Profiles from a tour of the Old Baptist Church Cemetery In Monroe, Georgia

Conducted, Written and provided courtesy Nowell Briscoe ( [email protected] )

Joseph Boyd McCrary and Mary Neel Walker McCrary

  It would be remiss of me if I did not mention the graves across from Jere; No.10, those of Joseph Boyd McCrary and his wife, Mary Neel Walker McCrary.  This distinguished Atlanta couple was responsible for the beautiful rock fence and wrought iron gates at the entrance to this cemetery as well as the walls enclosing the graves of the Walker family which were erected in memory of her parents. The weathered granite that makes up the walls came from the top of Stone Mountain back in the early fifties.  Mary Walker McCrary was a daughter of Billington Sanders Walker and Alice Mitchell Walker and was born in Monroe on December 23, 1878.  She graduated from high school in Griffin, Georgia in 1895 and then entered the Lucy Cobb Institute in Athens.  She married Atlanta businessman and engineer Joseph Boyd McCrary on June 14, 1906.  

Mr. McCrary was an early pioneer and practical exponent of improved living conditions in Southern towns and rural sections, giving a combined engineering, construction, financing, and operating services to many who were living in areas with no electricity or water available to them.  He founded his business, J. B. McCrary Company in 1896 which then was a municipal engineering and construction company and later expanded to other areas.  His engineering company planned or built more than two-thirds of all the municipal water, light and sewer systems in the state of Georgia, more than four thousand systems in the ten Southeastern states.  The name “McCrary” was a synonym for cheerful, well lighted homes, pure water, and smooth pavements, sewerage and sanitation to towns, cities and rural sections of the South. The list of his accomplishments and the generosity of he and his wife to countless charities in Atlanta and Monroe are countless. 

Prior to their deaths, they were as well known in Monroe as they were in Atlanta, being regular visitors to town where they were always in residence at Mrs. Walker’s former home “Walker Place” then owned by her sister, Irene Field.  Mr. McCrary died on October 28, 1961 and Mrs. McCrary died on March 23, 1967.  Before leaving today, please take a minute or two and read the bronze plaques that pay honor to not only this family but the others resting here who found shelter and solace behind these great walls.