Emmala Butler Thompson Reed Miller
1839-1893
Emmala Reed was born in Calhoun, South Carolina to Jacob Pinckney Reed and Teresa Caroline Hammond. This was the childhood home of J.P. Reed. The young couple had moved their shortly after their marriage and had started what would become a successful mercantile business. Emmala Butler Thompson Reed was the third child born to J.P. and Teresa Reed and the first to survive infancy. Emmala’s mother, only twenty years old when she was born, gave birth to eight more children. Emmala had six sisters, Susan, Eleanor “Nell” Caroline, Mary “Mamie”Eliza, Sara “Cora” Cornelia, Lucy Eoline and Teresa “Pet” Hammond and two brothers, Clifton “Cliff” Augustus and Jacob Pinckney, Jr.
Emmala’s father was successful in business and entered politics in 1838 as a state legislator. He founded a newspaper called the “Highland Sentinel” shortly before moving his family to Anderson Court House, South Carolina which was about twelve miles west of Calhoun. J.P. Reed studied law with Judge Joseph N. Whitner from 1839-1842. In November 1842 Emmala’s father entered into a law practice with Benjamin F. Perry, a prominent Greenville attorney. He later formed a partnership with a Unionist, James L. Orr of Anderson. Emmala’s father was a slave holder, an absentee planter but held strong Unionist political beliefs. This must have conflicted with the local populations because when the war broke out it was most unpopular to support what was considered “a Northern psychology”. Emmala’s father was very active in participating against secession for the US Government but later relented to public pressure and signed the South Carolina Ordinance of Secession.
Emmala Reed was in her mid-twenties when the war ended and occupation of the south began. During these “Reconstruction” times the family had many benefits presented to them because of “Unionist” standards held by J.P. Reed and he prospered accordingly. He moved his family to a large home on South Main Street in Anderson they called “Echo Hall”. Of the many things accomplished by Emmala’s father was the founding of Johnson Female Seminary in 1848. Emmala graduated from this school in 1855 at the age of sixteen.
Emmala became quite the activist after the end of the war. Anderson was filled with Southern refugees form the cities of Atlanta, Charleston and Columbia. These cities were devastated by General Sherman on his march through South Carolina and fulfillment of his commitment to make “South Carolina Howl” for her involvement in leading the secession from the union. She organized many ladies groups to provide clothing and necessary needs to the returning soldiers as well as refugees from the larger cities.
Emmala’s diary, later entitled “A Faithful Heart”, became a window for generations to follow of how the reconstruction period in the south transpired, especially from the perspective of a lifelong city dweller and not that of a plantation home life.
Emmala Reed was reaching an age that most women had long since been married and bearing children. Throughout the war she had corresponded with her cousin and pined away for his safe return whereby she had hoped that they would wed and live happily thereafter. When the war ended in 1865, her cousin Robert Broyles, came home, but shunned her. There would be no furthering of their relationship based on his part.
In February 1867 Emmala left the home place of “Echo Hall” and moved to a town named Doko and taught music at the Blythwood School for Women and later became instrumental in forming a Sunday School at Sandy Level Baptist Church. She had become enamored with a cotton merchant named George Miller. George Miller was from Abbeville, SC but worked in nearby Columbia and Charleston areas. Emmala and George courted from the time she moved to Doko until they finally wed on November 28, 1867. They moved back to the Anderson area and established a farm about six miles south and west of Anderson in Rock Mills Township.
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Emmala and George Miller had seven and went on to raise six children past childhood. They were Willie Miller 1870 - ?, George Miller 1872 - ?, Caro Miller 1873 - ? May Miller 1873 - ? (Possible twins) and J. Reed Miller 1880 - ?. Their first child, Lee Reed Miller 1868 – 1873 died at the age of five years. Emmala is buried next to her son Lee and beside her husband George Miller at Anderson First Baptist Church in Anderson, South Carolina. Her father Judge J.P. Reed and mother Teresa Caroline Hammond Reed are buried next to the church front also.
George W. and Emmala Reed Miller Headstones
Judge J.P. Reed and Teresa Caroline Hammond Reed, Emmala Reed Miller’s father and mother
Lee Reed Miller Headstone
