Sacred Ground: Miller Cemetery
Located in the Black Oak community west of Oneida is the Miller Cemetery, a small family cemetery containing fewer than two dozen burials. Dating back to 1980, the Miller Cemetery remains active and is well-maintained.
It was to Black Oak that Will and Ellen Miller moved when they left the No Business settlement in what is now the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area in 1942.
The Millers raised eight children on No Business Creek, but the frequent floods caused by heavy rains pushing the Big South Fork River out of banks and into the fields eventually caused them to leave.
“The backwater would get up there all over that bottom and kill the corn, and Will just got disheartened down there and wanted to leave,” Ellen Miller told a National Park Service interviewer in 1991.
So, the Millers left the No Business settlement — like all the rest; there were more than 200 people who lived in the remote creek valley at its peak, but they had all left by the 1950s — and moved to the top of the plateau between Coopertown and Leatherwood, where they lived the rest of their lives.
The Miller family
William J. Miller was born on No Business Creek in 1895. He was the son of Francis “France” Marion Miller and Elizabeth “Lizzie” Spradlin Miller.
Known for his red hair and handlebar mustache, France Miller was the son of Thomas Miller and Margaret Milligan. Lizzie Spradlin was the daughter of Ambrose Spradlin and Salley Foster. They married in April 1876 and had eight children. Will was the next-to-youngest.
France and Lizzie grew up in Wayne County, Ky. and it was there that they were married. Sometime after their marriage, they moved to No Business. France built a school and a general store near the mouth of No Business Creek, and ran the post office of Elva. His son — Will’s brother, Reason Miller — carried the mail by horseback from Oneida to No Business.
When they moved to No Business, the Millers purchased the home of Jonathan Burke, which was located up-river at Duck Shoals and was the site of a Civil War skirmish in 1863 that resulted in the deaths of several soldiers that were part of a Confederate raiding party. The Rebels sought refuge in Burke’s home after a day of raiding the Station Camp and No Business settlements. Members of the community surrounded the home and attacked the soldiers that night. Jonathan Burke is buried at the Hatfield-Burke Cemetery at Charit Creek. Following his death, his wife and other members of his family left the Big South Fork for Oklahoma, and the home — which by that time had been abandoned for several years — was eventually purchased by France Miller. He dismantled the home, moved it to his land at No Business, and reassembled it.
It was in that home that Will Miller was born in 1895.
Nora Ellen Burke — known to most as “El” — was born in 1893, the daughter of Lewis Burk and Mary Ann Smith of No Business. Jonathan Burke, who built the home her husband was born in, was her great-grandfather. Both Lewis and Mary Ann are buried on the side of the hill above No Business Creek.
Lewis and Mary Ann had four children, of which Ellen was the next-to-youngest. Lewis’s father, Haden Lowell Burk, was one of the Burkes who moved from the Big South Fork to Oklahoma. Lewis Burk had served as postmaster at Elva before France Miller took over the responsibility.
Will Miller and Ellen Burke grew up together at No Business. “Never even had the least idea that I’d marry him,” she said many years later. But they were married and had eight children: daughters Juanita, Elizabeth, Laura, Hester, Eva and Lorene, and sons Lenord and Lillard.
The Millers lived at No Business for the first couple of decades of their marriage. Will worked for Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. and Ellen was a homemaker. She purchased flannel that she knitted into shirts for Will to wear in the winter months. The family raised sheep, which Ellen would shear for wool that was sewn into suits for the men and dresses for the girls. They also raised cows, pigs and chickens. The cows provided milk, the chickens with eggs, and the pigs were slaughtered for meat. They raised mules and ducks, too, and the ducks’ feathers were used for bedding. The eggs were packed in straw and carried to Oneida, where they were traded for groceries. The pigs were slaughtered in the fall so that there would be meat for the winter. Ellen made hominy and molasses, and also canned apples, blackberries and more. She dried pumpkins, which would be fried for food. And there was always yellow leaf and pennyroyal drying in the smokehouse for medicinal purposes.
The cemetery begins
Will Miller — known as “Poppy” to his family (which included 33 grandchildren at the time of his death) — died on Feb. 8, 1980. He was the first person buried on the family farm at Black Oak. Ellen (known as “Ma” to her family) would be buried beside him when she died on June 3, 1996, at the age of 102.
The Boyatt family
Laura Miller, the third-oldest daughter of Will and Ellen Miller, married Boyce Boyatt in 1935.
Born in 1909, Boyce Boyatt was one of six children of George Newton Boyatt and Mary Ross. His father was a brother to Ransom Boyatt, who was murdered at his No Business Creek home in 1933 as part of the Jerome Boyatt saga. His grandfather was Jordan Boyatt, who lived at the head of No Business Creek.
Boyce and Laura Boyatt had nine children: daughters Doris Christine, Sheila, Sandra and Eula Dean, and sons Deffis, Wayne, Dale, Steve and Royce.
In February 1983, Christine died in Indianapolis, Ind. at age 46. She was the second person buried at the family cemetery at Black Oak. She married Brad Chambers, the son of Joe Mart Chambers and Laura Collins of Scott County.
Boyce Boyatt was buried at the cemetery in 1993, and Laura was buried there in 2009. They also have a son, Royce, who was buried there in 1997 when he died unexpectedly at age 50.
The Phillips family
Lorene Miller, the youngest of the Miller girls, married Luther Phillips, the son of Lora Phillips and Lizzie King.
Luther Phillips was a World War II veteran and a long-time employee of Tibbals Flooring Co. in Oneida. He and Lorene had two children: daughter Denise and son Darren.
Phillips died in 1990 at age 67 and was the third person buried at the Miller Cemetery. His wife, Lorene, was later buried there when she died in 2021.
The Payne family
Eva Miller, the next-to-youngest of the Miller girls, married Kenneth Elmer Payne in 1946. The son of Thomas Payne and Daisy Anderson, he was a World War II veteran and a lifelong resident of the Black Oak community, where he was a founding member of the Black Oak Baptist Church, a founding member of the Scott County Farm Bureau, and a board member at the Scott Farmer’s Co-Op. He operated Payne Lumber Company along with his brother, Estel.
Kenneth and Eva had four children: daughters Lovada and Nada, and sons Kenny and Tom.
Kenneth died in 2000 and was buried at the Miller Cemetery. Eva was later buried there in 2019. Kenny died in 2022.
The Harris family
Elizabeth Miller, the second-oldest of the Miller girls, married Raymond Edward Harris in 1960.
The son of Robert Harris and Alice Corn, Raymond Harris was a Vietnam War veteran from Indiana, which is where he and Elizabeth settled down. They had one child: daughter Gina.
Raymond died in December 2000 and was buried at the Miller Cemetery. Elizabeth was later buried there in 2016.
The Crabtree family
Sandra Boyatt, the next-to-youngest daughter of Boyce and Laura Miller Boyatt, married Johnny Crabtree.
The son of Herb Crabtree and Ethel Mae Blevins of Fentress County, Johnny was a Vietnam War veteran. He and Sandra had five daughters: Jennifer, Julie, Laura, Allison and Ashley.
Johnny died in 2002 and was buried at Miller Cemetery. Sandra was also buried there in 2018.
The Miller sons
The two sons of Will and Ellen Miller were Lenord, born in 1924, and Lillard, born in 1936.
Lenord married Joyce Stanley and they had one son: William “Bill” Miller. Lillard married Dorla Jeffers and they had three sons: Tim, Kim and Kevin.
Both of the Miller brothers were farmers, like their father. Lillard Miller founded Miller & Sons Paving.
Lenord Miller died in 2012 and was buried at the cemetery. Joyce died in 2018 and was buried beside him. Lillard died in 2023 and was buried at the cemetery.
Lillard had a daughter, Lisa “Renee” Miller, who was buried at the cemetery in 2011.
The Kidd family
The last of the Miller children, Hester, married Aunton Kidd.
Kidd was the son of Bradley Kidd and Dillie Slaven of McCreary County. His mother was the great-granddaughter of Richard Harve Slaven, widely recognized as the first settler of the Big South Fork area. Aunton and Hester had seven children: daughters Georgia, Joyce and Diane, and sons Coy, Bradley, Doyal and Kelly. Bradley was, until just recently, pastor at Leatherwood Baptist Church — formerly ‘Possum Rock — in the Black Oak community.
Hester is the only of Will and Ellen Miller’s seven children not buried at the family cemetery; she and her husband were buried at nearby O’Possum Rock Cemetery.
However, two of their sons were buried at the family cemetery. Kelly was buried there in 2020 and Coy in 2023. (Two of their siblings, Joyce Kidd Munoz and Diane Kidd Robbins, are buried at ‘Possum Rock.)
Aunton and Hester also have a granddaughter, Vickie Robbins Jeffers, who was buried at the family cemetery when she died in 2016 at age 45. She was the daughter of Diane Kidd Robbins.
Cemetery Census
MILLER CEMETERY
GPS Coordinates: 36.485074, -84.608680
First Burial: 1980
Last Burial: 2023
Boyce Boyatt, 1909-1993
Laura Miller Boyatt, 1919-2009
Royce O. Boyatt, 1947-1997
Doris Boyatt Chambers, 1936-1983
Johnny E. Crabtree, 1945-2002
Sandra Boyatt Crabtree, 1949-2018
Elizabeth Miller Harris, 1933-2016
Raymond E. Harris, 1929-2000
Vickie Robbins Jeffers, 1970-2016
C. Kelly Kidd, 1948-2020
Coy Kidd, 1942-2023
Ellen Burk Miller, 1893-1996
Joyce Stanley Miller, 1930-2018
Lenord F. Miller, 1924-2012
Lillard Miller, 1936-2023
Lisa R. Miller, 1968-2011
William J. Miller, 1895-1980
Eva Miller Payne, 1926-2019
Kenneth E. Payne, 1919-2000
Lorene Miller Phillips, 1929-2021
Luther F. Phillips, 1923-1990
This story is part of the Scott County Cemetery Project.