By SUZANNE MOORE
William H. Miner didn't steal the invention that started his business success.
It wasn't an elective surgery that ended the life of the Chazy philanthropist.
And he didn't leave fabulous riches.
"William H. Miner — The Man and the Myth" by Joseph C. Burke shoots down those and other long-held beliefs.
The book, published by Langdon Street Press, is the first biography of the man who funded construction of Chazy Central Rural School and its innovative approach to education, who created the model Heart's Delight Farm in Chazy, built then-state-of-the-art hydroelectric systems, gave the area Physician's Hospital (now CVPH Medical Center), the Alice T. Miner Colonial Collection "¦
Those accomplishments and more — common knowledge among locals — piqued the interest of Burke when he moved to the area in 1973.
"I went to find a biography and did not find one," he said from his home in Albany.
He did hear those Miner myths again and again — many of them tearing down the man rather than putting him on a pedestal.
"Why," Burke reflected, "about a man who did so much?"
YOUNG WILLIE
"The Man and the Myth" opens the book on the life of young Willie Miner for the first time in any detail, relying on recently discovered letters from relatives including his father, William H. Miner Sr., and sister Emma Josephine "Jottie" Mitchell and her husband, John.
"Our little son Wm H. grows up very fast," the elder William Miner wrote July 25, 1864, from Wisconsin to family in Chazy. "He makes his Mother & Sister a good many steps, as he climbs fences & gets into the road and runs away. We shall try to train the little one better as he grows older."
Left an orphan at age 10, the boy lived for six months with Jottie and her husband in Indiana then was raised by his Aunt Hulda and Uncle John Miner on the family farm in Chazy.
His sister and brother-in-law maintained a close connection by mail, however.
"I hope," wrote Mr. Mitchell on Feb. 3, 1878, "you will persevere in your studies and I have no doubt but you will be a wealthy man someday and I hope and trust you will be a good man for that is much better than riches."
When Miner joined Chazy Presbyterian Church, Jottie wrote: "I was very happy to hear that you had become a member of the church Willie and hope you may long be spared to be a good and useful man."
THEFT DEBUNKED
The biography sketches out Miner's early work experience, beginning with a stint as a bridge carpenter, night school and his aspirations to better himself.
"I want to ask you if you can consistently give me a chance to learn the Machinists trade in your shop," Miner wrote his uncle Luther Miner on Aug. 2, 1882. "¦(I) would expect no favors but would enter upon the same conditions that a stranger would."
Among Miner's later positions was that of chief draftsman at Lafayette Car Works, and in 1888, superintendent of the firm's subsidiary, Lima Car Works in Lima, Ohio. The job proved a painful learning experience for the young man, who unwisely promised far more production than his crew could accomplish.
"Pitch in and build cars; don't stand like a boy on the bank afraid to plunge into the water," exhorted Benjamin Masten, company president, in a letter to Miner written Oct. 21, 1889.
It wasn't that Miner lacked the knowledge to build the rail cars, said Burke; in fact, the man's tenure there offers evidence against the persistent tale saying Miner stole the invention for the rail-car draft gear that made him rich.
"Even a cursory glance at his extensive correspondence on highly technical issues and details of railroad cars and appliances during his time at Lima should convince even the most confirmed skeptics," Burke writes.
On March 6, 1891, the 29-year-old budding businessman filed a U.S. patent for "a draft rigging of a simple, strong, and efficient construction, embodying great buffing and pulling resistance, and providing for a gradual or cushioned absorption and transmission of strains and shocks to the body of the car."
It was one of many patents he was granted in the years to come, most improving upon the original spring design or a later one that used friction.
MAKING GOOD
Burke's book gives a poignant peek at the devotion that grew between Miner and his future wife, Alice Trainer.
"I am perfectly lost in not seeing you for a long time, and never longed so badly to be in Chicago," he wrote her on Aug. 24, 1893. "But you will be all the sweeter to me after this separation."
As their courtship progressed, Miner peddled his draft gear to railroads around the country; he prudently stayed employed with the Hutchins Refrigerator Car Company until its demise in the poor economy of the day.
And success slowly came his way.
"I have good news, dearest," he wrote Alice on Feb. 14, 1895. "Have been to see the Superintendent of the Missouri Pacific Ry (sic) and he is pleased with my patent and asked me to make a written proposition to sell my license to the company."
Alice and William wed in 1895; in 1902, the draft gear had grown so profitable that he formed his own firm, the W.H. Miner Company.
In fleshing out the man, Burke strips away the myth.
He also places Miner's accomplishments in the context of the times. The man made his name in the 1890s, during the worst depression the United States had experienced at that point in its history.
"He represented there was nothing we couldn't do with imagination, drive and determination," Burke said.
That confidence, that drive, the author said, epitomizes the character not just of a local man who made good, but "gives insight into the making of the American Century, when the country went from a rural, farming nation to an industrial nation.
"I think (Miner) was really important to the country as a whole."
As a self-made man, says Burke in his introduction, Miner "offers a classic case of the American mobility myth."
BACK TO THE LAND
And yet, the man who took advantage of that industrial evolution returned to the land. He developed his experimental farm to encourage success for farmers, to keep young people from migrating to the cities. He insisted Chazy Central include an extensive agriculture program for that same reason.
The school, itself, was not Miner's brainchild, however, Burke emphasizes. Rather, he underwrote the cost for centralizing 11 small school districts to create a revolutionary educational program proposed by the Rev. George Mott.
The book tells of the development of Miner's projects in great detail, and, at the insistence of his wife, Joan, chronologically. For part of the story is how he juggled many endeavors at once, all while traveling extensively to promote his inventions.
"You have to do it as Miner lived," Burke paraphrased her advice.
And how he died. Legend also says Miner wanted to undergo the first surgery at the hospital he created, so he elected to have his tonsils removed.
The first part of that story is easily debunked — Physicians Hospital opened Jan. 1, 1926, more than four years before Miner's death on the operating table.
While no autopsy was performed that offered insight into what exactly happened that day, Burke is persuaded the surgery was not an elective one.
Miner's sister had died in 1910 following an attack of tonsillitis, Burke learned in the course of his research. And then Miner, who must have considered his sister's death tragically unnecessary, offered to pay for tonsillectomies for any Chazy students whose parents could not afford the operation.
And, writes Burke, "William Miner had long suffered from tonsil troubles."
That information came from the death certification, which said cause of Miner's demise was "tonsillar abscesses" dating back 21 years.
"That was the hardest thing to read," said Burke of Miner's death at age 68.
But the Great Depression had struck; Miner's business already had been struggling. And the worst was still to come.
"One almost had to be glad he didn't live to see that," Burke said. "As great as he was, he couldn't have kept funding the school, the hospital in anything like the amounts he had."
"The remarkable thing about William Miner was that he funded these philanthropies with his income (not the excess)," the author continued. "That's probably the most misleading myth of all — that he had all that money."
Miner, reveals the book, had funded his philanthropies with a generosity that left his Chicago-based William H. Miner Foundation, created in 1927, in deep debt to his business, W.H. Miner Inc. After his death, that circumstance forced severe cuts in funding to the farm, school and hospital.
"Those at the farm had the most devastating and immediate impact on the Town and Village of Chazy," Burke writes, "where it supplied a sizable part of the employment and the economy. "¦ The myth grew that once Miner died, 'people from Chicago' cut back funding "¦ because they cared more for the Chicago business than the Clinton County philanthropies."
Revelation about the state of Miner's financial affairs has proved almost an affront to some who don't want to see the man as flawed, said Burke.
"But why," he said, "must we see our heroes as perfect?"
And that took the author back to his early question — why have so many derogatory suppositions about Miner persisted through the years?
Larger-than-life figures can't be too perfect, he mused, "because we can't emulate them.
"It's more about us than them."
And so, Burke said, "I'm still making a list of the Miner myths."
E-mail Suzanne Moore at: smoore@pressrepublican.com
