooklyn's 4th Ward, alongside other lodgers and the family of their landlord, Daniel F. Fernald.
Fred had no siblings: His mother's health was delicate, and in September 1851--perhaps to avoid the harsh winter coming--he sailed southward with Martha and her half-sister, first to Charleston, South Carolina, and then on to Savannah, Georgia. Nathaniel joined them in time for Christmas, then brought his family home in early January 1852. Less than four weeks later, Martha died from pulmonary tuberculosis at their Brooklyn lodgings. Her son was only five years old.
In consequence, Fred was raised in Massachusetts by paternal relatives--initially his grandparents, later by a married aunt. He attended the Williston Seminary in Easthampton, and also spent one year at Highland Military Academy in Worcester. He apparently finished his education at a Swiss boarding school in Vevey on Lake Geneva; there he became friends with Martin Pirie, who would later serve as best man at Fred's wedding, while Martin's mother Charlotte would be a godmother to Fred's first-born child. The Piries lived in Torquay, Devon, in the 1860s, and Fred may have visited them there on holidays.
In July 1851, his father was promoted to junior partner of successful wholesale dry goods firm Claflin, Mellen & Co., renamed H.B. Claflin & Company in 1864. (In 1890, the firm was renamed for the final time as H.B. Claflin Co.) From the mid-1850s, Nathaniel lived and worked primarily in Manchester, Lancashire, England. He married again in April 1863, to an Englishwoman, Margaret West*; 16-year-old Fred became so attached to his stepmother that he called her "Mother".
In 1871, Fred stood as godfather to his first cousin and namesake (1871-1940), the eldest surviving son of his uncle Alvah Miller junior. This cousin later worked as a hotel proprietor in New Rochelle, New York.
According to his wife, Fred himself never held a job: He inherited a moderate fortune from his father, and employed it liberally in enjoying himself. Fred became a member of New York's exclusive Union Club in 1870, and was listed in the New York Social Register after that directory began publication in 1887; he also belonged to London's Windham Club in St. James's Square (fellow members included Sir Henry Irving and Bram Stoker). In Devon, he was a member of the Victoria Club, the horticultural society, a clay pigeon-shooting club, a racquet club, a group that staged public concerts of classical music, the tennis club, the RSPCA, and the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, & Art. Above all, he was devoted to the Torquay cricket club, "never more content than when he was scoring in a match at the club's prettily situated ground in the Barton Road", as a local newspaper said; from 1898 until the club's demise in 1901, he served as its Vice President. (Shortly after his death, a New York newspaper mistakenly stated that he had been a stockbroker in that city; the reporter had gotten Fred mixed up with his cousin Nathaniel Welles Miller. This error has been repeated by modern writers.)
An easy-going, sociable man, Fred was an excellent pianist and singer, collected furniture and pictures, and enjoyed traveling, amateur theatrics, dogs, and whist. He never applied for British citizenship, and patriotically kept a stuffed American bald eagle in a huge glass cabinet in his drawing room. Some of his friends called him "Joe".
On 11 April 1878, Fred married his stepmother's niece, Clarissa Boehmer, at St. Peter's, Notting Hill, Kensington. Probably on the recommendation of the Pirie family, the couple settled in Torquay, where in early 1881 they completed the purchase of the long-term leasehold of a pleasant villa called Ashfield. (Their leasehold expired 30 June 1932.)
In the early years of their marriage, two children were born: Margaret Frary and Louis Montant. Ten years after Monty's birth came their third and final child, who grew up to become author Agatha Christie. The last baby's godparents offer a good overview of the Millers' social circle: Edith Janet Kennedy Kitson (1842-1922), wife of Torquay banker William Henry Kitson, whose father was a co-founder of the Torquay Cricket Club in 1851; Catherine Allen Fuller Sullivan (1843-1935; a direct descendant of Mayflower passenger Edward Fuller; her sister Mary Reed Fuller was married to Frederick Sturges, a brother of Amelia Sturges, childless first wife of John Pierpont "J.P." Morgan senior), wife of New York-based merchant James Sullivan; and Captain the Honourable Archibald Robert Hewitt (1844-1925), Royal Navy, a younger son of the 4th Viscount Lifford, who in 1913 succeeded his brother as the 6th Lord Lifford. When Agatha was a child, Fred taught her basic arithmetic. He also took over the household accounts, to spare his mathematically-challenged wife the aggravation.
Ashfield was not always idyllic. On New Year's Eve 1892, he discovered that their gardener, William Henry Callicott, had hanged himself in their stables. Showing a steady head, Fred sent the maid for a doctor and himself telephoned for the police. (The Millers had a home telephone by 1889--a great rarity. Their number was 82.) He also had to testify at the inquest. (Agatha would fictionalize this tragic event in her 1934 novel Unfinished Portrait.)
Fred made multiple trips to the U.S. following his marriage; Clara rarely accompanied him. In December 1895, however, the pair sailed together with their eldest aboard the Campania with 13 large pieces of baggage, for Madge's social debut in New York City. On her 17th birthday, her proud father escorted her to a ball co-hosted by Mrs John Jacob Astor at the Hotel Waldorf on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan; 600 socially prominent people sat down for supper at 1:30 a.m. (New-York Daily Tribune, 10 January 1896, page 7). The family returned to England in May 1896 aboard the Majestic--whose captain was Edward J. Smith, later to go down with the Titanic.
By the late 1890s, the income from Fred's trust fund had declined significantly, due to poor management, market crises, property deterioration, and--perhaps--chicanery. To save money, Ashfield was rented out for a year in early 1899.** Madge and Agatha accompanied their parents abroad. (Having failed scholastically, Monty remained behind, working at a job in a Devon shipyard.) They lived for six months in the Pyrenees, followed by a week in Paris that August, then went on to Dinard; they spent most of the winter on Guernsey, before returning to Ashfield around March 1900.
Family finances by now were distinctly strained. Fred's health declined; in the last months of his life, he believed he'd suffered literally dozens of what he recorded as "heart attacks" (which may have been what we would today diagnose as anxiety or panic attacks, but certainly were not heart attacks--even today, a heart attack suffered outside a hospital has a death rate of 90% or worse) . Weakened by chronic nephritis, Fred died from pneumonia at the home of his stepmother, Margaret West Miller, in Ealing. His beloved wife Clara, daughter Madge, and stepmother Margaret were later buried with him.
The Torquay Times (29 November 1901, page 8) said, "With regret we announce the death of Mr. F. A. Miller, of Ashfield, Barton Road...Mr. Miller had many friends by whom his genial personality will be greatly missed."
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*Margaret West Miller is mistakenly listed as "mother" rather than "stepmother" on Fred's death registration, as well as in the Torquay Times article announcing his death. His real mother's surname Messerve has been misspelled in some biographies about Agatha Christie. Martha Messerve had married Nathaniel Frary Miller on 4 July 1845 in New York City (New-York Daily Tribune, 10 July 1845, page 3).
**When writing her autobiography decades later, Agatha Christie was unsure when this trip had taken place, but thought it might have begun when she was 6--that is, in early 1897. Her biographers misread this passage and concluded that the trip began in 1896. But this long sojourn cannot have occurred at any time 1895-1898, because contemporary newspapers and emigration/immigration records clearly indicate the presence of family members at various places in England and the U.S. throughout that period. For instance, on 16 July 1896, when the biographers state the Millers were in France, in actuality Fred, Clara and Madge attended Teignbridge Ladies Day, an annual cricket outing in Devon; similarly, on 25 August 1897--when Agatha suggested the four of them were in France--Fred, Clara, Madge, and Monty, along with Clara's brother Harry Miller Boehmer, were all attending Teignbridge Ladies Day. The trip to the U.S. December 1895-May 1896 is well-documented in contemporary records. 1898 is impossible, because Fred chaired a meeting of the cricket club in Torquay in May, at which he was elected Vice President. Finally, it is known that he applied for a U.S. passport in London in January 1899, intending to visit Egypt with his family; he was refused, because he would not state that he intended to return to the U.S. within two years in order to "take up the duties of citizenship". France, which could be visited without a passport, must have seemed an acceptable substitute. Passports did not become mandatory for many European countries until WWI.
--Tosca-by-the-River 2019
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In loving remembrance of Frederick Alvah Miller of New York and Torquay who died 20th November 1901 aged 55.
What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. [John 13:7]
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