James Vester Miller

Location #1 - St. Matthias Episcopal Church

St. Matthias Episcopal Church
 

1 Dundee St, Asheville, NC 28801

James Vester Miller and his new construction company built this building when Miller was a young man in his thirties, and it helped launch his extraordinary career. Thought to be Asheville’s oldest African-American congregation, the congregation first met as The Freedmen’s Church within Trinity Episcopal Church. It later moved to a frame building, where the first school providing formal education for Asheville’s Black community began meeting in 1870. The need for a larger building led to the construction of the current Gothic Revival building, renamed St. Matthias Episcopal Church.

James Vester Miller Trail Locations

Mt Zion

This is the third of four churches built in the downtown area of Asheville by the James Vester Miller & Sons…

YMI

As hundreds of workers built the Biltmore Estate, African-American leaders Dr. Edward Stephens and Mr. Isaac Dixon urged…

J A Wilson Building

Built in 1924 by Miller for African-American businessman J. Alfred Wilson, this building housed a wide range of business…

Asheville Municipal Building

This two-story brick-faced building was designed by architect Ronald Green and originally housed the city’s police,…

James Vester Miller Office

According to the 1906-1907 Asheville City Directory, the office of Millers & Sons Construction was at 22 S. Pack Square…

Masonic Temple

According to Miller family sources, the Temple’s brickwork is by James Vester Miller.

St. James

Completed in 1931, this is the most recent of the four churches in the East End/Valley Street neighborhood built by…

Hopkins Church

Designed by architect Richard Sharp Smith, this Gothic church was the second of the four churches constructed in the…

St Matthias

James Vester Miller and his new construction company built this building when Miller was a young man in his thirties,