Mills, C.D.B.
Charles De Berard Mills (C. D. B. Mills) was a prominent figure in the Abolition movement. Before moving to Syracuse, C. D. B. Mills was, at separate times, a teacher and a minister, and was forced out of both positions due to his abolitionist views. He also started a private school in New York and another one in Ohio.
Mills was active in the New York State Freethinkers Association and helped to administer its nationally-important conference held at Watkins Glen in 1878.
In 1876 he published the first sympathetic book-length treatment of Buddhism released in the United States. Among his other published works was the book The Tree of Mythology, Its Growth and Fruitage: Genesis of the Nursery Tale, Saws of Folklore, Etc. (1888).
Harriet May Mills, pictured above right, was the daughter of C. D. B. Mills. She worked towards the cause of woman suffrage, at first on a local level. Later she was politically active all over the country. Among other things, she would campaign for election as Attorney General of the State of New York in 1920, becoming the first female to seek major state-wide office as a candidate of a major political party. Her fame would eclipse her father's. When the Dresden, New York birthplace of agnostic orator Robert Green Ingersoll was first restored in 1921, Harriet May Mills was one of many prominent local people who served on an organizing committee whose members included Thomas Edison and poet Edgar Lee Masters.
