James Warley Miles was an incredible scholar of language, history, and religion.  Born on November 24, 1818, in St. Matthew's Parish, South Carolina, he was educated at the Willington Academy, Abbeville District, and at the South Carolina College.  He left college before graduating, read law for a short time, and entered the General Theological Seminary in New York in 1839.  While at Seminary he evidenced his missionary zeal by originating the movement to establish a religious house in the West, now the Nashotah House Seminary in Wisconsin.  After graduation in 1841, he returned to his native diocese as parish priest.

He was ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1843.  In the same year Miles became a missionary to Mesopotamia (Armenia and Constantinople), where he remained until returning to South Carolina in 1847.  He officiated briefly at St. John's Church, Colleton (John's Island, S.C.) and from May to October 1849, in St. Michael's Church (Charleston, S.C.).  In 1849 his sermons were collected and published as Philosophic Theology: or, Ultimate Grounds of All Religious Belief Based in Reason.  In 1850 Miles accepted the Chair of the History of Intellectual Philosophy and Greek Literature at the College of
Charleston.  He occupied this position until 1854 when he was advised to travel to Europe for his health.  Upon his return, the Trustees of the College offered him another position and in 1855, he took the post of Librarian of the College.  The College closed in 1863 due to problems brought on by the Civil War.  However, when it reopened in 1865, Miles was appointed Professor of Ancient Languages in 1865.  Miles resigned this post in 1871 due to poor health.  In 1874 Miles retired to Camden (S.C.), where he assumed the rectorship of Grace Church.

In order to defray the expenses of his European tour in 1854, Miles was obliged to offer his library for sale.  Miles feared that his great collection of books would be separated and sold in lots to ease the sale at auction.  He was already in Europe when he was told that his library had been purchased en masse and would not be broken.  His joy over this paled in comparison to the sight awaiting him upon his return back to Charleston.  He found in his study his full library just as he had left it.  Though he never discovered the donors, it is clear that his friends had purchased the library to give back to him.  He was so grateful for this that he deposited his collection in the College library so it could be used by the students there.  The collection was removed during the Civil War, but after Miles' death was presented to the College by his brothers.

It was said that at the time of his death Miles could read close to forty languages and his library virtually proves this.  At the time his library went up for auction a catalog was prepared which survives today as a Dalcho Historical Society publication.  Miles' taste for Patristics, Ecclesiastical History, and his inclinations toward general history, philosophy, and homiletics are indicated throughout the library.  Miles' fascination with Eastern languages is evidenced by the many books on and in Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Sanscrit, and much more.  The Greek and Latin sections are particularly full.

In addition to his library, Special Collections also contains a manuscript holding for Miles.

François Halma's, Le grand dictionnaire françois & flamand :  Het groot Frans en Nederduitsch woordenboek, published in Utrecht, 1861.  This is the first volume of a two volume, French to Flemish and Flemish to French Dictionary.