Nicanor and Ellen

Two early hoteliers in the Adirondack High Peaks region were Nicanor and Ellen Miller, who owned or managed inns in Keene and North Elba during the 1870s and 1880s. The Millers’ establishments—Keene Center House, Cascade House and Adirondack Lodge—hosted hundreds of guests who came to the mountains during the early years of the area’s initial tourism boom.

The Miller family’s story typified the patterns of migration and economic development that shaped the Adirondacks during the course of the 19th century. Nicanor was the son of Philip Miller and Dorcas Smith Miller, who were born in Vermont in the decade before the Revolution. The Miller family moved to the Adirondacks during the War of 1812, and lived in an area west of Elizabethtown that became known locally as the Miller settlement. Nicanor was born there in 1813, the next-to-youngest of