When Fred Miller, an Air Force veteran, purchased the white, Gothic Revival-style house with the green roof near his childhood home in southern Virginia, he wanted a large space to host gatherings for his close extended family.
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he → purchase → family
He was not expecting to unlock hidden chapters from his family's past.
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He → expect → past
Miller did not know it at the time, but his new property was once a plantation.
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property → know → time
Named Sharswood, it was built in the 1850s by a slave-owning uncle and nephew who shared his last name.
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who → name → name
"If I had known there was a 'Miller Plantation,' I maybe could have… put a connection with the last name Miller and that plantation," Miller told 60 Minutes in 2022.
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Miller → know → 2022
"But I'd never heard of a 'Miller Plantation' or a 'Miller' anything."
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I → hear → Plantation
correspondent Lesley Stahl interviewed Fred Miller and members of his family at Sharswood, speaking about what they unearthed about the property and its past inhabitants.
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they → interview → property
Fred Miller's sister Karen Dixon-Rexroth, who initially convinced her older brother to buy the property, and their cousins Dexter Miller and Sonya Womack-Miranda, did most of the research into Sharswood's past.
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cousins → convince → past
"Something drew me to knowing the history of this place," Dixon-Rexroth told Stahl.
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Rexroth → draw → Stahl
"I knew it was an old place from the 1800s, so I started from there, as far as looking at the previous owners, and also any records that were available online.
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that → know → owners
With time and the help of Karice Luck-Brimmer, a local historian and genealogist, the Millers were able to uncover documents that proved that their own ancestors were once enslaved at Sharswood.
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ancestors → uncover → Sharswood
"Since the revelation… I know that when the slaves brought food into the main house, they came up through the basement stairs," Fred Miller told 60 Minutes.
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Miller → know → Minutes
"And there's a distinct wear on the basement stairs from years and years of traffic, of people walking up those stairs, I'm thinking, 'Wow, these are my people.'
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these → be → stairs
When the 60 Minutes producing team of Shari Finkelstein and Braden Cleveland Bergan first visited Sharswood to meet the family and scout the location, they were part of a conversation between Dexter Miller and his former coworker Bill Thompson, whose family bought the property in 1917 and owned it for more than a century.
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family → produce → century
Thompson's sister sold it to Fred Miller in May of 2020.
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sister → sell → 2020
It was during this conversation that Miller asked Thompson the one question that had been on his mind for a long time.
"I said, 'Bill, there's one question that's been bothering me: Where is the slave cemetery?'
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cemetery → ask → me
He said, 'Dexter, it's right over there.'
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it → say → ?
I said, 'Right over where?'
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I → say → where
He said, 'You see those trees over there?'"
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You → say → trees
And with that revelation, as seen in the video above, the 60 Minutes team accompanied the Millers to a cluster of trees just beyond Fred's property line, where for the first time they saw the likely burial site of their enslaved ancestors.
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they → see → ancestors
Several weeks later, Lesley Stahl visited the site with Fred, who then lived in California, and his sister Karen.
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who → visit → California
"It was heart-wrenching', I'll tell you that," Fred Miller said about seeing the cemetery for the first time.
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Miller → wrench → time
"Just to think that all these years of me wondering, and it was right under my nose the entire time, right here."
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it → think → nose
Since our 60 Minutes story first aired in May 2022, Fred Miller moved back home to Virginia and established a non-profit Sharswood foundation to maintain the slave quarters and cemetery.
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Miller → air → quarters
He also offers tours of the house.
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He → offer → house
You can watch Lesley Stahl's full report on Sharswood below.
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You → watch → Sharswood
The video above was originally published on May 15, 2022.
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video → publish → May
It was produced by Keith Zubrow and edited by Sarah Shafer Prediger.
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It → produce → Prediger
The Aporia
