Historical Identification and Definition of the Brownlee Pioneer Cemetery Gwinnett County, Georgia

This report discusses the results of work undertaken to clear, record and document a historic pioneer cemetery located in the west-southwest sector of Gwinnett County, Georgia. The cemetery is associated with an early Gwinnett land owner, Vinson Brownlee, and probably contains the burial remains of the senior Brownlee family and his oldest son, William Riley Brownlee (McCabe, Ed., 1988). The work was done at the request of the Gwinnett County Parks and Recreation Department in anticipation of future development by the county. Two local societies, the Gwinnett Historical Society and the Greater Atlanta Archaeological Society, combined efforts and donated their time, equipment and expertise for the cemetery cleanup and recordation project. The Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) location of the cemetery in the County of Gwinnett is in Zone 16 at 769500 east longitude and 3754900 north latitude. The site-specific location of the cemetery and the general surrounding area are shown in Figure 1, which is a reproduction of a portion of the USGS 7.5-minute Luxomni quadrangle (photo revised 1982). The cemetery is located within the greater Sweetwater Creek drainage basin approximately 1.5 miles south of U. S. Route 29 (Lawrenceville Highway) and .5 miles north of the Seaboard Airline Railway. Access to the cemetery is gained by traveling southeast on Bethesda Church Road until the asphalt ends and then proceeding .4 miles on an all-weather gravel-surfaced road to an oak tree with faded orange paint at a slight bend in the road. The cemetery east perimeter fence line lies 60 feet west of the centerline of the current Bethesda Church Road.