[7] While Miller was a young boy, probably between 1850 and 1852,[8] his family moved to Oregon and settled in the Willamette Valley, establishing a farm in what would become Lane County.

A number of his popular works, Life Amongst the Modocs,[9] An Elk Hunt,[10] and The Battle of Castle Crags, draw on these experiences.

"[15] Although Miller soon left the area to pursue other adventures, in the 1870s he sought out Cali-Shasta, then in her teens, and took her to San Francisco to be educated by his friend Ina Coolbrith.

[17][18] Spending a short time in the mining camps of northern Idaho, Miller found his way to Canyon City, Oregon by 1864 where he was elected the third Judge of Grant County.

With the help of his friend, Senator Joseph Lane, he became editor of the Democratic Register in Eugene,[20] a role he held from March 15 to September 20, 1862.

[11] That year, Miller married Theresa Dyer on September 12, 1862, in her home four days after meeting her[23] in Port Orford, Oregon.

[28] Dyer filed for divorce on April 4, 1870, claiming they had a third child, Henry Mark, the year before and that Miller was "wholly" neglectful.

[29] The court declared them divorced on April 19 and Dyer was granted custody of the baby while the two older children were left in the care of her mother.

[33] Miller had sent a copy of Joaquin, et al. to Bret Harte, who offered advice that he avoid "faults of excess" and encouragingly wrote, "you are on your way to become a poet.

"[34] The next summer, July 1870, Miller traveled to San Francisco with borrowed money and there befriended Charles Warren Stoddard and Ina Coolbrith.

The Spirit of the Times, however, attributed its success to curious audience members expecting a disastrous failure and instead discovering a good show: "The play proved to possess more than ordinary merit, and if it is not a great work, it is decidedly not a very bad one.

"[39] The Danites was extended from a run of only a few days to one of seven straight weeks before moving to another theatre and, ultimately, was performed to such a degree that it rivaled the popularity of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

[5] That year, he moved to Oakland, California, and built a home for himself he nicknamed "The Abbey" on property he called "The Hights" [sic].

[43] Japanese poet Yone Noguchi came to The Hights in 1894 and spent the next four years there as an unpaid laborer in exchange for room and board.

Though he referred to Miller as "the most natural man", Noguchi reflected on those years as his most difficult in the United States and later fictionalized his experience in The American Diary of a Japanese Girl.

Bierce, his friend and contemporary, said of him, "In impugning Mr. Miller's veracity, or rather, in plainly declaring that he has none, I should be sorry to be understood as attributing a graver moral delinquency than he really has.

[52] As poet Bayard Taylor bitterly noted in 1876, British audiences "place the simulated savagery of Joaquin Miller beside the pure and serene muse of Longfellow.

Miller is remembered today, among other reasons, for lines from his poem in honor of "Burns and Byron": A historical marker for his birthplace was unveiled October 10, 1915, on U.S. 27 north of Liberty in Union County, Indiana.

[59] Actor George Paulsin portrayed a youthful Joaquin Miller in the Death Valley Days episode "Early Candle Lighten", hosted by Dale Robertson.

In the story line, a cook at a gold camp in the Arizona Territory faces hanging for stealing nuggets from the miners.

His assistant, "Nat Miller", played by Paulsin, thinks he can save his life by bringing the cook's sister from Tucson.