Dead Neighbors Make the Best Neighbors
categories: Stuff I like to talk about
It’s almost Halloween, one of my favorite days; I’ve been waiting to write this post for months!
Would you mind having dead neighbors? Dead AND in the ground, that is?
As I show houses and drive around Alpharetta and the surrounding neighborhoods, we occasionally find a cemetery in the least expected place. Some of them look pretty scary, thus the Halloween theme. But would it creep you out to actually live next to one? Would you live there but be willing to pay as much for the house?
I’ve kind of made it a game to identify all the hidden cemeteries in the Milton and Roswell area. Some of them are quite old and tell the history of the area in the names on the headstones. In the past most of the cemeteries were adjacent to the church; now many of the churches have been destroyed and all the remains is the cemetery. The land was sold and now a neighborhood resides on the former church grounds creating the unintended relationship.
Hidden Cemetery #1
Tucked away where you would never see it in the Wallace Woods neighborhood off Rucker Road, fittingly, is the “Historic Rucker Cemetery” established in 1835. It is a couple of acres in size, surrounded by woods and a chain link fence and home to about 50 of the quietest neighbors you could imagine. I can only surmise that the Rucker homestead was somewhere nearby at one time and this was the family cemetery. Now it offers the neighborhood some greenspace – or should I say, deadspace?
Hidden Cemetery #2
Lurking behind the trees on Houze Road is the Lebanon Baptist Cemetery, established in 1836, the year after the Rucker Cemetery. The only way I found this graveyard was the sun glinted of the only remaining tombstone with sheen on it and caught my eye. I thought: That couldn’t be a graveyard could it? Sure enough.
The interesting thing about this one is that there are members of the Houze family and the Hembree family resting there. Now you know where those crazy street names come from around here. The rest of the grave markers are nothing more than rocks stuck sideways in the ground.
Behind this graveyard is the small neighborhood of Hembree Springs, which has about fifteen homes built in the 1970’s which all have very private backyards, if you know what I mean.
Hidden Cemetery #3
I dare you to find this one from the road. I’ll tell you this much: It is in Crabapple off of Charlotte Road. Surrounded by a six foot wood fence, you’ll have to stand on your tippy toes to find it. It is now an “island of the dead” surrounded by homes on all sides. The residents of the graveyard must really feel boxed in.
Hidden Cemetery #4
This one I just found this week, much to my joy knowing that I was planning this post in my head.
Tucked away on the northern edge of the new Blue Valley Estates development by Chatham, just a little bit beyond the border of the City of Milton and into Cherokee County, is what looks like an old family burial ground off of Liberty Grove Road. This cemetery looks to be from around the 1880’s and the resting place of the Bice / Buice family according to the headstones.
The family connection was interesting to me because unlike the other cemeteries whose namesake roads were immediately adjacent, the Buice Road that I know is clear on the other side of Alpharetta in Johns Creek. These souls resting on Liberty Grove must have been to poor cousins of the moving and shaking contingent of the family living “down by the river.” Which reminds me of the old cemetery in Johns Creek that is basically in the median where Old Alabama Road and Jones Bridge meet. It is not a “hidden cemetery” by any means, but I’ll have to stop one day and check to see if any Buices are buried there.
What does this have to do with Alpharetta Real Estate?
So now for the real estate spin. Would you live next door to a cemetery? (Leave me a comment to this post letting me know your thoughts and whether you would require a price concession to entice you.)
A realtor colleague shared with me when selling her own house that backed up to the hidden cemetary in Crabapple that prospective buyers just didn’t like being next to the cemetery. I don’t know…maybe that was just a convenient excuse for them if they didn’t want to be totally honest about why they didn’t like the house, which eventually sold in not too long.
For me, I wouldn’t mind living next to a cemetary at all: It is very quiet; there is screaming only one night a year. There are usually some old trees, especially oaks. Wildlife enjoys the open space. What do they care who is dead and alive? You never have to worry about what is going to be built behind or next to you. Someone is always home to keep an eye on your place.
When you buy a new house, you usually don’t know what there neighbors will be like. When you live next to a cemetery, you have a pretty good idea. Dead neighbors sometimes make the best neighbors.
There is a house for sale right across the street from the Rucker Cemetery. Five bedrooms, finished basement, wooded lot. $339,000 with guaranteed great neighbors. Trick or treat?
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Hey Kevin,
I guess I have never really thought about living near a cemetery. You have a really good point about knowing what will be beside you. I personally would still prefer not to live next to one, but in an area growning as fast as you can blink your eye like Alpharetta, I would probably reconsider! Great Article.
Kevin - We also have many hidden cemetaries. I recently sold to a young couple who could see a glimpse of an old cemetary from their window; they didn’t mind. I guess you always know who your neighbors will be.
The original Rucker homestead, built by Simeon Bluford Rucker about 1832-1833, is across Rucker Rd from Wallace Woods and the cemetery; it’s the core of the first floor of the little brown house with the goats in the yard on the corner of Broadwell and Old Rucker. The little log bldg next to the house is the old Crabapple schoolhouse. My wife is a descendent of Simeon through his granddaughter, Nancy Jane Rucker, whose story can be found on the Old Milton County genealogy site. Simeon’s mother probably has the oldest grave in the place: Catherine Ehart Rucker died in 1833; not sure where Simeon’s father, George Rucker (who served in the VA militia in the Revolution), is buried, only that he died sometime after the family had moved into GA. George was the grandson of Peter Rucker, who arrived in Jamestown around 1700 and whose national origins remain a mysteryl, despite many and varied stories about him.
Gary,
I am a descendant of George Rucker through his daughter Margaret Susannah. Does your wife have any information about her? What other Ruckers are buried in this cemetery? Thanks for the great info on the Ruckers.
I grew up living on a property that included an old family cemetary. Every year or so, a long-lost relative would arrive in a geneaological quest or to take headstone rubbings. From a prospective property owner’s standpoint, it would be interesting to learn about the easment and/or right-of-ways that can be associated with “hidden” cemetaries, including relatives rights to continue to use the cemetary… for burials I mean.