Politician's Base Just a Memory

CHARLES D. MILLER was born in New York City in 1881, but by the time he was a teenager he made his home the 100-acre estate that his father co-owned in what was then Smithtown Branch, now known as Village of the Branch.

Barbara Moss, executive director of the Smithtown Historical Society, said that Miller became an attorney and developed an interest in ornithology, while the running of the estate was left to a superintendent.

Miller married in 1917 and subsequently served in France during World War I, where he was seriously injured during a gas attack. He returned home to Smithtown and was approached by local Republicans to run as their party's candidate for supervisor in 1919.

He was elected to a pair of two-year terms, serving from 1920-1923. After his political career he returned to practicing law. In 1934, he contracted pneumonia and died.