George Wickham Miller's body was interred 1906 in Dunedin, New Zealand, Northern Cemetery. Unfortunately due to a river running under the cemetery his grave has been washed away. (Unconfirmed)

An American Whaler Deserts: Otago, 1849

Otago's Settlers News https://otagosettlers.org.nz/dmsdocument/19

George Wickham Miller was born on March 12th 1825 at East Hampton, Boston, [Massachusetts] and he received a fair education. At the age of 13 he was apprenticed to a ships’ blacksmith, but not liking the trade, he left after serving two years and joined a vessel trading on the south-east coast of the United States, where on several occasions he saw assistance given to escaping slaves. In 1847 Miller shipped at Boston in the whaling ship William Tell, Captain Taber. [The William Tell, 367 tons, of Sag Harbor, New York, owned by Thomas Brown, sailed for the North-West Pacific on 1 September 1848 and arrived at the entrance to Otago Harbour on 29 January 1849.] On their way to New Zealand they caught seven whales, and the chase after two of them would be well worth recording.

An American Whaler Deserts: Otago, 1849. Ship deserters, by their very nature, avoid attention and their stories are difficult to come by. The following record is in the Otago Settlers Museum Archives, ms DC-0323, and was originally sent by Donald MacGregor of Wendon Valley (north of Gore) to the editor of the Otago Witness on 28 September 1897, and subsequently used in the Jubilee Edition of March 1898. It contains some errors, marginal notes and alternative wordings which have been edited here:

George Wickham Millar [of ] Wendon Valley is the oldest son of Captain Josiah Millar who was whaling on this coast in 1830, and visited Port Chalmers [Otago Harbour is meant] the last time in 1850, as captain of the American whaler Alert of New Bedford [Massachusetts]. [The only record of the Alert at Otago is for 8 January 1847 under Captain Middleton; she was of New London, Connect

The reason the vessel came to Port Chalmers [the harbour entrance is meant] was that the new casks commenced to leak the oil at a serious rate. This made it necessary to come into still water and take the casks upon the deck to be headed down afresh. Here the crew learned that the vessel was not going back to Boston that year but would winter in the Chinese Seas. This made them home-sick and some resolved to desert. The opportunity came to Miller when he was chosen as one of four to row the captain up to Dunedin. They had heard that there were a few white people living up there and that home-bound whalers called. At Dunedin they pulled the little boat up on the beach at the mouth of a small creek. The captain gave them some money and some drink. There were a number of tents and warries [Maori whares] at Dunedin then. The white people advised them not to go back in their ship — that this was a splendid place to live in. So they went into the bush near the Water of Leith and from there they saw their captain with two hired men rowing down to the port. This was the last time they saw [one who] they say was the best man that ever lived.

The four stayed with the Maoris until their ship left. [She sailed on 10 February and did not return home until the end of March 1851. She was to return, under Taber, in February 1852, when James Casey deserted, and in February 1855, both times to get supplies.]

Miller got employment from the late William Gerry [Geary] at the Heads; his pay was one shilling per day. He stayed with Geary 12 months. Then he got employment from the late Charles Suisted at Goodwood, where he remained 12 years, and then with Mr [John] Jones [who bought Goodwood in November 1856.] Miller’s wages to start with were £20, and at the end of 12 years £70 per year. When Miller went to Goodwood they were just building the Goodwood House and Thomas Woods and a man named McGregor sawed the timber and split the shingles for the first house built on the estate. [The Suisted family sailed from Wellington to Waikouaiti in the Scotia in mid-February 1850. TB Kennard in The First White Boy Born in Otago (1939), page 181, says his father worked for Suisted from December 1850 to January 1853: ‘he was a good boss ... a most progressive man and really before his time. Everything had to be of the best. He built a house 66 feet square with upstairs, and its cost cooked him so that he never made a fortune. In fact he went bankrupt and went Home ... ‘]

Miller saw the first ploughing done at Goodwood. This was with a wood-beamed plough drawn by bullocks; the harrowing being done with wooden harrows with koigh [kowhai] teeth. The wheat grown on the land thus prepared was cut with the sickle, threshed with a three-horse thrashing mill, sold to Mr John Jones at 10/- per bushel and finally shipped from Waikouaiti to Sydney.

In 1850 Mr Miller was sent from Goodwood to cart the scrub for the first woolshed in Shag Valley, which was built for Mr Charles Hopkinson. The walls were made of scrub and roofed with felt, and the house of wattle and daub. [Kennard says on page 116: ‘in the fifties Miller was carting timber from the bush at Otepopo to treeless Oamaru and that he also worked for Hopkinson on his run at Dunback ... the [woolshed] standing at Coal Creek in 1859 was noticeable for its uncouthness, its main features being a few round posts, manuka sides and a thatched roof.’] Hopkinson had two shepherds, John Hughes and Jameson. [%E2%80%98Old%E2%80%99 Jamieson in Kennard, page 28.] These men were brought from Sydney to Moeraki to whale for John Jones. [Hughes set up the Moeraki station in December 1836 but sold oil and bone to Jones.]At Goodwood Millar made the acquaintance of a number of old pioneers. The late Alexander McMaster of Tokarahi camped at Goodwood with the first mob of sheep he took from Sydney. He had a donkey carrying his tent but this creature rolled in every creek and caused a deal of trouble. [McMaster came from Melbourne in 1857 and bought a run at Kyeburn.] Rhodes of Timaru stayed on his way to Dunedin. His riding saddle was a sack stuffed with straw. He said it was much the best saddle for a long journey. Miller also worked on Suisted’s run at Otepopo. John McCormack was the first manager there. He paid 25/- per hundred for shearing the first sheep and the highest tally was 80 and the wool was shipped from Moeraki. In 1856 Miller married at Goodwood Susan Dow, daughter of Robert Dow who came out in the ship Phoebe Dunbar in 1851.

[She arrived 24 October 1850.] About the year 1862 Miller left Goodwood and went to the [Juliuses] at Ragged Ridge up the Waitaki and from there to John McLean’s at Kurow. Then he went to stay at Oamaru where he owned the section that the railway station is now built on. This section he sold to Sir Robert Stout for £50. Then he came and stayed some years at the Heads. From there he went to Otama [near Gore] where he owned a farm.

In 1885 he came to Wendon Valley where he is farming at the present time [1897]. Miller has three of a family and 22 grandchildren. Although the old gentleman is 72 by the almanac he is very much alive. Mrs Miller, who arrived with her parents in the sailing ship Phoebe Dunbar in 1851 [1850] died at her son-in-law’s residence, [Hamilton Bay] Lower Harbour, on March 27th 1893 [aged 69] and is buried in the new cemetery at Port Chalmers.