By Gene Ramsay | The town of Norcross was founded in 1870 when entrepreneur John Thrasher built a resort hotel at a stop on a newly-constructed railroad connecting Atlanta to the northeast. Many families moved to the new town, and built stately homes that survive to this day on its residential streets, giving it a historic character that is unique today for this area of the state.
But there is another location in Norcross with tangible links back to the beginning of our town and beyond – the Norcross City Cemetery, where many of our pioneer citizens now rest for eternity.
Mollie Jones with her son Clifford Jones, circa 1902
To celebrate the city’s recent efforts to refurbish the cemetery, I will give a free tour of the cemetery grounds, on Saturday December 12 at 10 a.m. The cemetery is located at the corner of South Cemetery and Fairmount Streets in Norcross, just off Buford Highway, near the heart of historic Norcross.
I will share the history of the town and the cemetery through stories of
- Mollie Jones, who took her three sons on a vacation that set their course of their lives for the next 50 years;
- Owen Medlock, a real estate developer who fell to his death in a tragic accident;
- Winn Born, a successful attorney who served as mayor while in his 20s;
- Edward Buchanan, who went from rags-to-riches-to-rags, parlaying his skills as a telegraph operator into a large fortune, and then losing it all in a stock scheme;
- Doc Lively, a former mayor shot dead on Christmas Day on the city’s main street;
- Laura McNabb, a local teacher who advocated for improvements in education over a century ago, leading to the construction of the “Castle on the Hill”, the town’s iconic school building that stood overlooking downtown for many years;
- Tilly McElroy, who overcame severe wounds during the Civil War to lead a long and prosperous life, that included four wives;
- Noye Nesbit, who played football for John Heisman at Georgia Tech before spending a first career building pipelines for Standard Oil, and then a second career as the first director of the Gwinnett County Water System;
- and many others.
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