Willoughby Dayton Miller, born in Alexandria in 1853, received his primary education in a nearby one-room schoolhouse, graduated from the University of Michigan in 1875, studied in Edinburgh, Scotland, and then went to Berlin, Germany, where expatriate American dentist Dr. Frank Abbot encouraged him to study dentistry. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine in 1879, he returned to Berlin and joined Abbot’s practice. Two years later he received a research appointment at the University of Berlin and began a career that brought the science of bacteriology into dentistry. In 1889, he published The Micro-Organisms of the Human Mouth, presenting his research on oral bacteria and the process of dental caries, or tooth decay, and he is credited as the first to accurately describe the process of tooth decay. Miller often visited his Ohio homestead and in 1892 bought the family farm in Alexandria, placing it in the care of his nephew, O.A. Brooks. Internationally recognized for his research, he accepted the deanship of the University of Michigan College Dentistry in 1907. After his family moved from Berlin to the United States, he spent the summer in Alexandria preparing for his deanship and playing golf on his farm, but in late July he suffered fatal appendicitis. His death shocked the dental profession. He was buried in Alexandria at Maple Grove Cemetery. Memorials to him were placed at The Ohio State University in 1915 and at the University of Michigan in 1940.