Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Miller, Cincinnatus Heine

MILLER, Cincinnatus Heine (Joaquin), poet, b. in Wabash district, Ind., 10 Nov., 1841. He removed with his parents to Oregon in 1854, became a miner in California, and after various adventures returned in 1860 and studied law under George H. Williams. The next year he was express-messenger in the gold-mining districts of Idaho, edited in 1863 the “Democratic Register,” a weekly newspaper in Eugene, Oregon, which was suppressed for disloyalty, and then opened a law-office in Canon City. He was judge of Grant county, Oregon, in 1866-'70, and while occupying that office began his literary career. From early boyhood he had written verses that were not devoid of merit, although he was ignorant of the rules of versification and of grammar. Having published a paper in defence of Joaquin Murietta, the Mexican brigand, he signed his first two collections of poems by the latter's first name. He was abroad in 1870, travelled in southern Europe and in England, and while there prepared and published his first volume of sustained verse, which met with praise from the English critics. On his return he settled as a journalist in Washington, D. C., and in the autumn of 1887 returned to California. He has written several successful plays, including “The Danites.” His poems are “Songs of the Sierras” (Boston and London, 1871); “Songs of the Sunlands” (1873); “Songs of the Desert” (1875): “Songs of Italy” (1878); “Collected Poems” (1882); and “ Songs of the Mexican Seas” (Boston, 1887). His prose works are “The Baroness of New York” (New York, 1877); “The Danites in the Sierras” (Chicago, 1881); “Shadows of Shasta” (1881); “Memorie and Rime” (New York, 1884); and “49, or the Gold-Seekers of the Sierras” (1884). His first wife, Minnie Dyer, whom he married in 1863, and who obtained a divorce from him in 1876, was a writer of graceful verses, which were published under the pen-name of “Minnie Myrtle.”