Milton Miller, 12th-Generation Bayman, Was 97

Capt. Milton Louamina Miller Sr., a 12th-generation East Hampton bayman, died in his sleep on Sunday at the The Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton. He was 97 years old.

Capt. Miller was born in a family homestead on Atlantic Avenue in Amagansett on November 19, 1915. He grew up in the shadow of the Amagansett Life Saving Station across the street, and his earliest memories were of running after the local fishermen and whaling captains on the beach, trying to work with them and learning to be a man of the sea, according to his family.

Capt. Miller was “kind of raised by the old whalers on the beach; the old Edwards captains taught him everything,” said Peter Matthiessen of Sagaponack, for whose book “Men’s Lives” Capt. Miller was a major source about the historic traditions of local baymen and ocean haulseiners. It describes him as boy who grew up watching fishermen come in with the surf and hearing stories about the whaling industry just ended, assisting men with their chores and watching his father help man surfboats at the life saving station.

“He was always muxing around over there at the Coast Guard Life Saving Station,” said Stuart Vorpahl, who lived for many years near Capt. Miller on Three Mile Harbor Road and who fished with him off Gardiner’s Island and elsewhere.

In 1933, Capt. Miller married Etta L Midgett, his childhood sweetheart. They had four children, Lois Kfoury of Fort Salonga, Lila Miller of Michigan, Milton (Mickey) Miller Jr. of Springs and Lori Miller-Carr, also of Springs.

During the Great Depression, Mr. Miller enlisted with the Civilian Conservation Corps and walked the length of Long Island helping to protect its natural resources, his family said. He then worked as a bayman until the Hurricane of 1938 destroyed his nets and equipment.

Following in his father’s footsteps, he joined the United States Coast Guard. He was stationed at Ditch Plains in Montauk and rose in rank to chief boatswain’s mate. During World War II, he served in the Pacific Theater and was assigned to the Navy’s LST vessels. Capt. Miller commanded 114 men and participated in many battles, including the Guadalcanal Campaign. While in the service he obtained his master’s license, which allowed him to serve aboard vessels of any gross tons.

After being discharged in 1945, Capt. Miller resumed his career as a commercial fisherman. “He did just about everything you can do as a bayman,” said Mr. Matthiessen, who rode with Capt. Miller in the dories of the haulseining crews in the 1950s. Mr. Matthiessen added that there are “not very many bayman who do the haulseining, but Milt tried everything, and he was good at everything.” According to Mr. Vorpahl, Capt. Miller also worked at times as a carpenter and boat builder, and he was good at that, too.

In 1956, Capt. Miller helped form the East Hampton Baymen’s Association. He served as its first vice-president and then as its president in 1962. “He was an activist beyond measure,” said Mr. Vorpahl, recalling decades of lobbying on behalf of fishermen and local disputes about the proposed 200-mile offshore limit for foreign fishing fleets, a point on which he and Capt. Miller disagreed.

Capt. Miller was a member of American Legion Post #419 and served as its commander from 1946 to 1947. He also was a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post #550.

In 1980, after a plane crash in Montauk, where local fishermen helped rescue the passengers, Capt. Miller was instrumental in forming the East Hampton Dory Rescue Squad, which in many cases performed rescues before the US Coast Guard would arrive. “We were the only ones who knew how to get a dory into the surf, so he put that together,” Mr. Vorpahl said of a skill that very few locals retain today. The dory rescue squad was disbanded in 2005.

Capt. Miller, his family and childhood, and his vocation all played significant roles in the 1986 book “Men’s Lives,” Mr. Matthiessen’s portrait of the dwindling culture of Long Island’s traditional commercial fishermen. Doug Kuntz, a former fisherman whose photographs appear in the book, said he had “a tremendous amount of admiration” for Capt. Miller and that he was “tough as nails” in earning a living the hard way.

“Men’s Lives” was brought to the stage by Joe Pintauro in 1992 as Bay Street Theatre’s inaugural production in Sag Harbor. “Milt was authentic in everything he said and everything he did,” Mr. Matthiessen said. “He was a terrific guy, a great man.”

In 1996, after the death of his wife, Capt. Miller moved to Barefoot Bay in Sebastian, Florida. In 2008, he returned to East Hampton, where he lived at Windmill Village. “I made him, I carved him a wooden net needle about two years ago,” Mr. Vorpahl said, “a big one—10 inches, a foot long—and carved his name and took it over and gave it to him.” Capt. Miller wrote about local history, and one of his interests was the life saving station, which has been moved back to its original spot near where Mr. Miller grew up and which is in the process of being restored. “He was really passionate about that, and rightly so,” Mr. Vorpahl said.

Capt. Miller’s family said he had been deeply involved with the station’s restoration over the past two years, “always signing his many letters to the editor with the salutation “S.O.S.—Save Our Station.”

“I just knew him for a long time, and that’s such a big chunk of history gone,” Mr. Vorpahl said on Monday.

Lori Miller-Carr said her father had been “a trouper right to the end.” He baked clam and other pies, created a garden, and built a garden trestle from a wheelchair in his final years, she said. “He really pushed himself, and it really is an example to me,” she said. “That’s what I learned from him—he was an inspiration.” When her husband and her family collected information for her father’s obituary, she said, she realized how many things he had done over his lifetime.

Capt. Miller is survived by four children, seven grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by two grandchildren.

He donated his body to medical research and left instructions in his will that no public ceremony or service should be held in his honor. The family, which is honoring his request, suggested donations in his memory be made to the Amagansett Life-Saving Station at P.O. Box 51, Amagansett 11930.