Samuel Miller (1792-1869)

Samuel Miller, born in poverty in Albemarle County, became a successful Lynchburg tobacco merchant as a young adult. Investments in land, bonds, banks, and railroads later made him one of antebellum Virginia's wealthiest men. Though reclusive and frugal in his personal life, he was a generous philanthropist. Among his beneficiaries were the University of Virginia, the City of Lynchburg, the Miller Home of Lynchburg for Girls, and the Miller School of Albemarle. In June 1864 Union forces ransacked his nearby home looking for valuables. That residence is listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places.