Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Squier, Miles Powell

SQUIER, Miles Powell, clergyman, b. in Cornwall, Vt., 4 May, 1792; d. in Geneva, N. Y., 22 June, 1866. He was graduated at Middlebury in 1811, and at Andover seminary in 1814, and was licensed to preach by a Congregational association. After laboring at Oxford, Mass., and Vergennes, Vt., and doing missionary work for a year in western New York, he was ordained on 3 May, 1816, the first pastor of the 1st Presbyterian church of Buffalo, N. Y., which relation he maintained until 1824. In 1824-'6 he acted as financial agent of the Auburn theological seminary, and from 1826 till 1834 he was secretary of the Geneva agency of the American home missionary society. In 1831 he founded the Geneva lyceum, and was occupied in superintending its affairs until 1841. The next eight years he resided at Geneva, but supplied the pulpits of various neighboring churches. From 1849 till 1863 he was professor of intellectual and moral philosophy at Beloit, Wis. The remaining three years of his life were spent in Geneva. Dr. Squier was an earnest student and fearless in the expression of opinion, but genial in manner. Besides contributing to the periodical press, he published “The Problem Solved, or Sin not of God” (New York, 1855); “Reason and the Bible, or the Truth of Religion” (1860); “Miscellaneous Writings, with an Autobiography, edited and supplemented by the Rev. James R. Boyd. of Geneva, N. Y.” (1867).