Houston Mifflin‘s early days were spent in the old Mifflin home at Second and Walnut streets, later the P.R.R.Y.M.C.A., where he was born. This also was the birth place of Lloyd Mifflin. Houston Mifflin attended the country schools at Norwood, the Washington Classical Institute of Columbia, now part of the High school, and later he spent one year at Cornell University. Following that he entered the University of Pennsylvania and in 1879 graduated from the medical department with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. The subsequent year he practiced medicine in Philadelphia. For eighteen months he was an intern in the Pennsylvania hospital. 

In 1882 he went to Kansas City, Missouri, where he specialized in obstetrics and attained a position of affluence and prominence in his profession. For a time he practiced in Columbia. The illness of his father; however, caused him temporarily to abandon the profession in 1884 and to return from the west to assume charge of his father’s estate. After the death of his parent, in 1888, the Doctor continued to care for the estate.. By that time, his brother Lloyd, had attained an enviable position in the world of art and literature, and a third brother, James Deveaux, was in the west. So it was that with the exception of a short time in 1910 when Dr. Mifflin went to California and had success in operating an orange grove, he spent his life in caring for the estate near Columbia which came into his possession on the death of Lloyd Mifflin, July 16, 1921.

Dr. Mifflin was perhaps best known for his fine philanthropies, yet his desire for self-effacement kept even his closest associates from knowing many of his deeds of charity and friendship. Various sums due him have often been forgiven because of his feeling that debtor needed more than he, Grants of land have been given to the community, its schools and its hospital. Twenty-eight acres of land have been dedicated to the public use for streets and alleys in Columbia without a cent of consideration. 

His gifts were climaxed by the granting of the Cloverton home to the Pennsylvania State Education Association and the granting, at rent-free, a field uptown for high school football. The Cloverton home recently reverted to his ownership after the retreat was abandoned, and sold to the Sisters Adorers of the Most Precious Blood and has become known as the St. Elizabeth Home, an adjunct of Gethsemane. After allowing use of the field for five years, Dr. Mifflin last year recalled it and was planning to break it down into building lots.

While his father was a man of letters and arts and later a leader in the founding of Columbia, Dr. Mifflin emulated a great-grandfather, Jonathan Houston, who completed his education as a physician in Edinborough and served for seven years as a surgeon in the Revolutionary War. The Mifflin, Wright, and Houston families intermarried in the early days of Columbia. Another great-grandfather was an educator and later became a bookkeeper in the first bank established here. Still another ancestor was the first governor of Pennsylvania. 

– – –

Segments taken from a newspaper obituary of the time.