june121912

Dedication of Joaquin Miller Cabin (LOC)

from The Library of Congress

• skillful north said:

  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaquin_Miller

• Wystan said:

  On pages 385-386 of his book of memoirs, "Roadside Meetings" (1930) Hamlin Garland recalls a week he spent in Chicago in 1898, with the visiting Joaquin Miller: He [Miller] told us of his life in Washington City and of the log cabin he had built out near Rock Creek. "I made that my home for four years, but I was away much of the time. I didn't like it there. Congressmen and their silly wives wore me out. They all came to Washington as the great men in little towns, and their women, raw, silly, curious, had nothing better to do than to seek out Joaquin Miller, 'the man who lived in a tree.' They made life miserable for me and I fled."

• Wystan said:

  Miller abandoned his cabin home, and left Washington in 1885. In 1911, the cabin was threatened by development of its rustic site. The Capital's California delegation mounted a campaign to move the structure and preserve it. It was dismantled and reconstructed in Rock Creek Park, where it was dedicated in a public ceremony on June 12, 1912. Here's Wikipedia's version of the Miller Cabin story: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaquin_Miller_Cabin

• Wystan said:

  Miller died in 1913, a year after the cabin dedication ceremony (which he did not attend). His ashes were scattered near his home, "The Hights," in Oakland, California. New York Times story, May 26, 1913: query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9C07E1DC143FE6...

• Wystan said:

  Bain/LOC photo of the reconstructed Joaquin Miller cabin, on June 12, 1912: Old picture postcard shows the Miller cabin at its old location, on Washington, D. C.'s Meridian Hill, before it was dismantled and rebuilt in Rock Creek Park: