William Starr Miller (1793-1854)

He was a wealthy merchant and briefly a Member of Congress until his premature death. In 1850, he purchased The Grove for his his wife which had been her childhood home after being orphaned and growing up with her uncle, Philip Jeremiah Schuyler. In 1860, his wife endowed the Starr Institute at Rhinebeck in his memory, which continues today, better known as the Starr Library. They died without children, but his nephew, William Starr Miller II (1856-1935), was named for him and in 1886 he gifted The Grove to William's brother, Dr George N. Miller, as a wedding present.