Alfred Jacob Miller

Alfred Jacob Miller was born on January 10, 1810 in Baltimore, Maryland and was one of the first Caucasian artists to record life in the West. His parents encouraged his interest in drawing, and he received training in portraiture from Thomas Sully from 1831-1832. Miller went on a European tour in 1833 and studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the English Life School in Rome. Following this, he moved to New Orleans and established a studio where he met Captain William Drummond Stewart, a wealthy Scottish aristocrat and British Army officer. After looking at Miller's work in the studio, Stewart invited Miller to be a part of an expedition to the Rocky Mountains, where his only duty was to record the trip through sketches.

In April 1837, the party, consisting of 45 men and 20 carts, headed out with Thomas Fitzpatrick as their guide; the route they took would later be called the Oregon Trail. Miller returned from the trip with approximately 200 sketches, which were shipped to Stewart's Murthly Castle in Scotland. Miller would follow his sketches to Scotland, living at the castle from 1840 to 1842, and painting scenes from the trip while there. Once he had completed his commission for Stewart, Miller returned to Baltimore where he spent the rest of his career painting portraits and scenes from his journey "out West." He died in 1874 in Baltimore.