Robert Hartshorne Miller traveled to England in 1820, to personally select his first stock of china and earthenware. Two years later he opened a shop at 317 King Street on Market Square. Two-hundred and five packages of merchandise, selected in Liverpool and recently arrived on the ship Aurelia, were offered for sale. Robert Miller, a Quaker and the son and grandson of successful merchants, was one of Alexandria's most wealthy and influential citizens. He remained in the business until 1865, having been joined by his son, Elijah Janney Miller, in 1856. The family business remained at the same location until the turn of the 20th century.

Robert's daughter Eliza, youngest of eleven children, recalled that family members both worked and played at her father's shop. Fine china and glass arrived at the shop in hogshead (barrels), while earthenware and yellow-ware baking dishes were packed in straw and crated. The packages were raised to the second floor on a hoisting machine with chains. A cellar opened onto the cobbled alley which lead to the town Market.

Like many Alexandria merchants, Miller sold merchandise both wholesale and retail. He advertised as far away as western Maryland and Pennsylvania. Miller owned a wharf, and ordered stock directly from Europe. Wares commemorating Lafayette in 1825 and Harrison in 1840 were specially ordered "from designs sent out to the potteries by himself." Three vessels of English pottery have been found with the printed mark: Manufactured for Rob't Miller, Alexandria DC, including fragments of a Harrison tea pot.

Miller's chief competitor was Hugh Smith, from whom he learned the business as a young man. The two shopkeepers often ran advertisements side-by-side in the Alexandria Gazette. An illustration of a cut-glass decanter, with a neck similar to the one displayed in this exhibition, was employed in the advertisements of both Miller and Smith.

The objects exhibited here represent merchandise advertised by Miller in 1825 and 1826, and recovered from excavations on residential properties of Miller's neighbors on King and St. Asaph Street.

English transfer printed pearlware wash basin, Eastern Street Scene pattern, attributed to John & Richard Riley, ca. 1810-1828. Ewer, or water pitcher, with the Opium Smokers pattern, attributed to G.M. & C.J. Mason & Co., 1813-1826