Henry & Mary Miller (Cliff Street)

Both born into slavery, Henry and Mary (Garlock) Miller were emancipated with the 1827 New York State law. They lived on this site where they raised a large family.

To quote from the National Park Service's Network to Freedom website, "The term described activities that were locally organized, but with no real center. It was ephemeral to those who imagined it, yet tangible to those who followed it."

Evidence of slaves in Montgomery County appears in church records with baptisms denoting parents, typically, as property of different individuals & not having surnames . The Fort Plain Reformed Church recorded the marriage of Henry, a slave of John Miller, and Maria, a slave of Adam Garlock in 1818.  Together they raised a family of nine children, baptisms of two of those children were recorded in the records of the Geisenberg Church.

According to New York State law in the 19th century, African Americans were required to own at least $250 worth of real estate in order to have the right to vote. Gerrit Smith, a wealthy landowner and abolitionist, granted 120,000 acres of uncultivated land to 3,000 African Americans in 1846 so that Black men, by owning property, would have the opportunity to vote. Henry Miller was among the Montgomery County men to receive the 40-acre land grants in the Adirondacks in the settlement that became known as "Timbuctoo." Unfortunately, despite the gift from Gerrit Smith, many settlers were not able to farm uncultivated land, clearing rocks and felling evergreens and paying taxes; therefore, most did not stay. I have no evidence that the Millers settled on the land in the Adirondacks. 

In Canajoharie, the Millers lived on the south side of Cliff Street just west of the Sts. Peter & Paul Catholic Church. 

An 1856 quit-claim deed describes property that Pythagoras Wetmore sold to Maria Miller for $70 a lot of land on which she moved her house – almost 30 yrs later she sold the property for 5 times the purchase price.

Around 1868 Henry Miller died and Maria remarried to another Black man, John Miller. In 1880 Maria was counted, along with another woman, as the oldest female resident in the Village of Canajoharie at the age of 84.

Maria, while living with her daughter Mrs. Timothy (Mary Ann) Dodge in Phoenix Mills, Otsego County, died in 1891 around the age of 96. Her death record indicated she was born in the area of Freysbush, father John Malone, mother unknown.

Both Henry and Maria Miller are buried in the Fort Plain Cemetery.

Wellman, Judith. Farquhar, Kelly Yacobucci . Uncovering the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, and African American Life in Montgomery County, New York, 1820-1890. Fonda, NY. Montgomery County Department of History & Archives, 2011.