William Henry Milburn

[2] 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.

[3] Milburn 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.

On a steamboat in the Ohio he delivered a sermon in which he rebuked Congressmen on board for their intemperate behavior.