A few weeks ago, I told you about how the Crowley Cemetery became the Crowley Mausoleum that’s located in the parking lot of the former Columbia/Avondale Mall (land now occupied by a Walmart). Today I’m going to share about another family cemetery that also ended up surrounded by commercial development. But this one has a somewhat happier ending.

I didn’t know anything about Stephen Martin Cemetery in Dunwoody until I read an offhand comment on Facebook that mentioned a cemetery at Perimeter Mall. I spend a lot of time in Dunwoody since my church is there, so I went to check it out.

Stephen Martin Cemetery is not in the Perimeter Mall shopping center itself. But it’s located behind a large strip shopping center across the road, almost completely hidden from view. From what I’ve read, the proximity of the cemetery forced a slight rerouting of I-285 and Ashford Dunwoody Road back in the day.

I went about finding the cemetery the wrong way. They’re doing a lot of construction on the road that this shopping center and a nearby hotel are located on. Big trucks were rumbling past the much easier tree-lined path that you can access from the Marshall’s parking lot on the side of the building. Because I missed seeing this entrance, I ended up going through the woods in the back behind the guard rail.

It’s a surreal experience to be standing in a cemetery that you know was once surrounded by farmland but has slowly shrunk down to this little patch. In front of you are the back doors to a Marshall’s and a T. Mobile store. Behind you, only a parking lot separates you from I-285, the interstate that encircles Atlanta. Past and present are keenly felt here.

As far as when the first burial took place, that is a mystery. But from what I can gather, one of the earliest was Elizabeth Francis Garrett Martin. She was the first wife of Stephen Martin and probably died in 1848. There are many graves marked only with rough fieldstones, so there may be graves even older than that.

Stephen Martin is thought to be buried between Elizabeth and his second wife, Sarah Crowley Martin. I think Sarah’s grave might be the one pictured on the left in the picture below because it looks to be made with larger pieces of stone (or slate) and not rocks. These stacked stone-style cairn graves always fascinate me because of their rough-hewn design.

With an ancestry based in Germany, Stephen Martin was originally from Laurens County, S.C. and moved to Georgia with his first wife and their children sometime before 1830. The area was home to the Cherokee Indian tribe of the Creek Confederation before white settlers came in. Two of his daughters (Naomi and Sophia) would marry into the influential Spruill family, who were key players in the establishment of Dunwoody.

One can easily say the Spruill family is still making their mark today. The Spruill’s original house was built in 1867 and was the center of a working farm. A large shopping center that includes a Walmart now looms large next door.

When Stephen T. Spruill married Mollie Lee Carter in 1889, that house was presented to them as a wedding gift from Stephen’s parents, Thomas F. and Naomi “Omie” Martin Spruill. In 1905, Stephen tore down the original log house and rebuilt it as the house it is known as today. The Spruill’s house and five surrounding acres were donated to the Spruill Center for the Arts to serve as a place to foster creative expression through the arts. It is now known as the Spruill Gallery.

Omie Martin married Thomas Franklin Spruill in 1866. Before that, Thomas served in the Civil War, enlisting in Company C., 63rd Georgia Infantry in October 1863. His company surrendered on April 26, 1865 and he returned home in May that year.

Beside Thomas and Omie are the graves of four of their children who died before the age of 8. Many of their other children are buried at nearby Sandy Springs First Baptist Church Cemetery.

Sophia, Stephen Martin’s youngest daughter with his first wife, married Joseph T. Spruill in 1868. They had several children but only Sarah Cordelia, who lived just a short time, is buried beside them. Their son, Nolia, is buried to the right and back of their plot.

Despite the fact it’s hidden behind a shopping center, the Martin Cemetery is in pretty good shape. The Dunwoody Preservation Trust looks after it, as far as I can tell.

One key factor in why I think the Martin Cemetery fared better than the Crowley Cemetery is the Spruill family itself. When they sold part of their land for the construction of Perimeter Mall and the development around it in 1971, they made sure that the cemetery wasn’t touched and would be protected. A number of Spruills still live in the Dunwoody area today.

I also believe that the very fact that it’s hidden from sight has been to its advantage. I didn’t notice any vandalism or damage to the gravestones, save for a few that could use some TLC due to time and weathering.

So if you’re ever tired of shopping and want to enjoy a little Dunwoody history, stop by the Stephen Martin Cemetery and step back in time amid the chaos.

Just make sure to take the road MORE traveled to get there.

(Author’s Note: Since I wrote this post in 2015, I have been contacted by several Crowley descendants and others wanting to know how they can get involved in cleaning up the mausoleum. A wonderful fellow named Brenton Head has spearheaded several clean up days in recent years and the mausoleum is now getting regular attention. You can find Brenton on Facebook if you’re interested in helping out. Forest Hill passed away in 2019.)

I’m going to talk about a place I get asked about from time to time. The Crowley Mausoleum has a storied past but it currently sits forgotten. How it got that way is quite a tale. Most of what I was able to find out about it was from an account from Forest Crowley, a descendant.

James Crowley was born in 1772 in Pittsylvania County, Va. His parents, Benjamin and Sarah, brought the family to Oglethorpe County, Ga. in 1785. Benjamin died in 1817. In 1822, James received about 500 acres in Decatur from a land lottery and farmed it until his death in 1828. He later owned additional farms and did well financially, owning a number of slaves.

The family put their cemetery on a hill overlooking their land. When James died, he was buried there as was his wife, Dorcas, in 1852.

Son Allen Crowley owned the land from 1829 to 1846, when he moved his family by wagon train to Northern Mississippi. Younger brother Seaborn Crowley and his family took it over from 1846 to 1896 when it was purchased by the Hill Family (also Crowley relatives).

According to Forest Crowley, the cemetery was originally in the middle of the pasture on the farm surrounded by a barbed wire fence. For a number of years in the 1950s, this fence fell into disrepair and livestock were able to enter and leave the cemetery.

In 1960, the Hills sold part of the land and leased the other part so that the Columbia Mall could be built. Completed in 1963, the mall was near the intersection of Memorial Drive and Columbia Road. The builder agreed to build a mausoleum around the cemetery, which was in the parking lot. The builder had to dig down about 20 to 25 feet on all sides of the cemetery and then build the building around the cemetery.

There were 40 or 50 slave graves buried surrounding the cemetery. Sadly, no effort was made to save those graves and they were built over. Currently, the 11 graves (nine of them of the box variety) at the top of the mausoleum are members of the Crowley, Cross and Hawkins families. Seven are adults and four are children.

The name changed to Avondale Mall at some point. People visiting the mall often joked that the Mausoleum was the “Tomb of the Unknown Shoppers”. A 1994 newspaper article quoted someone as saying “When I die, bury me at the mall. That way I know you’ll come to see me every day.”

Many people I’ve talked to remember navigating around the mausoleum when going to the mall to shop. One even told me he remembered as a teen learning how to drive in that parking lot and nearly hitting it.

A bronze plaque explained the history of the site. I’m not sure where the part about the land grant being from the king of England came from. It contradicts everything else I’ve read. The plaque was later pried off the mausoleum and has vanished.

The area around the mall changed in the late 70s and 80s as white flight hit and some of the mall’s stores began to close. When Macy’s closed their clearance store there in 1995, the writing was on the wall. In 2001, it finally closed and sat empty until Walmart purchased the land and demolished the mall. After some community protests, construction for a Supercenter began and it opened in 2008.

According to Forest Crowley, there’ve been a number of break-ins at the Mausoleum over the last several years and some of the headstones on top of the box tombs were broken and thrown to the parking lot, then thrown away. Other headstones were stolen.

Due to the reconfiguration of the parking lot, the Crowley Mausoleum is now mostly hidden by trees and is behind a Napa Auto Parts store. You can’t see it from the parking lot but if you know where to look, you can glimpse it as you’re driving past the Napa on Memorial Drive.

I knew about the Crowley Mausoleum for a while but hadn’t stopped to get a good look at it. To be honest, that stretch of Memorial Drive is rather sketchy and I wasn’t keen on poking around on my own. It wasn’t until January of this year, when I had my friend and fellow cemetery hopper Jennifer with me, that I got an up close look at it.

Unfortunately, being hidden from sight hasn’t done it any favors.

The mausoleum is about 20 feet high and unless you’ve got a ladder (or as I joked with Jennifer, a cherry picker), you can’t see the top of it or the graves. It looks like someone’s spray painted the area to the right of the door.

I did take a look up the stairs to try to get a glimpse of the view.

I have no idea who is currently in charge of taking care of the Crowley Mausoleum now, if there is anyone doing so. I haven’t contacted the DeKalb History Center yet but I plan to. Maybe they know. I worry that if it continues to deteriorate, someone’s going to break into it and vandalize what’s left of the graves at the top. If there IS anything left of them.

Interestingly enough, the Crowley Mausoleum isn’t the only example of a cemetery in a parking lot. This site shows aerial photos of some others around the country.

Next week, I’ll visit the Stephen Martin Cemetery in Dunwoody (also in DeKalb County). It’s tucked away behind a large shopping center next to Perimeter Mall but is in better shape than the Crowley Mausoleum.

For some time, I’ve been aware of the dilapidated state of a cemetery in Northwest Atlanta but haven’t had the courage or companion to visit it. Located inside the I-285 Perimeter at the intersection of Hollywood and Hightower Roads is Hollywood Cemetery.

Because this area is known for its rough edges, I’d been told not to go alone. In addition, the place is so often overrun with vegetation, the best time to go is from late November through March. Not exactly prime weather time.

But last week, my friend and fellow cemetery hopper Cathy and I met up so we could visit Hollywood together. She brought her machete (for cutting away vines and our personal protection) and we headed over.

Hollywood Cemetery opened sometime in the early 1890s, lauded as a picturesque alternative to Oakland and Westview Cemeteries. It featured a terraced landscape and was easily accessible by streetcar. The neighborhood was considerably more well heeled at the time.

The story of how Hollywood went from a grand cemetery to a ruin is complicated and I don’t know all the facts. It’s currently owned and “maintained” by Lincoln Cemetery, who also owns the adjacent Magnolia Cemetery (in poor shape but still mowed) and Monte Vista Cemetery (which is well maintained and still sells plots). You can read more about that in this article.

To put it in a nutshell, much of Hollywood’s history is shrouded in rumors and question marks. What is clear is that it’s a big mess.

Cathy and I spent the first few hours negotiating the terraced level of Hollywood, which is easy to navigate compared to the jungle-like areas across the street. Some graves are broken, others knocked off their bases. Some are hidden from sight. This picture of a stairway can give you a glimpse of what it might have looked like in better days.

It’s not until we went over to Gun Club Road and up into the woods that we saw how truly bad things are.

Hiking through the vines, thorns, trees and fallen branches was no easy task. I can’t imagine what it’s like during the summer when it’s hot and insects are in full throng. I’m thankful neither one of us encountered a snake or stepped in a hole (although we did see a decomposing deer carcass).

But it was when we encountered this monument amid the trees that we both stopped in stunned silence.

Inscribed on the grave of 19-year-old Van Wallace Duke are these words:

How soon fades the tender flower,
But love’s remembrance lasts forever.
Died in St. Francis Dam break Calif.

After we finished up and had lunch at nearby Hotty Hawg’s Smokin’ BBQ (which I highly recommend), I headed home and hit the Internet. Thanks to Ancestry.com, I was able to find out quite a bit about Van Wallace Duke and his older brother, J.R. (whose granddaughter gave me permission to share her photos and family stories).

Van was the youngest son of John (J.R.) Duke, Sr. and Maxie Isala Wallace Duke. Maxie died in 1910 when Van was still a baby. J.R. was a freight train conductor in Atlanta and died in 1917. Obituaries state that both parents were buried at Hollywood but their graves have not been found.

Van’s older brother J.R., Jr. lied about his age and joined the U.S. Cavalry, serving with General John J. Pershing from 1916 to 1917. Family history states they were pursuing Poncho Villa into Mexico when they were called back by the start of World War I.

By 1928, J.R. was working as a foreman for the Southern California Edison Company. He invited his younger brother, now 19, to come out and join him. Van, in Georgia living with older sister Leona and her husband, jumped at the chance and headed to California by himself. He rode his bike or caught rides, working his way across the country alone.

When Van arrived in California, he must have been awed by the newly constructed St. Francis Dam. As a curved concrete gravity dam, it was built to create a large regulating and storage reservoir for the City of Los Angeles and was an integral part of the city’s Los Angeles Aqueduct water supply infrastructure. It was located in the San Francisquito Canyon of the Sierra Pelona Mountains 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles near the present city of Santa Clarita.

As the Duke brothers toiled for Southern California Edison, they were quite familiar with the dam since the work they did was just below it. The dam’s chief engineer and general manager was William Mulholland, a native of Belfast, Ireland who garnered much respect for his experience. At 600 feet long and 185 feet high, the dam had a 12.5 billion-gallon capacity.

On March 12, J.R. laid off many of his workers (including Van) because their work was almost finished. However, instead of leaving, most of the men stayed a final night to play cards and relax. Van was one of them. That decision would cost many of them their lives.

Just a few minutes before midnight, the St. Francis Dam broke. J.R. barely escaped by riding a tent above the waves, jumping to the shore and clinging to it with all his might. He told his family later that he was stripped of all his clothes and his fingernails were torn completely off his fingers.

As the dam collapsed, 12 billion gallons of water surged down San Francisquito Canyon in a dam break wave, destroying everything in its path. The water flooded parts of present-day Valencia and Newhall before turning west into the Santa Clara River bed. It continued west through Santa Paula in Ventura County, emptying victims and debris into the Pacific Ocean at Montalvo (54 miles from the reservoir and dam site).

When the surge reached the ocean at 5:30 a.m., the flood was almost two miles wide, traveling at a speed of five miles per hour. Bodies of victims were recovered from the Pacific Ocean, some as far south as the Mexican border. An estimated 600 people were carried away by the flood, including Van Wallace Duke. (Note: When I wrote this post in 2015, 600 was the estimated death toll. As of 2022, the estimated death toll was closer to 450.)

According to his family, J.R. had the heart-wrenching job of identifying the dead bodies of his workers and his brother. Many bodies were never recovered.

The collapse of the St. Francis Dam is considered to be one of the worst American civil engineering disasters of the 20th century and remains the second-greatest loss of life in California’s history, after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and fire.

Van’s body was brought home to Atlanta and he was buried in Hollywood Cemetery. J.R. spent the rest of his life in California with his wife, Bernice, and they had one daughter. He died in 1984 and is buried in Visalia Public Cemetery in Visalia, Calif.

U.S. Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon introduced H.R. 5357, the Saint Francis Dam Disaster National Memorial Act, in July 2014 but it failed to pass. This would have created a memorial to the estimated 600 victims of the flood. Currently, U.S. Representative Steve Knight is trying to get it passed again. You can read more about how you can help here.

As I pondered the story of the Duke brothers, I thought of my recent posts on the Bios Urn and the potential composting of human remains. Those are exciting prospects for some people.

But when you stumble upon a piece of history such as Van Duke’s grave stone, which tells about his life in a few simple words, a window to a moment in time is opened. A life ended by a dam’s collapse thousands of miles away. The fates of two brothers from Georgia, determined by a hand unseen, but whose effects were felt for decades afterward.

This is why cemeteries matter. Even if they are hidden under a mass of leaves and vines.

What other amazing stories rest unknown and unseen in Hollywood Cemetery?