Canadian-American Master Builder and Shipwright Edward F. Miller

The master builders of H.H. Richardson’s architectural masterpiece in Waltham were a long-standing mystery. Why would Richardson choose the obscure firm of Miller & Ladd over Norcross Brothers, the general contractor with which he shared a “sort of executive co-partnership” beginning with Trinity Church in Boston?

As it turns out, the senior partner of Miller & Ladd of Newton is not obscure at all. Edward F. Miller (1821-1908) was a well-known Salem shipwright who had trained in the ancient art of shipbuilding in Nova Scotia and East Boston. His famous ships were likely destroyed over a century ago, but an extraordinary example of his craftsmanship survives in Waltham.

The colorful life story of Edward F. Miller on the sea and in the shipyards reads like the tall tale of a sailor. Before his venture into the field of architecture, he experienced pirate attacks, shipwrecks, gold rush fever, and built at least a dozen enormous wooden ships weighing a combined total of over 6000 tons.

Until reading Miller’s life story relayed by a son, it had never occurred to us to consider the sheer weight of Stonehurst!

Edward Miller discovered his lifelong passion for the building crafts through an apprenticeship in the Alexander Lyle shipyard in Halifax, Nova Scotia, across the harbor from his hometown of Dartmouth. He was just fourteen. At age twenty, he went to sea.

On one early voyage, Miller encountered a pirate ship off the Isle of Pines (now the Isla de la Juventud, Cuba), the place that inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. He and his quick-thinking shipmates defended themselves by repurposing their cargo of Welsh railroad iron and firing the railroad spikes from their cannon at the attacking ship.

On another voyage in about 1840, he was shipwrecked off the coast of Plymouth, Massachusetts, which would end the seafaring chapter of his life. After making it to shore and finding his way to Boston via stage coach, Miller returned to the craft of shipbuilding and the safety of land. In East Boston he helped build the famous clipper ships of Donald McKay and also repaired the USS Constitution in the Charlestown Navy Yard.

Still in his twenties and feeling adventurous, Miller followed the gold rush to California in 1848 and discovered enough gold to begin his own small shipbuilding business in Marblehead, Massachusetts. From there, he bought out an old shipyard in South Salem and established his reputation as a master shipwright, constructing some of Salem’s largest ships in the 1850s and 1860s for John Bertram and others. The ships were “engaged in the South American or ‘Para’ trade for hides and rubber; the Zanzibar trade for gum copal (a component of varnish); [and] ivory, coffee, spices, hides and cloves from India Ocean and East African ports.” He is perhaps best known for constructing the Taria Topan, a 631-ton bark named after a trader in East Africa and the last large square-rigged vessel built in Salem.

When Miller closed his business in Salem in the 1870s, he moved to Newton, Massachusetts and entered into the construction business with a junior partner George O. Ladd. The few buildings that are known to have been built by Miller & Ladd include two for H.H. Richardson: the Dr. H.J. Bigelow house in Newton, and Stonehurst, the Robert Treat Paine House, in Waltham. As the general contractor for Stonehurst, Miller & Ladd was paid $32,931.71 and would have subcontracted work to the carvers, decorative painters, and other craftspeople who will be featured in new pages on this website this year.

Watch an 11th generation Massachusetts boat builder at work through this youtube video produced by Harold A. Burnham in Essex:

Works

Edward F. Miller built the following ships: La Plata (496-ton bark, 1850); Dictator (200-ton schooner, 1853); Delight (550-ton bark, 1855); Mary Wilkins (266-ton brig, 1855); Arabia (380-ton bark, 1857); Guide (495-ton bark, 1857); Glide (495-ton bark, 1861); Jersey (599-ton bark 1869); and Taria Topan (631-ton bark, 1870).

Miller & Ladd’s few known architectural commissions are: Robert Morse, Jr. summer house in Falmouth (ca. 1884); Trinity Episcopal Church in Melrose (Charles Brigham, 1886); Stonehurst, the Robert Treat Paine House in Waltham (H.H. Richardson, 1884-1886). Dr. H.J. Bigelow House in Newton (H.H. Richardson, 1886-1887); Edward Searles summer house on Block Island, RI (Henry Vaughn, 1888-1890, no longer extant).

Miller’s half-hull model of the bark Glide is preserved in the collections of the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem. https://collection.pem.org/portals/collection/#asset/130748

References

ancestry.com

“Cape Cod Items,” Boston Globe, Dec 2, 1884, p. 2 (regarding the Morse house in Falmouth, MA).

“Edward F. Miller Dead,” Boston Globe, Feb 6, 1909, p. 2.

Marine Room of Peabody Essex Museum, Salem. Peabody Museum, Salem, Mass., 1921.

https://mhc-macris.net/

Ochner, Jeffrey Karl. H.H. Richardson: Complete Architectural Works. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982.

O’Gorman, James F. “O.W. Norcross, Richardson’s ‘Master Builder’: A Preliminary Report,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 32, no. 2 (May 1973), pp. 104-113.

Osgood, Charles S. and H.M. Batchelder. Historical Sketch of Salem, 1626-1879. Salem, Massachusetts: Essex Institute, 1879.

Receipts and ledger, HH Richardson Papers, Archives of American Art. Reel 676. Miller & Ladd is the general contractor on record for Stonehurst.

https://www.salempl.org/history/

“Trouble Over Searles Property at Block Island,” Fall River Globe, Aug 15, 1902, p. 6.

Written by Stonehurst Curator Ann Clifford as part of a 2021 exhibit “Four Continents. Many Craftsmen. One Masterwork.”
New webpages and video clips will be added throughout the year.