Governor Jay Nixon, with his Jefferson County roots, has decided the Great Seal of Missouri carved by the late Ed Miller, a Festus native, will remain in Jefferson County.
The decision ends a tussle between state officials and local justices for the Great Seal and gives it a permanent home in the original historic courtroom at the Jefferson County Courthouse in Hillsboro.
Ed Miller, the great-grandfather of Associate Circuit Judge Tim Miller, presented the seal as a gift to Governor Joe Teasdale, the 48th governor of Missouri who served from 1977 to 1981.
Retired Judge Timothy Patterson said he accompanied Miller to Jefferson City, when the gift was presented.
"He carved seals for me, for Judge Curran and Judge Anderson,” Patterson said. “I suggested that he carve one for the state of Missouri, and he did.
Miller also was a scoutmaster for Boy Scout Troop 425, and the seal was a gift from the troop, too.
"We took the Boy Scout Troop up, and we presented that seal to Governor Teasdale on behalf of the state of Missouri," Patterson said.
Judge Tim Miller, who was 12 at the time and one of the Boy Scouts, said he also went on that Jefferson City trip.
“He was a dedicated Missourian,” Tim Miller said of his great grandfather. “He was very proud (that day), especially because he was there with that group of kids.”
Tim Miller said his grandfather enjoyed woodworking and working with the Boy Scouts, often making the scouts neckerchief slides out of wood, sometimes adding an acorn as decoration. He actually established Boy Scout Troop 425, in 1924.
“There was another troop in town, but I knew the scoutmaster had as many boys as he could handle. I asked the commander (of Knights of Columbus Council 1230) why couldn’t we have a troop?” he told a reporter at the Courier Journal on the occasion of his 90th birthday.
Tim Miller remembers visiting his grandfather’s basement workshop while he was working on the Seal.
“The memory stuck with me because the seal was huge,” he said. “The letters were all scrambled and lying around,” he said. “He carved the bears directly into the wood. The letters he added afterward.”
A few years after Teasdale’s term ended, Patterson said he learned the seal was no longer being displayed.
“I was the presiding judge and I found out that Governor Ashcroft had put it in a closet, Patterson said. “We couldn't have that. I mean, this is history.”
He began a campaign to have it returned and displayed at the courthouse in Hillsboro. The seal was returned and has been displayed in the courtroom ever since, with the presiding judge serving as trustee for the seal on behalf of the state of Missouri, Patterson said.
Recently, however, former Presiding Judge Bob Wilkins, now retired, received notice from the state Division of State Parks that the county was in possession of state property and wanted it back. The Division of State Parks manages the recreational, cultural and historical resources of the state.
Wilkins then led the effort to keep the seal at the courthouse in Jefferson County.
Nixon heard of Wilkins’ effort and came to the Jefferson County Courthouse Sept. 23 to settle the issue and officially declared Jefferson County would be the permanent home for the carved seal.
“The parks may or may not have a use for it at the state level but there is no better use than it being right here,” Nixon said.
In addition to being a woodcarver and scoutmaster, the late Ed Miller, born in 1892 in Festus, was a tool and die maker and postal worker. He married Rachel Lilly in 1913, and they had four sons and a daughter. He died in 1983 at the age of 91, and with the seal now at its permanent home, he can rest in peace.
Christina Miller is Tim Miller's wife.
