Myrtilla Miner was born on March 4, 1815, in Brookfield, New York, to which place her father's family had come from Norwich, Connecticut. That portion of New York State was then a wilderness, the Miners were very poor, and there were no educational opportunities for the children.
Myrtilla, though physically frail, was possessed by a desire for learning. She disliked house and farm work and, after teaching herself to read, borrowed books, or purchased them with money earned by picking hops. She wrote naively and with no satisfactory result to Hon. William H. Seward, governor of New York, asking for advice about securing an education. At fifteen, Myrtilla was teaching a country school, which she was soon obliged to leave because of "spinal trouble. " Recovering partially, she secured admission to a school in Clinton, New York, promising to pay her expenses when she was able to teach. Often ill, she studied in bed and after a year secured a position in a public school of Rochester, New York. From there, she went to a school in Providence, Rhode Island, and then to Newton Institute, a school for planters' daughters at Whitesville, Mississippi.
During her illness, she made a vow that if she recovered she would devote herself to the cause of the slaves. When she regained a measure of health, without money or influence, she determined to start a normal school for colored girls in Washington, D. C. , a stronghold of aristocratic, pro-slavery feeling, Frederick Douglass, negro philanthropist, whom she consulted, knowing the difficulties, discouraged her. She begged money, paper, almost anything, and on December 3, 1851, in a small apartment, opened her normal school for free colored girls. The school had six students at the start, fifteen after a month, forty after two months. With her teaching, she carried on a continuous campaign for funds. In 1853, through the kindness of Thomas Williamson and Samuel Rhoads of the Society of Friends of Philadelphia, who loaned $2, 000 and consented to act as trustees, and of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who gave $1, 000 of her earnings from Uncle Tom's Cabin, she was able to purchase for $4, 000 three acres between N Street and New Hampshire Avenue, with a small house, barn, and orchard. In March 1854, the school was moved to this location, which was then on the outskirts of the city. The house was often attacked and threatened, but a high fence, a dog, and the sight of the mistress and her assistant practicing with a revolver in the yard warned off intruders. By 1856, the school was placed under trustees, one of whom was Johns Hopkins. Printed solicitations for funds aroused public antagonism and Walter Lenox, a former mayor of Washington, wrote an article, which appeared in the National Intelligencer, attacking the school and all attempts at negro education as aids in the abolition movement. The institution was several times under other management, or temporarily closed, on account of Miss Miner's poor health. In 1861, she went to California, where she supported herself by practicing clairvoyance and magnetic healing. An accident in which she was thrown from a carriage was followed by symptoms of tuberculosis, to which she was probably always predisposed. She returned to Washington by steamer, arriving there only a few days before her death, which occurred at the home of her friend, Mrs. Nancy M. Johnson. Her funeral was conducted by Rev. William Henry Channing of the Unitarian Church and she was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery, Georgetown. Her work did not lapse, however; on March 3, 1863, Congress incorporated the Institution for the Education of Colored Youth in the District of Columbia. In 1871, it was joined with Howard University, but separated in 1876, and in 1879 as the Miner Normal School, now Miner Teachers' College, it became part of the public school system of the District.
The mild climate in Newton Institute benefited Myrtilla's health but her first sight of negro slavery shocked her profoundly. She came to believe that in education lay the salvation of the negro, and asked for permission to instruct the slaves on one of the plantations, but was told that it was a criminal offense in Mississippi to teach a slave to read.
Quotations: "Mob my school! You dare not! If you tear it down over my head I shall get another house. There is no law to prevent my teaching these people and I shall teach them even unto death!"
There is no information about Miner's personal life. Perhaps she was never married.
