The celebrated geologist, and editor of the _Witness_ newspaper, Hugh Miller, was born at Cromarty on the 10th October 1802. In his fifth year he had the misfortune to lose his father, who, being the captain of a small trading vessel, perished in a storm at sea. His widowed mother was aided by two industrious unmarried brothers in providing for her family, consisting of two daughters, and the subject of this Memoir. With a rudimentary training in a private school, taught by a female, he became a pupil in the grammar school. Perceiving his strong aptitude for learning, and vigorous native talent, his maternal uncles strongly urged him to study for one of the liberal professions; but, diffident of success in more ambitious walks, he resolved to follow the steps of his progenitors in a life of manual labour. In his sixteenth year he apprenticed himself to a stone-mason. The profession thus chosen proved the pathway to his future eminence; for it was while engaged as an operative stone-hewer in the old red sandstone quarries of Cromarty, that he achieved those discoveries in that formation which fixed a new epoch in geological science. Poetical composition in evening hours relieved the toils of labour, and varied the routine of geological inquiry. In the prosecution of an ornamental branch of his profession--that of cutting and lettering grave-stones--he in 1828 proceeded to Inverness. Obtaining the friendship of Mr Robert Carruthers, the ingenious editor of the _Inverness Courier_, the columns of that journal were adorned by his poetical contributions. In 1829 these were issued from the _Courier_ office, in a duodecimo volume, with the title, "Poems Written in the Leisure Hours of a Journeyman Mason." By the press the work was received with general favour; and the author, in evidence that his powers as a prose-writer were not inferior to his efforts as a poet, soon re-appeared in the columns of the _Courier_, as the contributor of various letters on the Northern Fisheries. These letters proved so attractive that their republication in the form of a pamphlet was forthwith demanded.
The merits of the Cromarty stone-mason began to attract some general attention. Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, who had an occasional residence in Morayshire, afforded him patronage; and the venerable Principal Baird of Edinburgh, to whom he was introduced, recommended him to quit the mallet, and seek literary employment in the capital. Such gratifying encouragement and friendly counsel, though not immediately acted upon, were not without advantage in stimulating his enterprise. Before relinquishing, however, a craft at which he could at least earn a sufficiency for his immediate wants, he resolved to test his capabilities as a writer by a further literary attempt.