This is a portrait of Senator Jacob Welsh Miller painted by an unknown artist. George hired this young attorney to help with the Morris Canal. In 1825, Mary Louisa, George and Louisa’s daughter, married Jacob. The couple and their 9 children lived at Macculloch Hall.

Miller had a distinguished political career as state prosecutor, assemblyman, and state counsel. He was elected a U.S. Senator in 1840. He served two terms, and was the last Whig Senator from New Jersey. Miller’s re-election to a third term was defeated in 1852, in part, because of his stand against the annexation of Texas, the Mexican War, and the westward expansion of slavery. Miller, seeing no opposition to balance the strength of the Democratic Party, is credited with helping to establish the Republican Party in New Jersey, perhaps in this very room.

To learn more about the women of Macculloch Hall, please click Louisa and Mary Louisa Macculloch below.

To learn more about George Macculloch's Campeche chair, please click George Macculloch's Campeche Chair below.

To experience the dining room built in 1810, please walk through the doorway to the east and click Explore the Dining Room below.

Louisa Macculloch and her daughter Mary Louisa Miller shared this office with George and Jacob Miller. This was their reference library and writing room. Mrs. Macculloch was a founder of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church and the Female Charitable Society that today is known as Cornerstone Family Programs and Morristown Neighborhood House. Mary Louisa Miller was educated. Like her mother, Mary Louisa was a member of the Female Charitable Society from 1819 until her death in 1888. She was also head of the Miller Land Association that she created from her family’s 26 acres here in Morristown.

To learn more about the portrait hanging on the west wall, please click Senator Jacob Miller's Portrait above.

To learn more about George Macculloch's Campeche chair, please click George Macculloch's Campeche Chair below.

To experience the dining room built in 1810, please walk through the doorway to the east and click Explore the Dining Room below.

George Macculloch’s Campeche chair is important to the history of American furniture because it has survived in the home for which it was made. Campeche chairs were prized possessions of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Fine examples are in the collections at Monticello, the James Madison Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and MHHM.

When Macculloch Hall was sold by the family in 1949, this chair remained in the attic. Repairs made over time attest to its use and esteem. “Grandfather’s leather chair” was itemized in Mary Louisa Macculloch Miller’s will.

The Campeche chair is notable for its distinct form. The wood frame has a fixed curvilinear curule base and a leather or sometimes cane reclining sling seat. Campeche chairs were an early type of easy chair that became part of Southern planter culture in the United States. Campeche chairs were known to have been used on cruise ship decks and porches of fine estates. The Campeche chair was associated with people wealthy enough to have time to relax, and who wanted exotic furnishings for their homes.

Though we do not know whether the Campeche chair came to Macculloch Hall by gift or purchase, its relative scarcity in the U.S. in the first half of the 19^th-century, particularly in the Mid-Atlantic States, makes it likely that the Maccullochs knew about the chair’s associations with Southern plantation culture and its exoticism. Given that in his reading, publishing on agriculture, and journal keeping George Macculloch modeled himself after Jefferson, it is possible that he knew of Jefferson’s affinity for the Campeche chair.

This Campeche chair was conserved in 2023 with a generous grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission. New leather was inserted alongside the original leather fragments and was attached to a specially created wood/canvas support frame. The original leather fragments and tacks were not disturbed.

To learn more about the portrait hanging on the west wall, please click Senator Jacob Miller's Portrait above.

To learn more about the women of Macculloch Hall, please click on Louisa and Mary Louisa Macculloch above.

To experience the dining room built in 1810, please walk through the doorway to the east and click Explore the Dining Room below.