At first I thought that to tell the story of my great-great grandfather would be to tell a story of a man who just couldn’t be a father, someone who was in and out of my great grandmother’s life, someone our family often described as a “ne’er do well.” While there is always some truth to the stories passed down, there is often more truth in the untold stories. Those tales that are lost to the passage of time are where we find the real truth of the person. In researching Clinton MILLER there was so much to tell that his story needs to be told in three parts.
For the first 30 years of Clinton’s story,
visit Clinton R. Miller Part 1 – The Birdman of Wilmington.
For the middle 30 years of Clinton’s story,
visit Clinton R. Miller Part 2 – Hunting Down the Hustler.
Part 3: 1935-1977
After Clinton’s release from prison, he and Pauline “Birdie” Miller reunited and hatched a plan to open a camp for orphans in Blackwood, NJ, along the Black Horse Pike. Recently uncovered news articles show that Birdie was involved in the scheme, unable to tear herself from Clinton’s charms during his imprisonment. There is no evidence the land was ever purchased, or the vacation center ever built. The couple is featured in October of 1925 in the Camden Courier Post, discussing the 200 acres they plan to purchase and the camp they intend to build for orphans and needy children and elderly, to provide education and “build physical and moral character.” In 1933 the American Christian Industrial Association, Inc. had their charter to operate repealed by the state for failure to pay taxes. There is no evidence it ever opened or operated, and Birdie Miller disappears from record alongside Clinton after 1925.
The first sign that he is Captaining a boat is an advertisement that appears in The Daily Register, Red Bank, NJ, in May 1926. His ad offers rooms on the boat, beach access, and parties with soft drinks and a location just across the bay from New York City. Later that summer, in August, he is offering excursions for $1.00 from Woodland Beach, Delaware.
By 1927 Clinton is living in in Southwest Washington, D.C., in an area known as “the Wharf,” named for the DC Municipal Fish Market, the oldest open-air seafood market in the United States (since 1805).[11] This area thrived in the 1920s and in the 1930s it was revitalized. Marvin Gaye and Al Jolson grew up in the neighborhood. We can imagine the air thick with music, bridges being built, and boats coming and going with the aroma of fresh seafood. In 1927 he is working at Central Auto Works and Garage as a helper.[12] He worked various odd jobs, including serving as apprentice on an oyster boat in 1928, and continuing to practice as a musician, while along the wharves he finalized construction on his 52-foot excursion craft (using his own plans), which was capable of carrying more than 40 people. Once completed, family lore said that he dug in around it and let the Potomac waters float the boat into the river.
Clinton MILLER is listed on the 1930 U.S. Federal Census living on a boat called the “Nellie.” Intriguingly, he lives with a daughter, age 16, named Nellie, who lists her birthplace as Florida and her mother’s birthplace as Georgia. Nellie could be another child, lost to time, or it could have been he was living with a new conquest, a young girl misrepresented on the census as his daughter due to her age. Possibly, she was actually the daughter of Pauline “Birdie” Welch. There is a Pauline Welch found on the 1920 census listed as divorced and living in central Florida with a young 6-year-old daughter named Nellie that could very well have been the pair. Perhaps Nellie was one of the children he meant to help with his American Christian Industrial Association. We cannot know for sure, but this is the only time he is recorded to be living with the girl.[13]
Despite the mystery of her birth, Nellie Miller lived with Clinton as his daughter, earned her pilot’s license and became a Captain. She was featured in several newspapers in early 1931, having set off in October 1930 on the houseboat for a tour of the eastern seaboard. One article mentions that Clinton is her “foster father” which leaves their true relationship still undetermined to the author.
Clinton was known to charter his boat for excursions and parties – the boat had a piano on board – floating from Washington D.C. to New York Harbor and lived aboard it for the next 12 years. He was living in New York City in August of 1935 when his father, Edward Manley MILLER, died in Florida of a brief illness, age 76. It is not known whether he attended any funeral services. A news article from Christmas Eve, 1935, mentions Clinton and his boat. He and a Mrs. Clinton R. MILLER, real identity unknown, were motoring their 50-foot houseboat from Brooklyn to Washington, D.C., when a cracked muffler allowed gas fumes to enter the cabin. They were towed ashore from their anchor off Bay Head, New Jersey, by the Coast Guard.[1] From there, the trail runs cold until 1940.
The legend is that Clinton took his boat to Hartford, Connecticut, where it was vandalized and burned. In 1940, Clinton is found living in Wethersfield, outside of Hartford, Connecticut, in a home he owned, working as a mechanic and living with a wife – this one named Stella. This is likely the same wife towed to shore with him in 1935 as they both list Brooklyn as their last address prior to the census.
In 1942 Clinton registered for the WWII draft at age 57. His registration card does not mention a wife – he lists his mother Lillian as his next of kin. He is living on Kennedy Road in Windsor, Connecticut, and working for Hartford Automotive in nearby Hartford. In late November 1944 he was found in violation of electrical code and charged a $5 fine[2]. In early 1945 Clinton finds himself in trouble with the law again, arrested in Hartford for public intoxication.[3]
Clinton’s children rarely saw him, if at all, but for a few times in their adulthood. Photos show he visited his daughter with Grace REDMAN WALLS, now married and with a family of her own, in Maryland sometime in the 1940s. Body language tells that the relationship with his REDMAN/MILLER children was strained. He and Stella were separated on and off during this time, but not divorced. She appears as his wife in city directories throughout the remainder of the 1940s.
In 1946, Clinton can be found listed in the Navy muster rolls of the U.S.S. Amphion out of Norfolk, Virginia, in the period ending July 1946. The U.S.S. Amphion was designed with the primary mission of making repairs to the naval fleet. Equipped with a variety of repair shops, the ship employed skilled artificers and mechanics and operated at and out of Norfolk, VA, and Newport, RI, providing services principally along the east coast of the United States.[4] Clinton was older than many servicemen, well into his 50s, and he likely earned this position on the ship due to his experience in aviation and automotive mechanics.
Clinton disappears from record until the 1950 U.S. Census, where he can be found living alone in Tolland, Connecticut, outside of Hartford. He is listed as separated. The number of wives he has spread liberally around the eastern seaboard at final count is seven. Stella Miller is no longer in the area – she too has left Clinton to himself.
In early January 1963 Clinton was working as a farmhand in New London, CT, when 6.5 tons of baled hay caught fire and destroyed half of the barn on the property where he worked. The fire was listed as being due to “spontaneous combustion.”[5]
In 1972, Clinton reappears in a long article in The Hartford Courant. This time he claims to have a remedy for a fever which is spreading across the continent of Africa. The article gives us insight into Clinton as an old man – he opens up to the interviewer and shares so much about himself that he gets a half page spread. Unfortunately – and perhaps by now unexpectedly – nearly everything he shares, upon later investigation, is determined to be fiction. He claims to have been a descendant of Sir Henry Morton Stanley through his mother Lillian. He claims to have telegrammed the U.S. Public Health Service about a cure for an outbreak of Lassa Fever in Sierra Leone which he had recently read about. He believed he had the cure – mix apple cider vinegar and warm water and soak your feet! He claims to have been using the elixir since 1912. This remedy he says he learned from his mother when he was 5 – perhaps the only story that may be true, as a childhood memory is a formative one and he seems to have kept this remedy with him throughout his lifetime, a direct connection to the mother he held dear.
Clinton Miller continued to live in Hartford through the 1970s. In May of 1977 Clinton died alone at home. There were no calling hours and a private funeral. He was buried in Soldier’s Field Northwoods Cemetery. After 88 years, up to 7 wives, and as many children, the meandering and sordid tale of Clinton Robert Miller had come to a close.
[1] Asbury Park Press, December 24, 1935, Page 1. “Coast Guard Tows Houseboat Ashore.” https://www.newspapers.com/clip/148766039/clinton-miller-houseboat-towed-ashore/?xid=637
[2] Newspapers.com – Hartford Courant – 16 Nov 1944 – Page 18; https://www.newspapers.com/clip/154962936/clinton-miller-violation-of-electrical/?xid=637
[3] Newspapers.com – Hartford Courant – 1945-02-13; https://www.newspapers.com/article/hartford-courant/18044159/?xid=637
[4] https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/a/amphion-ii.html
[5] The Day, January 10, 1963, Page 2. via Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-day/154962828/)
Gathering Roots 
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