There are 27 cemeteries in the City of Milton based on initial research performed by famous Atlanta historian Franklyn 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 City of Milton government IT personnel, to build upon the early work. The group visited all the cemeteries to confirm their conditions and locations using GPS coordinates available at the time, not all of which were accurate. An accurate map was painstakingly produced and posted on the city website in 2021.
Eight months were required for the project because precise locations were not always known and because some of the burial grounds were overgrown and challenging to locate and access. According to Farris, most are family cemeteries on private property, and many have only a few markers or headstones. The smallest family cemetery has about five headstones. One of the largest, the Providence Baptist Church Cemetery, dating back to 1834, has more than 860 memorials according to the authoritative website findagrave.com.
One of the more interesting cemeteries is the Crabapple Cemetery, or Crabapple Baptist Cemetery, partly because it is hidden in plain view across the street from the Milton Library. The church dates back to 1892 when 21 individuals organized the Crabapple Baptist Church. Some of the area’s most prominent citizens were among the church’s charter members, names such as Broadwell, Rucker, Dorris, Bates and Coleman. In February 1893 E.E. (Euel) Broadwell (1830-1917) donated ½ acre of land to “church members and their successors to build a church house on land lot 1135.” Euel’s brother J.W. (James) Broadwell (1828-1908) owned the land where the cemetery is located. In April 1904 he gave ½ acre of land lot 1134 to…
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