Hiram Milliken Hiller Jr. (March 8, 1867 – August 8, 1921) was an American physician, medical missionary, explorer, andethnographer. He traveled inOceania and inSouth,Southeast, andEast Asia, returning witharcheological, cultural,zoological, andbotanical specimens and data for museums, lectures and publications. His notes and collections provide valuable information about those regions and their people from the late 19th century. In later life, he was involved in the study ofpolio during the epidemics that hit the United States in the early 20th century.
He was born on March 8, 1867, nearKahoka, Missouri, to ColonelHiram Milliken Hiller Sr. (1834–1895) and the former Sarah Fulton Bell (1837–1915), who were both from Pennsylvania. He was the third of their six children who survived to adulthood. The elder Hiller, aCivil War veteran and lawyer, was a prominent citizen ofClark County, Missouri, and was instrumental in the success ofKahoka until his death in arailroad accident.[2] Hishouse in Kahoka is a registeredhistoric landmark.[3]
The younger Hiller attendedParsons College in Iowa, earning his B.S. in 1887.[4] He moved to Philadelphia to attend medical school at theUniversity of Pennsylvania. While there, he met several other men of similar interests, includingWilliam Henry Furness III (1867–1920, the son of Shakespearean scholarHorace Howard Furness and nephew of architectFrank Furness), and Alfred Craven Harrison Jr. (1869–1925, nephew ofCharles Custis Harrison, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania from 1894 to 1911). Hiller graduated in 1891 and served his residency at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital and at nearby Blockley Hospital.[5] He traveled in Europe (1893–1894)[2] and spent time in Boston, where he earned money for later adventures while studying atHarvard.[6]Edward S. Morse, a Harvard zoologist, was giving lectures about Japan, then a subject ofgreat fascination in the West, throughout Boston; Hiller appears to have been inspired by these.[6]
Hiller, Furness, and Harrison embarked on a series of expeditions toEast andSoutheast Asia andOceania. The three did not always travel together, and the records of their travels are fragmentary in places. Their first two voyages are the best-documented; the last voyage the worst.[5]
In October 1895, Hiller, Furness, and Harrison left the United States, using their own money to search for the fabledDayakheadhunters ofBorneo to collect ethnological specimens for the newUniversity of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. On their way to the South Seas, they stopped atYokohama,Amami, andOkinawa, among other places in Japan, arriving in Borneo after seven months of travel from the United States.[5][6] They spent four months traveling and collecting in Borneo,[6] although they did not always travel together. After leaving Borneo, they traveled to Singapore, Saigon, and China before returning to Japan, theRepublic of Hawaii, and the United States. Hiller arrived in Kahoka on December 4, 1896.[5]
Five months later (May 1897), they were off to Borneo again. Traveling by way of Japan, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Saigon, they returned to Singapore and used it as a base for a number of expeditions into such places asKalimantan,Sarawak,British Malaya, and Tambak before returning the way they came. They returned in August or September 1898.[5] While on expedition, Hiller was elected to theAmerican Philosophical Society.[8]
Unlike their other expeditions, the third was an eastward journey. They sailed for England on June 14, 1899, traveling from London to Paris and Marseilles before boarding theErnest Simon for Asia. The voyage took them through theSuez Canal and toDjibouti before arriving inColombo, Ceylon. They traveled in Ceylon,India,Burma, andAustralia before sailing forHawaii (recentlyannexed by the United States) andVancouver, circling the world before returning home in May 1900.[5]
Their last voyage may have been somewhat restricted by the realities of life (the three were all over 30 by this point). Leaving Philadelphia in February 1901, they traveled to New Orleans and San Francisco before sailing for Honolulu and Yokohama aboard theSir Coptic. They extensively toured Japan, particularly Hokkaido.[5] Hiller metJenichiro Oyabe, a Japanese man who had been educated as a missionary atYale University andHoward University. Oyabe served as a translator and a guide for a side-expedition to theAinu people, and consequently Hiller amassed a large collection of the objects of Ainu daily life[9] before proceeding to theEast Indies.[5] While in the East Indies, he would collect theholotype of theSumatran slow loris, which was named after him asNycticebus hilleri.[10] Once Hiller returned home, he stayed in contact with Oyabe, who wrote him friendly letters encouraging him to "tell the world about my beloved Ainu people."[9]
Hiller married Blanche Hays, ofBellefonte, Pennsylvania. Hiller managed a sugar plantation in Cuba for "a wealthy friend" (Harrison's father was a sugar manufacturer, and Harrison entered his father's business in 1902[5]) from 1902 to about 1907 in order to make money to bankroll his return to Philadelphia and the establishment of a medical practice.[2]
The Hillers settled in Rose Tree, at the north edge ofMedia, Pennsylvania. Hiller founded a clinic in nearbyChester for poor workers in the factories there.[11][12] While there, he encountered adevastating outbreak of a disease that spread rapidly and paralyzed its victims, especially children. A few physicians in other towns were experiencing similar outbreaks. They communicated, shared experiences, and realized not only that they were dealing with the same disease ("infantile paralysis"), but that it was a form of polio, which apparently had taken a more damaging, virulent, epidemic form. The Hillers had two daughters.
Hiller died on August 8, 1921, inBellefonte, Pennsylvania, possibly from complications from polio.[2] He is buried inUnion Cemetery in Bellefonte.[13] His widow moved with her daughters toLower Merion, Pennsylvania, closer to Philadelphia, where she lived until her death in 1944.[13]
Thanks in significant part to Hiller, the Penn Museum's collection of Ainu artifacts is one of the largest in any museum. The Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture (FRPAC) borrowed a sizable portion of the Penn Museum's collection to display in the Ainu Craft Exhibition 2008 at theNiigata Prefectural Museum of History inNagaoka City, Japan.[9] The Penn Museum also holds 57 artifacts and 3 diaries Furness and Hiller brought back from Amami and Okinawa,[6] and the university library has additional materials.[9]
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