The America 250: Stories of America project aims to present 250 captivating stories from across the United States, showcased through our diverse National Heritage Areas. As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, we hope these narratives provide a deeper understanding of the events that have shaped our nation and highlight how the lives of ordinary individuals have often influenced the course of history.
James Vester Miller
Blue Ridge National Heritage Area
James Vester Miller was born in 1860 in Rutherford County, NC to an enslaved mother, Louisa Miller, and a slave-owning father, John Miller. After the Civil War, Louisa took her three children and their newfound freedom to Asheville, NC. She found work as a cook in a boarding house.
In his youth, James developed a fascination with bricks and soon mastered the brick mason’s trade. He “learned his craft by working at brickyards and construction sites, eventually apprenticing with the city’s best brick masons. His exceptional brickwork caught the eye of Asheville’s leading architects, including Richard Sharp Smith, the supervising architect of the Biltmore House” and the Young Men’s Institute. Miller also worked for some of the top contractors in Asheville. His contemporaries said he had an eye for perfection.
James and his wife, Violet, had six children. Four of their sons became master bricklayers and joined their father in the family business: Miller & Sons Construction. A fifth son, Dr. Lee Otus Miller, became one of Asheville’s first African American physicians. The Miller family lived in a large house that James built in the Emma community of West Asheville.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Asheville was experiencing its Golden Age. “As the local economy steadily grew and boomed, the segregated East End expanded to become a thriving community of homes, schools, churches, businesses and nightclubs.” Miller’s construction company was among those businesses. He “won contracts in the competitive, White-dominated construction industry” and his company persevered despite the racial segregation of the Jim Crow era.
Miller built a number of churches, residences, and commercial and government buildings in Asheville. Many of these buildings still stand today, including Mount Zion Baptist Church, Hopkins Chapel AME Zion Church, and Asheville’s Municipal Building.
Throughout his life, Miller gave back to his community. He “taught masonry to young black men without charge, enabling them to enter the ranks of skilled artisans.” He also established an endowed scholarship for deserving technical students.
Miller was a leader in his church, the local Masonic lodge, and the Young Men’s Institute. In the mid-1930s, he and Lee Otus founded a cemetery for African Americans in their west Asheville neighborhood. Violet Hill Cemetery was named after James Vester Miller’s wife of nearly sixty years. He was buried there in 1940.
Visitors to Asheville, NC can follow the James Vester Miller Trail, a free, self-guided walking tour that features the master brickmason’s magnificent historic buildings.
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