Living History - Crabapple Baptist Cemetery

There are 27 cemeteries in the City of Milton, based on initial research conducted by noted Atlanta historian Franklin M. Garrett in 1935 and Phillip B. Anglin in 2000. Subsequently, James Farris, a member of the Milton Historical Society Board of Directors, worked with historical society volunteers and Milton Township IT staff to build on the early work. The group visited all of the cemeteries to confirm their condition and location using the GPS coordinates available at the time, not all of which were accurate. The painstaking work resulted in an accurate map that was posted on the city's website in 2021.

The project took eight months to complete because the exact location was not always known and some burials were overgrown and difficult to find and reach. Most are family cemeteries on private property, Farris said, and many have only a few headstones. The smallest family cemetery has about five headstones. One of the largest, Providence Baptist Church Cemetery, founded in 1834, has more than 860 memorials, according to the authoritative website findagrave.com.

One of the most interesting cemeteries is Crabapple, or Crabapple Baptist Cemetery, in part because it is tucked away in plain sight, across the street from the Milton Library. It dates back to 1892, when 21 men organized the Crabapple Baptist Church. Among the church members were some of the area's most prominent residents, such as Broadwell, Rucker, Dorris, Bates and Coleman. In February 1893, E. E. (Euel) Broadwell (1830-1917) donated ½ acre of land "to the church members and their heirs for the purpose of building a church house on lot 1135." Euel's brother James Broadwell (1828-1908) owned the land on which the cemetery is located. In April 1904, he conveyed ½ acre of lot 1134 to the church and community of Milton County for use as a "grave yard." Prior to the land transfer, he assigned burial plots to several local families.

John B. Broadwell (1855-1953), son of Ewell and a very successful cotton farmer, made and donated the bricks for the first church meetinghouse. For many years the church grew on its site at the five-way Crabapple intersection until, in 1992, the congregation began construction of a new church a short distance from the Birmingham Highway on ten acres of land that the church had previously purchased from Fulton County. The City of Alpharetta bought the old church building and the land it occupied in 1996 for $1.1 million and converted it into the Crabapple Government Center. In 2022, the church merged with Grace Church in Alpharetta and changed its name to Milton Community Church. Crabapple Cemetery is owned and maintained by the church.

Bryson Coleman probably knows more about this cemetery than anyone in the county. His wife, children, and their spouses are buried there in plots given to his family by his grandfather Simeon Broadwell (1871-1949). Bryson often refers to him by his first name, B.Y., which is in keeping with the common practice of the times when men were often referred to by their initials. B.J. is so devoted to the cemetery that he erected a bronze plaque on the grounds detailing the history of the plot.

B.J. Simeon's grandfather lived in the house next to the original church where the dental office is today. On his property were a smokehouse, barn, chicken coop and garage. His property extended from Crabapple Road to the back of what is now the Kensington Farms neighborhood, where he maintained a large apple orchard. These lands were called Mountain Hill.

Simeon's brother John Broadwell owned the land where the Crabapple Center is today, all the way to Milton Community Church.

B.J., who is 97 years old, served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war, he was a member of the Alpharetta amateur baseball team and joined Southern Bell, where he worked for 40 ½ years in various positions. Born in Crabapple, B.J. moved to Atlanta as a teenager, but traveled to Crabapple every weekend to stay at his cousin Pryor Albertson's home near the historic Cantrell and Nallie Reese home. "Pryor's mother, Velma Albertson, and my mother were sisters. Velma was a Broadwell before she married," he explains. "The house was a tin room, it had no insulation, no electricity, no plumbing."

There are 154 memorials in Crabapple Cemetery according to findagrave.com . There are 35 Broadwell graves in the cemetery. Much of the history of Crabapple's early pioneers is preserved here.