| 1835 | Schoolteacher Hulings Miller meets, courts, and marries Margaret DeWitt. |
| 1837 | September 8. Birth of Cincinnatus Hiner Miller near Liberty, Indiana. This is the date accepted by most scholars. His middle name comes from the doctor who delivered him. |
| 1839 | March 10. Birthdate claimed by Miller's brothers. |
| 1841 | March 10. Date which Miller claimed as his birthday, particularly in his later years. He will also falsely claim "My cradle was a covered wagon, pointed West." |
| 1845 | C. Hiner Miller's schooling begins. |
| 1848 | Hulings Miller purchases a farm near Rochester, Indiana. |
| 1849 | The Miller Family hears of the gold strike and becomes interested in moving west. |
| 1851 | Hulings Miller sells his farm to the same man he bought it from. |
| 1852 | Hulings Miller sets out with his family for the Oregon Territory. They arrive in October and settle near Coburg. Joaquin/Hiner will later write of the epidemic-ridden route: "There was but one graveyard that hot, dusty, dreadful year of 1852 and that graveyard reached from the Missouri to the Columbia."
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| 1854 | After accidentally breaking the leg of a neighbor's cow by pushing boulders down a hill, C. Hiner Miller and his friend Will Willoughby bolt for the California gold fields. |
| 1855 | June 8. The Battle of Castle Crags. Miller and Indian Scout Mountain Joe track a party of Indian marauders to Castle Crags. They gather a force of army scouts and frontiersman to punish the raiders. Miller later remembers: "An arrow....struck the left side of my face....knocked out two teeth, and....forced its point through at the back of my neck. I could hear, and I knew the voices of [Judge Rueben] Gibson and Joe. They cut out the point of the arrow and pulled it out of my face by the feathered end. Then I could see." Despite the gruesome nature of the wound, Miller survives to write about the battle and his injury. |
| 1855 | December 21. Miller travels to Horsetown, California and briefly considers joining William Walker's Nicaraguan expedition. |
| 1856 | March 9. Miller writes in his diary "I have dug, tugged, starved and economized the winter through and I could not this day raise the miserable sum of twenty-five dollars. Yes, here I find myself in this damed hole of Squaw town in poor health as I have been all winter without watter, no money to leave the place on and no prospect of making any." He hires himself out to others following this and pays off most of his debts. |
| 1856 | Miller takes up housekeeping with an Indian wife in the McCloud River region. |
| 1857 | Pit River Massacre. Starving local Indians descend on white settlements near Mount Shasta, burning the hay and shooting any one running away. Miller, who is afraid that he will be called an instigator or participant in the massacre, goes to Yreka to break the news. He returns with a punitive expedition and is shot in the arm while his white associates butcher the women and children as well as the men. |
| 1858 | Miller briefly attends Columbia College, Eugene, Oregon. |
| 1859 | June 10. J.P. Bass's mule is stolen. Miller is captured and held for trial, only to escape from the Shasta County jail with a companion on July 2. He writes what the local newspaper calls a "saucy letter" defending his theft. Miller remains a fugitive for many months. He claims that his Indian wife, Paquita, is killed while fleeing a posse. (It is more likely that he just left her and their infant daughter.) He works his way back to Oregon after shooting a constable sent to arrest him. |
| 1860 | January 7. A bench warrant is issued for Miller's arrest by Judge A.M. Rosborough of Siskiyou County. Miller is charged with "assault with intent to commit murder". Miller is safely back in Oregon by this time. |
| 1861 | Miller turns up in Oro Fino, Idaho where he attempts to practice the law without bothering to be admitted to the bar. When this scheme fails, he joins Isaac Mossman's pony express company which links Oro Fino with the Oregon Coast. He starts as a rider and eventually becomes Mossman's partner. During one of his rides over the Cascades, he is afflicted with snow-blindness, an incident which forces him to write on colored paper and avoid reading books for the rest of his life. |
| 1862 | March 10. The first issue of Anthony Nolter's pro-South Democratic Register appears in Eugene, Oregon. Miller invests part of the profits from the sale of his pony express partnership to Wells, Fargo and Company in the paper. He writes the rag's editorials and generous amounts of verse. Nolter laters says that Miller "would have filled my paper with his balderdash poetry." |
| 1862 | September 12. C. Hiner Miller marries Therese Dyer (aka Minnie Myrtle at Port Orford, Oregon. Myrtle is a poet in her own right, who many say is better than Miller. |
| 1862 | September 27. Miller protests against censorship of papers published by Southern sympathizers, promising to resist "even though that determination drenches our valley in blood and blots the white race from the shores of the Pacific." Miller bases his calls for violent opposition to "Northern aggression" against the South and emancipation on the pacifist principles taught him by his Quaker-influenced father! He neglects to mention that no other member of his family supports the Southern cause and the evil institution of slavery. |
| 1862 | October 2. After prominent Oregon Democrats renounce Miller, General George Wright calls upon the San Francisco Postmaster to exclude the Register from the mails. |
| 1862 | November 1. Miller and Nolter begin publication of the Eugene City Review, a newspaper which is less strident in tone than the Register. |
| 1863 | Some of Miller's poetry is published in The Golden Era, a literary magazine edited by Francis Bret Harte. |
| 1863 | January 3. In an editorial in the Review, Miller stands for what he thinks are the essential freedoms: "....freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of the white man before the negro." |
| 1863 | February 14. Miller resigns as editor of the Review and journies to San Francisco with Minnie to establish contact with the City's literati. |
| 1863 | April to August. Miller and Minnie reside at 421 Fulton Street, San Francisco, "driving the quill" for the Golden Era. They discover that the Golden Era is not only unable to pay them, but also better writers such as Bret Harte, Prentice Mulford, and Charles Warren Stoddard, so they decide to return to Oregon. Pregnant Minnie remains with her parents and Joaquin goes on to establish himself as a lawyer in Canyon City. |
| 1864 | Birth of Miller's daughter, Eveline Maud. |
| 1864 | March 15. Indians raid Canyon City, seizing cattle and horses. Miners organize a posse, calling on Miller to lead them. The posse joins up with a U.S. Cavalry unit and pursues the Indians across the Harney Valley towards Nevada. The posse rides into an ambush and is nearly slaughtered, but they recover the cattle and return to Canyon City. |
| 1864 | Miller takes up the practice of law in Canyon City with Colonel Thomas E. Gray. His wife and newborn daughter come to join him. |
| 1865 | The Dalles Daily Mountaineer publishes Miller's "Canyon City Pickles", a series of sketches of life in the mining town which some, including Minnie, find distasteful. |
| 1866 | Birth of Miller's son, George Brick. |
| 1866 | June. Miller runs for judge in Canyon City, reminding his audience "I stood out in the storm alone....I stood out when no other paper in the State stood up for our cause." He wins and inflicts poetry readings on his constituents who find him "a little cracked". |
| 1868 | Specimens published by Carter Hines, Portland, Oregon. |
| 1869 | C. Hiner and Minnie Miller become legally separated. Minnie later says that she and the children were "ordered" back to Port Orford. |
| 1869 | July. Miller ends his service as judge of Canyon City. |
| 1869 | August. Birth of Henry Mark Miller. This child may not be Hiner's. |
| 1869 | Joaquin et. al published by S.J. McCormick, Portland, Oregon. |
| 1870 | January. Bret Harte gives Miller's Joaquin et. al. a kind review in The Golden Era. |
| 1870 | April 4. Minnie files a petition for divorce in Coos County, contending that her husband "wholly neglects to provide for the support and maintenance" of their children. April 18. C. Hiner Miller assembles a list of witnesses who testify to Minnie's infidelity. April 19. The Court grants the divorce. Minnie gets custody of Henry Mark Miller. Her mother gets custody of the two older children for four years. |
| 1870 | Miller returns to San Francisco, where he is introduced to the West's literati by Charles Warren Stoddard. Ina Coolbrith convinces Miller that the name C. Hiner was not suitable "to climb Parnassus and be crowned by the gods" and to change it to that of the bandit prince immortalized in his second book of verse. She later writes that Margaret DeWitt Miller, the poet's mother, "said she had one grievance against me, and that was I had given her boy a name he liked better than the one she gave him. She always thought Cincinnatus a pretty fine one, but since I gave him 'Joaquin' he had preferred and used that." |
| 1870 | Miller departs San Francisco, pausing briefly to pick laurels from the slopes of Mount Tamalpais to place on the grave of Byron, and stops briefly in New York, where he reconciles himself with his brother John, who is ailing following his service on the Union side in the Civil War. (John dies the following year.) |
| 1870 | Miller arrives in London by way of Glasgow. He places his laurel wreath on the tomb of Byron. He crosses the Channel to visit the battlefields of the Franco-Prussian War. He writes at Calais on October 30: Been to the war! Brutes! Shuttlecocked between the two armies, and arrested every time I turned around. I am sure the Germans would have shot me if I could have spoke a word of French. I am doubly certain the French would have sabred me if I had been able to speak one word of German. |
| 1871 | Pacific Poems published by Whittingham and Wilkins, London, England. |
| 1871 | Songs of the Sierras simultaneously published in London and Boston. Miller is lionized by the Pre-Raphaelites in London. He becomes more famous in England than in the United States, becoming acquainted with the pre-Raphaelites, Tennyson, and other notable literary personalities of the day. |
| 1872 | Miller returns briefly to San Francisco before departing for Brazil, where he graces the court of Emperor Dom Pedro. |
| 1873 | Miller returns to London where he meets Lillie Lantry who will become a lifelong friend. He also joins the Savage Club. |
| 1873 | Songs of the Sun-Lands published. |
| 1873 | First publication of Life Among the Modocs, in London. The work will be recycled under various titles including Unwritten History, Paquita, and Joaquin Miller's Romantic Life Amongst the Red Indians. |
| 1873 | Teresa Dyer Miller travels the West, lecturing about her wretched life with the poet for a Portland, Oregon women's suffrage organization. |
| 1874 | Miller takes up residence in Rome where it is believed that he picks up the story that inspires his novel "The One Fair Woman". Henry James is also visiting at the time, but the two do not meet. Miller returns to the United States. |
| 1875 | First Fam'lies in the Sierras published in London. It will be rewritten for the stage as The Danites in the Sierras. |
| 1875 | The Ship in the Desert published in Boston. |
| 1876 | The One Fair Woman published in London. |
| 1877 | The Baroness of New York published in New York. |
| 1877 | Teresa Dyer Miller marries T.E.L. Logan. |
| 1878 | Songs of Italy published in Boston. |
| 1878 | Songs of Far-away Lands puiblished in London. |
| 1879 | Marries hotel heiress Abigail Leland, in New York City. |
| 1879 | Mexico, a four act play. |
| 1879 | Maud Miller and her stepfather, T.E.L. Logan, are charged with abducting a twelve year old girl for export to San Francisco's Barbary Coast. Joaquin Miller travels to Portland to take charge of his wayward daughter and place her in a Canadian convent school. |
| 1880 | Two Babes of the Wood, a play, published. |
| 1881 | The Danites in the Sierras published in Chicago. |
| 1881 | Shadows of Shasta published in Chicago. |
| 1881 | O Rare Colorado and Oregon, two more plays, published. |
| 1882 | Forty-nine published in San Francisco. |
| 1883 | Minnie Myrtle seeks Joaquin's aid in New York City. He takes her in; arranges for a doctor's care, pays for their daughter, Maud, and other relatives to make the trip from California and Oregon; and, when she expires, lovingly inters her at New York's Evergreen Cemetery. |
| 1883 | Puts, Calls, Straddles, Our Western Cousin, The Silent Man, and Tally-Ho, all plays, published.. |
| 1883 | Miller and Abigail move to Washington D.C. Miller builds a log cabin for himself. Abigail soon leaves him to return to New York City. |
| 1884 | Memorie and Rime published in New York. |
| 1884 | '49: The Gold- Seekers of the Sierras published in New York.
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| 1885 | Miller applies for recompense for his participation in the Pit River expedition of 1857, but is told by Adjutant General George B. Crosby that he has waited too long and must petition the Legislature for compensation. |
| 1886 | The Destruction of Gotham published in New York. |
| 1886 | Miller asks robber baron Jay Gould for some investment advice and, misled by Gould, ties up $90,000 in Gould's Vandalia Railroad. Joaquin loses most of his investment, forcing him to sell his Washington cabin and return to California. |
| 1887 | Songs of the Mexican Seas published in Boston. |
| 1887 | Purchases the seventy-five acres of land that will become known as The Hights, near Oakland, California. |
| 1890 | In Classic Shades and Other Poems published in Chicago. |
| 1891 | December 9. California papers reveal that Henry Mark Miller, the disputed second son of the poet, has been arrested for robbing a stagecoach near Ukiah. The younger Miller has escaped from the Oregon Penitentiary. He is sentenced to two years in San Quentin. His father(?) goes into seclusion. Papers call Joaquin Miller the "Poet Lothario", accusing him of deserting his wife and leaving Henry Mark (also known as Joseph McKay) fatherless. |
| 1892 | Miller makes the ludicrous charge that Henry James plagiarized Daisy Miller from his The One Fair Woman Critics are not impressed by the evidence. |
| 1893 | Henry Mark Miller finishes his sentence at San Quentin and is returned to the Oregon State Penitentiary. |
| 1893 | The Building of the City Beautiful published in Chicago. |
| 1894 | An illustrated history of the State of Montana published in Chicago. |
| 1895 | Henry Mark Miller is released from the Oregon State Penitentiary. |
| 1896 | Songs of the Soul published in San Francisco. |
| 1897 | Miller travels to the Klondike gold fields as a reporter for the Hearst newspapers. On December 17, he writes: "I am gloomily accepting the fact that I must remain here and go out on an early boat in June or July. The days here have now dwindled to a dim little ray of light. The sun is sulking away yonder somewhere....We have not seen his cheery face for days and days and do not hope to see it for weeks to come. But the moon...we see her all the vast night long and nearly all the narrow strip of day....Oh! but to sit on my little doorstep in the warm night weather, above San Francisco Bay, and see the twin-horned lamp of a new-born baby moon light up the Golden Gate and then go timidly and restfully to bed, in the warm, wide billow! Let me but live to see this again and I will not go far away...." |
| 1900 | Miller travels to China to cover the Boxer Rebellion for Hearst and plays a minor part in reportage of that event. |
| 1903 | As It Was in the Beginning: A Poem published in San Francisco. |
| 1907 | Light: A Narrative published in Boston. |
| 1909-10 | Publication of Joaquin Miller's Poems, his selected works. |
| 1913 | Joaquin Miller dies at The Hights. His last words are "Far away, far away." When his widow tries to carry out his wish that he be cremated in a special pyre he built with granite boulders and cement, the city of Oakland balks and forces that the deed be carried out in a private crematorium. Family, friends and admirers of Miller hold a second cremation, however, sprinkling his ashes on a raging fire and reading poetry in his honor. |
| 1923 | The Poetical Works of Joaquin Miller edited by Stuart P. Sherman. |
| 1930 | Overland in a Covered Wagon, Miller's autobiography, appears in New York and London. |
| 1936 | Publication of Joaquin Miller's diary. |