RARE “Blind Methodist Clergyman" William Henry Milburn Cut Signature For Sale

Up for sale a VERY RARE! "Blind Methodist Clergyman" William Henry Milburn Clipped Signature. 

ES-4631

William

Henry Milburn (September 26,

1823 – April 11, 1903) was a blind Methodist clergyman. A friend of

notables including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,

he was Chaplain of the United States House of Representatives in

1845 and Chaplain of the Senate fifty

years later (1893 until his death in 1903). William

Henry Milburn was born September 26, 1823, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,

to Nicholas and Ann (Wyeth) Milburn, who were devout Methodists and often

hosted well-known Methodist preachers in their home. His father was a

prosperous merchant, until reverses in the economy led to the failure of his

business. The family relocated to Jacksonville, Illinois,

then still "the West" in 1838. There, Milburn was raised. Before

their move to Philadelphia, Milburn's left eye had been injured by a piece of

glass thrown by a playmate. Kept in a dark room for over a year to attempt to

aid healing, the eye was permanently blinded when doctors tried to remove the

callus that had formed over it, using some kind of caustic. Sadly, the

impairment of that eye led to a similar impairment in the other, causing him to

be partially blind in his youth, and totally blind by his forties. Milburn's

account of this disaster in his autobiography is eloquently compelling. A

bright young man, he was chiefly self-educated, though he had tutors in Latin

and Greek, until enrolling Illinois College from which he was unable to graduate due

to his waning eyesight. At the urging of minister friends including Peter Cartwright,

Milburn became a Methodist circuit rider in 1843. His

early ministry consisted of hundreds of miles of travel on horseback each

month, throughout the Midwest. On a steamboat in the Ohio he delivered a sermon

in which he rebuked Congressmen on board for their intemperate behavior. This

led to his name being proposed for Chaplain of the House of Representatives, a

post to which he was elected in 1845 and reelected in 1853. Thereafter,

in succession Milburn served Methodist churches in Montgomery, Alabama and Mobile, Alabama, where, having been tried for heresy, he spent

several years serving a free church. After serving his second term as House

Chaplain (1853) Milburn moved to New York City where he was pastor of the Pacific Street

Methodist Church, and then the John Street Methodist Church, while also engaged

in a life of lecturing. He was elected for two more terms as Chaplain of the

House in 1885 and in 1887. He preached and lectured throughout the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Ireland. Among his published works, his autobiography, Ten

Years of Preacher-Life remains a vivid work of non-fiction and is

readily available on line. Milburn

died in Santa Barbara, California, on April 11, 1903.