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Note: Enlisted as a Lt. in the 16th Inf. Regt., USA in June 1863, after he graduated from secondary school. He was wounded at Chickamauga (Sept 20, 1863) and mustered out of the Army in Oct 1863 and began his studies at Harvard in 1864.
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Gerrit Smith Miller, a farmer and cattle breeder, brought a herd of Holstein dairy cattled to Peterboro, Madison County, in 1869. From this herd is descended nearly all Holsteins in the country today.
Miller wasn't the first to bring the Holland- and Germany-based Holstein-Friesian breed (as it was called back then) to the United States. According to historical documents at the Holstein Association of the USA, early Dutch settlers in New York first brought the black and white Holsteins to this country back in 1613, followed by more cows being imported by the West India Co. in about 1625.
But they did not bring enough cows to breed and expand the herds, only enough to furnish milk for settlers. Other settlers imported cows, but not enough to sustain the breed. Winthrop Chenery of Massachusetts began importing Holsteins in 1852, but they were hit with a variety of fatal illnesses.
It was Miller, who owned a farm in Smithfield, who imported Holsteins and kept breeding them to expand the herd. Where his farm stood on Oxbow Road now sits an historical marker at the Holstein Historical Site, which was dedicated Aug. 17, 1929.
His real "claim to fame" - at least in dairy circles - is that he meticulously kept production and progeny records, which laid the groundwork for the Holstein-Friesian Herd Register and, ultimately, for the Holstein-Friesian Association.
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http://www.the-game.org/history-originsto1889.htm
One such group of prep school boys in Boston formed the Oneida Football Club in 1862. The original Oneidas had been a tribe of Iroquois Indians long gone from the Boston environs, but the boys liked the heroic aura of the name. The mainspring of the bunch was teenager Gerrit Smith Miller, named for his maternal grandfather, the ardent abolitionist Gerrit Smith. Young Miller was a natural leader and exceptional athlete who soon had his gang practicing soccer and rugby on the Boston Common. After awhile, the boys tired of both games, perhaps because they could find no one to play. Rather than disband, they occupied their time by inventing a new game, one that combined their favorite features of both soccer and rugby. They liked goal kicking from the former and running with the ball from the latter, and both became features of their hybrid, "The Boston Game".
On November 7, 1862, the boys finally found someone to play. They lured a pick-up team of non-members to the Common and explained the rules to them. Not surprisingly, Miller's well- drilled crew zapped the neophytes. Reportedly, the score was 12-0, but just what scored how many points in the Boston Game is open to dispute.
At any rate, the Boston newspapers found the Oneidas' victory sufficiently amusing to honor it the next day with a one- paragraph write-up. Over the next three years, Gerrit Miller's gang took on anyone they could sucker into a game. They remained undefeated, never once allowing a point. The Oneidas credited their success to diligent practice; some suggested it was more due to their having invented their own game.
Some historians have gone so far as to call the Oneidas' victories the first games of American football, maintaining the hybrid Boston Game was neither soccer nor rugby and, therefore, was what Americans recognize as their favorite autumn sport. To call the Oneidas the inventors of American football is surely giving the little devils more than their due. Their game allowed running under certain circumstances, but it was still essentially soccer. Perhaps it should be called football's missing link.
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http://www.petermorrisbooks.com/ontario_of_oswego.htm
Gerrit Smith Miller: Gerrit Smith Miller was born on January 30, 1845, and named in honor of his grandfather, a wealthy social reformer and abolitionist who ran for president three times. He grew up on the family�s large estate near Peterboro, New York. In 1860, he was sent away to Boston to attend Epes Sargent Dixwell�s School. While there, Miller organized the Oneida Foot Ball Club, which played its games on the Boston Common. According to a monument erected at the Common in 1925, this pioneer club took on all comers between 1862 and 1865, never losing a game and never having its goal line crossed. The ball used by the club is now displayed at the National Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta and Miller has occasionally been referred to as �the father of American soccer.� The problem with this, however, is that descriptions by Oneida Foot Ball Club member James D�Wolf Lovett make it clear that the game they played borrowed generously from rugby, with the result that Miller is sometimes claimed as a football pioneer as well. Along with Lovett, Miller was also a member of the Lowell Base Ball Club. He entered Harvard in 1865 and during the next few years played for the Harvard nine and the Lowells. On October 4, 1867, pitched Lowells to victory over famed Excelsiors, which James D�Wolf Lovett described as the first-ever win by a New England club against a prominent New York club. One month later, he married Susan Dixwell, the daughter of his former schoolmaster. His grandmother died the shortly thereafter, and Miller decided to leave Harvard and attend to the estate. His return also allowed him to pitch for the Ontarios of Oswego, although the Central Citys of Syracuse protested his involvement in the gold-ball match on September 15, 1868. One later account maintained that �for three years [Miller] pitched for the Ontarios and did not lose a game. The only trouble was it was very difficult to find a catcher who could hold his terrific speed.� While the statement that he was never beaten seems very unlikely, the claim that his pitches were hard to corral seems more plausible. Miller continued to attend to the estate for the rest of his life, but his farming practices were far from routine. He established the first registered American herd of Holstein cattle herd, later explaining, that he was �interested in �making two blades of grass grow where one grew before� and in producing two quarts of milk where one was produced before. In October, 1869, I established a herd of Holstein cattle imported from Holland on my farm, with the intention of improving the dairy cattle of the country. At that time a cow that would give six thousand pounds of milk per year and twelve pounds of butter per week was considered a good cow. We now have Holstein cows which under official tests have given over thirty thousand pounds of milk per year, one thousand pounds in seven days, one hundred and fifty pounds in one day, over fifty pounds of butter in seven days, and fifteen hundred pounds in three hundred and sixty-five days. Most of the cows making the above-named records trace back to my herd.� Miller�s son and namesake inherited this fascination with the Holstein cattle. Gerrit Smith Miller, Jr., was educated at Harvard and became one of the country�s best-known zoologists and mammalians. He was perhaps best known for his involvement in the Piltdown Man controversy. Gerrit Smith Miller, Sr., died on his beloved Peterboro estate on March 10, 1937, at the age of 91.
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Lochland was sold after his sister's death in 1912. Lochland is a small residential setting for developmentally disabled adults. It is an agency offering a wide range of services in a relaxed, family atmosphere.
Lochland is located on the southern edge of Geneva on an estate, which was formerly the home of Anne Fitzhugh Miller, a nationally known women's rights advocate. The area surrounding the campus is dominated by stately homes that border on Seneca Lake, one of the largest of the Finger Lakes of upstate New York.
Lochland was founded in 1933 by Florence Helene Stewart, widely recognized as a pioneer in the education of the mentally handicapped. Miss Stewart served as Director of Lochland and a member of the Board of Directors for fifty years until her death in 1983. Many of the children who came to Lochland during the years Miss Stewart served as the Director are currently adult residents today.
Lochland overlooks shaded groves of chestnut and oak trees and spacious well-trimmed lawns that slope to the lake. The atmosphere is picturesque and park-like.
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