Love and Romance at Macculloch Hall

Reading the personal family letters in the archives of MHHM reminds us that these people were more than names on a genealogy. They were living, breathing human beings with feelings and emotions. On this Valentine’s Day, we look at romance in the Macculloch-Miller families.

In a letter written on Valentine’s Day 1848, Elizabeth Miller (1828-1852), granddaughter of George and Louisa Macculloch, wrote to her future husband Anthony Q. Keasbey (1824-1895) apologizing for sending him a “common letter” instead of a fancy valentine. In one of the many love letters in the archives, Anthony writes to Elizabeth…”I went for a walk this evening alone in the woods…The loveliest thing that bore the stamp of nature’s purity made me love to be with you all I could.” In another letter, Elizabeth wrote…”Now I love the rich blessing of your love without which I could never be happy again.”

Henry Wise Miller (1877-1975), great-grandson of George and Louisa Macculloch, wrote of his uncle Henry William Miller (1836-1904)…”Love at first sight runs in my family. One of my uncles, a lieutenant in the navy, while on the Mediterranean station, was leaning over the side of his ship watching shore boats bring some ladies to a dance on board ship. Touching a brother officer on the arm, he said, You see that girl in a blue hat sitting in the stern sheets? I’m going to marry her.’ [Indeed he did, marrying Catherine Hoffman (1840-1909) in 1862] My aunt kept the sea coat he was wearing that day, and when he was serving on Farragut’s flagship, she told me, she used to go into the closet where it hung and put the arms of the coat about her.”

In speaking of his own life, Henry Wise Miller wrote the following about his first meeting with his “bride to be” Alice Duer (1874-1942)…”At twenty-five minutes to two on Sunday afternoon, February 26, 1899, I came downstairs in a hurry, late for Sunday lunch, to be introduced to Alice Duer standing before her future mother-in-law’s fireplace. From the doorway of my mother’s drawing room to where Alice stood is about fourteen feet. I was buttoning the lower button of a new white waist-coat as I crossed the threshold; looking up, I saw Alice by the fireplace. Somewhere, in that interval, my life changed. Three days later she promised to marry me.” On October 5, 1899, they married at Grace Church Chapel in New York City.