Samuel T. Miller of Woodbourne and Cedar Forest circa 1850s

In the early days of private education in Virginia, Mr. Samuel Thomas Miller (born 1789) was among the most refined teachers and academic administrators known throughout Pittsylvania and Campbell Counties. His life history is filled with many accomplishments and interesting tales, but herein lies a brief timeline of his teaching career based on evidence published in two-hundred-year-old newspaper accounts and the biographical writings of his son Hartshorn Miller. 

Beginning in 1811, after Mr. Miller had already taught for two years in Baltimore, Maryland, he and his mother, Mrs. Ann “Nancy” Ball Miller, served as superintendents of the “New-London Female Academy” in Campbell County, Virginia. One of the earliest mentions of Mr. Miller appears in the Enquirer from November 5, 1813, announcing the commencement of the academy’s fourth session. In 1815, the school was renamed “Roland Academy,” which continued in operation until 1821, when Miller accepted a position as principal of New London Academy. 

While associated with Roland Academy, Mr. Miller met Miss Frances FitzPatrick and they married in December 1817. Her uncle, Samuel Pannill, owned the expansive Green Hill Plantation along the north side of the Staunton River near Long Island. In 1824, they moved onto land in Pittsylvania County near her relatives, where they established Woodbourne Plantation and raised fourteen children. Miller reportedly taught for several years at Straightstone before establishing his own boys’ school located “within 3 miles of Pannill’s Ferry.” In 1830, he published an advertisement in the Lynchburg Virginian (Vol. 9, No. 40) explaining that each student boarding at the school was expected to furnish their own bed coverings and candles. The Richmond Enquirer (Vol. 30, No. 67) detailed tuition at Woodbourne Classical School: “…in the English Department, which includes the Elements, Arithmetic, Geography with the use of the Maps and Globes, English Grammar and History, $10 per session; in the Classical Department, comprising the Ancient Languages, the French, Natural Philosophy, and various branches of Mathematics, $15 per session. The subscriber can accommodate 10 or 12 Boarders in his family, at $30 per session for diet, lodging, and washing…” The following year, Miller offered a discounted rate of $25 per session for students who returned home on weekends and had their washing done there. He further specified that no scholar over sixteen years of age would be admitted without assurances of proper deportment and obedience. 

In 1838, Samuel’s daughter Miss Sarah P. Miller opened a school of her own known as Woodbourne School for Females. The Lynchburg Virginian (Vol. 17, No. 36) described her educational background from her father, “besides the higher branches of English, the Latin, Greek, and French Languages, and some branches of the Mathematics, and having afterwards attended the Rev. Mr. Smith’s School at Lynchburg…and having also taught a year in Mr. John Coles’s family, of Pittsylvania,” she was well prepared to teach. “The boarders will lodge in the same house with her, and be under her or her sisters’ constant supervision. The house heretofore occupied by her father as a school house, being in the corner of the yard, will be exclusively appropriated to her and her pupils.”

Around 1845, Mr. Miller had a new home constructed a mile south of Woodbourne and called it Cedar Forest, followed soon by Cedar Forest School. An ad in the Lynchburg Virginian (Vol. 27, No. 36) described the school as “3 miles from Green Hill Post Office.” He offered “higher branches of English” for $10 and tuition “in the Languages, Mathematics, Natural and Moral Philosophy and Rhetoric” for $12.50. Elementary instruction included “Grammar, Geography, the use of the Globes, History and Arithmetic” for $6 per session. In addition, Samuel’s son David P. Miller was formally introduced as part of the school staff. “He is in his 25th year, has a family, is at least respectable in his Literary qualifications, is a consistent professor of religion…is entirely sober in his habits, and of unblemished reputation, with the manners and courtesy of a gentleman.” 

The Woodbourne Classical School remained well regarded throughout the 1850s and declined during the Civil War years. After the war, Mr. Miller sold the farm and lived in Lynchburg until his death in 1870. For about fifty years, he helped shape private education in Campbell and Pittsylvania counties for those who had the privilege of learning under him.