Naughty Nathan Nabbed

MILLER, CHASE, FOSTER

Posted By: Lynette Edsall (email)
Date: 10/24/2004 at 12:36:55

Weekly Cherokean Democrat, February 5, 1890

Naughty Nathan Nabbed

The Too-Much-Married Photographer Taken In at Emmetsburg-Both Miller and His Wife Held for Adultery

The following dispatch, which appeared in the Sioux City Journal Friday, occasioned considerable surprise here:

EMMETSBURG, JAN. 31 Nathan H. Miller, formerly of Cherokee, was arrested in this city this morning on the charge of adultery and bigamy. Miller will be remembered as the photographer who deserted his wife and little girl at Cherokee in September 1888 eloping with a girl formerly employed in his studio, Helen Chase. Miller came to Emmetsburg about eight months ago and took charge of a photograph gallery. In October last, after a short absence, he appeared with a woman who he claimed to have married in Sioux City, and who now proves to be the same Helen Chase with whom he eloped from Cherokee. The announcement of his marriage caused Cherokee parties to investigate, and yesterday Miller’s former wife and C.J. Foster, a Cherokee lawyer, arrived in town, and Miler was arrested in company with his reported wife. He claims to have obtained a decree of divorce in Colorado and that he legally married the woman his is living with at Canton, S.D., in October. The preliminary examination is now in progress and Miller will doubtless be remanded.

Of course, the Journal, as usual, got things a little mixed. The following from the Palo Alto Reporter gives more correct particulars:

At the time N.H. Miller retuned to Emmetsburg with a reputed wife it was rumored that all was not right. Still, as he has conducted himself so far as was known in an exemplary manner during all the period of his residence here, it seemed hard to believe the rumors, though letters and papers from Cherokee soon confirmed them. Yesterday Mr. Miller’s former wife and her little daughter arrived in town, accompanied by G.T. Foster, an attorney of Cherokee, and Mr. Miller and his supposed wife were charged with adultery, and he will have a hearing today before Justice Burlingame. The story as told my Mrs. Miller is that she and Mr. Miller were living happily at Cherokee, Iowa until about the 19th of September, 1888, when Miller unceremoniously skipped out with a girl-Helen Chase,- who had for some time been working in his art gallery. We do not understand that Mr. Miller denies the correctness of this story, but that he claims that after leaving his wife, and before pretending to remarry, he had procured a divorce from some Colorado court. Mrs. Miller and the little girl make a very favorable impression on first acquaintance and it seems as though it will be difficult for Mr. Miller to explain or excuse his actions.

The particulars of Miller’s naughtiness are so well known that they do not need to be set out in full again. Attorney Forster, accompanied by Mrs. Miller and Gracie, arrived in the city Friday evening. Mr. Foster reported that the trial resulted in both miller and his new-made wife being bound over to the grand jury. Miller showed up a “patent Chicago $25 divorce,” purporting to have been obtained in Colorado, but his story was too flimsy to hold water. The laws of Colorado require a man to have lived there a year before a divorce can be granted, and it is probable that Miller never was in the state. The case against him was so clear that little trouble was experienced in securing a remand. Bail was fixed at $300 each. At the time Mr. Foster started for him this had not been secured. The sum is so small that it was feared the amount would be put up and the couple would skip out for more congenial times.

Mrs. Miller will remain in Cherokee for some time and will begin an action to secure custody of her child and also endeavor to substantiate her claim to a share of Miller’s earning for her support.