James M Crowley moved to Decatur, Dekalb Co., Georgia in about 1822 – 1823, which is now a southeastern suburb of Atlanta. He owned about 500 acres. The Atlanta area was Creek Indian Territory until the Indians ceded the land to our government in 1822.
They put their cemetery on a hill overlooking their land about 100 yards north of their house and put a barbed wire fence around it. When James died in 1829 he was one of the first ones buried there.
Allen Crowley owned the land from 1829 to Nov 1846, when he moved his family by wagon train to Northern Mississippi. It is believed that Seaborn Crowley family owned the land from 1846 to 1896 when it was purchased by the Hill Family (also Crowley relatives). In about 1960 the Hills sold part of the land and leased the other part so that the Avondale Mall could be built. The mall is near the intersection of Memorial Drive and Columbia Road. The Mall was completed in 1963. The builder agreed to build a mausoleum around the cemetery, which is now in the parking lot.
The mausoleum is built of granite stones and is about 60ft long and wide and is about 25 ft high. A huge amount of dirt and trees had to be removed from the hill where the cemetery was in order to make the parking lot and to build the mausoleum. The graves are on top of the mausoleum.
Several years ago, the long-closed mall was turned into a Walmart and the adjacent property which contains the mausoleum has become very overgrown, with lots of trash and broken pavement. Access to the mausoleum is no longer possible, but it remains an interesting landmark that can hopefully be highlighted again someday.