Read time: 8 min.

Miller Cemetery is one of Delaware County’s most hidden pioneer burial grounds. Seated deep in what amounts to the wilds of Harrison Township, far from any public road and beyond private property, I’ve wanted to visit it for years! There was just one problem: as a red-blooded millennial, making cold calls to property owners ranks among my personal anathemas. Fortunately, my friend Kathi has no such compunctions: when I heard she was planning a visit, I jumped at the chance to tag along.

Miller Cemetery occupies a hilltop clearing deep within what was once the sprawling farm of Jacob W. Miller¹. Away in the woods, the little burial ground measures about two-fifths of an acre and contains roughly a hundred graves bearing names familiar to early Delaware County history: Ackers, Childses, Conners, Garners, McColms, Mitchells, Newhouses, Wallaces, and no fewer than a dozen Millers. In fact, the last known burial was Robert Owen Miller in 1916².

The cemetery’s oldest marked grave belongs to Benjamin Wallace, a Revolutionary War Patriot from North Carolina³ who died in 1838. Wallace’s story is fascinating in its own right, but his burial presents an intriguing mystery as well. A modern monument -possibly a cenotaph- rests near the graves of his daughter, son-in-law, and grandson. Unlike many Patriot markers that commemorate veterans buried elsewhere, the placement of this stone offers a compelling reason to believe Benjamin Wallace may actually rest beneath the hill where his memorial sits today. It was seated in 1962 to replace an older monument that broke. 

Benjamin Wallace’s marker was the reason Kathi and I made the trek to Miller Cemetery yesterday. After years of exposure to the elements, it was time to give the old Patriot’s memorial a much-needed cleaning. Kathi -Kathryn Hirons Kesterson- is the regent of Muncie’s Paul Revere Chapter of the DAR. For nearly a year, she and I have been working together to bring Delaware County’s Revolutionary War Patriots back into the spotlight. While many of these veterans have been little more than names on aging gravestones for generations, we’ve been digging into their lives in an effort to tell their stories in a way that hasn’t been attempted for more than a century. The project has been remarkably rewarding. 

After Kathi secured permission from the property owner, she and I met at a nearby driveway to begin the trek back to the cemetery. I’d already studied the area on Google Earth and had a pretty good idea where it was hidden, but the directions we’d been given were imprecise: “Go behind the fallen-down barn.” That’s usually a sign you’re about to have a good adventure! We set off down a winding path that disappeared into the woods. Past the toppled-down barn, the path seemed to keep going. 

From there, it kept going.

From there, the path kept going some more.

Nearly a third of a mile long, the trail curved through thick timber, over a deep rut, and across this forgotten corner of Delaware County. Every turn made it harder to believe a cemetery was hidden back there at all, but then the trees began to open up ahead of us.

We found Wallace’s marker and Kathi graciously walked me through the process as she worked. Before a drop of anything touched the stone, she carefully inspected it for cracks, loose sections, and other signs of damage. The goal was preservation, not restoration, and the last thing either of us wanted was to inadvertently harm the stone. 

If lichens -a symbiotic partnership between a fungus and algae⁴– were present on the marker, she’d have soaked them with water and let the moisture work for about fifteen minutes. Only then would she gently remove them using a soft brush or plastic tool, taking care not to scratch the stone’s surface. Fortunately, lichens along the back of the monument were minimal, so she proceeded with D/2. 

D/2 is a biological cleaner that removes stains without leaving behind harmful residue. It’s trusted by the National Park Service and preservation groups across the country, having been used on everything from the White House and Arlington National Cemetery to the Alamo⁵. Whatever magic fills that bottle, it has an impressive résumé! Once Kathi sprayed the marker, the stone reacted almost immediately. Areas around the engraving turned a rusty orange color. 

The next tool Kathi pulled from her kit was a short wooden stick, somewhere between a thick toothpick and the end of a shish kabob skewer. Working slowly and patiently, she traced every letter, number, and symbol carved into the stone. Years of dirt, biological growth, and accumulated grime had settled into the engraved recesses. The wooden point was firm enough to loosen the buildup, but soft enough that it wouldn’t damage the stone itself.

Next came another application of D/2. The first round had been impressive, but this one was downright dramatic: as the cleaner soaked into the stone, it began to burble from the carvings, presumably carrying decades of grime with it. Orange-brown streaks oozed across the face of the marker, and for a moment I wasn’t entirely sure what I was watching. It looked less like cleaning and more like some strange science experiment!

The cleaner having done its work, Kathi reached for a boar bristle brush. It looked unremarkable, but the natural bristles are stiff enough to loosen dirt and biological growth, while soft enough that they won’t scratch or accelerate the deterioration of a historic stone. Kathi carefully scrubbed the marker’s surface while paying special attention to the engraved letters and decorative elements. Little by little, the grime that had accumulated over decades began to lift away. The transformation wasn’t instantaneous, but it was steady and satisfying. 

At last, it was time for the final rinse. In larger cemeteries, that might mean turning on a nearby spigot or pumping a few gallons from a well. Miller Cemetery, however, sits so deep in the woods that no such conveniences exist. Fortunately, Kathi had anticipated that problem and hauled in plenty of water herself. With a few final spritzes, the residue from the cleaning process washed away, revealing the results of her careful work. A bit of discoloration remained, but Kathi explained that it would gradually fade with time. The folks behind D/2 make the same claim. What mattered was that years of grime, biological growth, and accumulated dirt had been removed without harming the marker.

With Benjamin Wallace’s headstone cleaned, I had a chance to wander among the graves that had drawn me to Miller Cemetery in the first place. The little burial ground was every bit as fascinating as I’d imagined ever since I noticed it on maps and aerial photos.

This Patriot project has been fascinating too. Whether Kathi’s digging through old records, tracking down burial locations and carefully cleaning weathered monuments, or whether I’m finding a grave site or putting words to page, the two of us are aligned in the same goal: to make sure these people aren’t forgotten. Benjamin Wallace helped win the nation’s independence, then spent the final years of his life helping build a community on the Delaware County frontier. That’s worthy of recognition!

Nearly two centuries after his death, a pair of volunteers made the long trip into the woods to care for his memorial. That’s a small thing in the grand scheme of history, but it’s the right thing to do. Thanks to Kathi’s hard work, Benjamin Wallace’s marker is again ready to tell his story to whoever makes the journey back there next.

Sources Cited
1 Miller Cemetery (2008). Delaware County. Cemeteries. Delaware County INGen Web. Web. Retrieved June 5, 2026. 
2 R.O. Miller Dies At Riverview Home (1916, August 15). The Alexandria Times-Tribune. p. 1. 
3 Benjamin Wallis (Wallace), Revolutionary War pension declaration, pension no. S 32,571, service from North Carolina; Case Files of Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Applications Based on Revolutionary War Service, 1800–ca. 1912; publication M804, roll 2482; Record Group 15; National Archives and Records Administration (Washington, D.C.); digitized images, Fold3 (https://www.fold3.com : accessed 20 January 2026); transcribed by Kathryn Hirons Kesterson.
4 What is a Lichen (n.d.). The British Lichen Society [London]. Web. Retrieved June 5, 2026.
5 When significant cultural sites get dirty, D/2 is the biological cleaner of choice. (n.d.). D/2 Biological Solution. Historic Building Products, LLC. Web. Retrieved June 5, 2026.