Very little is known currently about the author Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller. As with so many popular writers, her history has been neglected. Her descendent, Pamela Jacobsohn, has supplied this photograph and is in the process of collecting new biographical information which will be posted on this site in the near future. To begin Ms. Jacobsohn has compiled the following information from family histories and National Archive Records.

Click here for an article about Miller’s life.

Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller, known in the family as Aunt Mittie, graduated from The Richmond Female Institute in 1860. Her first writings appeared in a Richmond paper, The Old Dominion. This was during the period in which she was married to her first husband, Thomas Jefferson Davis. Her first novel, Rosamond, was published by the publishers Street and Smith. After she married Alex Mcveigh Miller, she moved to Alderson, West Virginia, and began construction on her home, The Cedars. [Note: This building still exists today.] She wrote most of her works there, for a period of fifty years, to 1930. In 1890, she signed a contract with George Munro, publisher of The Family Papers. Her writings earned her over $100,000 before 1910.

Sources

National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form
7/11/78. West Virginia Dept. Of Culture and History, Charleston WV