History of The Bones House and Its Owners

Article by Marla Morrison

Architecture

This possibly was the only house in Rome at that time of the classical Renaissance type of architecture.  Classical Renaissance had its rebirth from the medieval about the fifteenth century.  At that time Florence was the intellectual capital of the Italian peninsula.  It was during this period that Italian influence in architecture was universal in the known world with its rhythmical groupings in alternation of triangular segmental pediment which stand out in the interesting white house. This house is quite unmistakably the work of a master builder.  The birth date of 1881 rests in the pediment of the classic window enfacement which is an adaptation of the Palladian window again in vogue in the eighteenth century.

The barrel-vaulted hall, a novel feature of the domestic architecture of Italian influence is apparent. No doubt Mr. J. W. Bones had in mind an Italian villa when building his home.

Bones Family

The two older Bones girls, Marion and Jessie, were reigning belles when the family moved to the new house, then being developed by A. T. H. Brower. (Who built the first house in the new suburban development, now standing the property of Mrs. Arthur D. Hull in the center of Coral Avenue.) 

Jessie Bones was married to Mr. Brower in the Bones House.

Marian Bones, the beauty of the family, died suddenly in her late teens in the Bones House.

J. W. Bones Served on the Mayor’s Council in Rome 1876

The Bones family was staunch Presbyterians.  Mrs. Bones’ father was Dr. James Woodrow, a teacher at Milledgeville, and whose championship of the Darwinist theory and other advanced ideas after the war caused his suspension by the Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina from the faculty of the Columbia Theological Seminary at Columbia.

Mr. Bones was a high official in the Rome church.

BONES / WILSON CONNECTION

The Bones family is related to the Wilson family through Mrs. Bones, who before her marriage to Mr. James W. Bones was Miss Marion Woodrow, the sister of Miss Jennie Woodrow, who married Mr. Joseph Wilson, the father of President Woodrow Wilson. Hence, Mrs. Bones was Woodrow Wilson’s aunt, whom his mother, he and his brother Joseph, used to visit when Mrs. Bones lived on upper Broad Street. 

Miss Helen Bones was very young when Wilson first came to her home, but later spent several years in the White House with the Wilson family.

Batteys in the Bones House

Early in this century the house became the home of Mrs. Martha Smith Battey, after the death of her husband.  Her granddaughter, Aimee, whom she reared, became the bride in the lovely old parlor, across from a stately library, of Mather D. Daniel (on the birthday of George Washington).  Later, Dr. Henry Battey, Aimee’s father, lived in this classically designed house- his two youngest children, Henry and Harriet, were born in the Bones House.

Dr. Robert Battey

November 26, 1828 – November 8, 1895

            One of Rome, Georgia’s first and finest surgeons, Dr. Battey practiced in Rome from 1857 until his retirement, with the exception of the years 1872-1875 when he served as Professor of Obstetrics in the Atlanta Medical College and was also editor of The Atlanta Medical and Surgical Journal. 

            Dr. Battey was the first to suggest an oophorectomy for such painful non-ovarian conditions such as disabling dsymenorrhea and various neuroses.  He was a pioneer in endocrinology.  Julia Omberg (1842 – 1922) was the subject of the first oophorectomy.  The operation was performed on the kitchen table of her home, 615 West First Street, by Dr. Battey on August 27, 1872.  A lynch mob of Rome citizens strung up a noose in a tree across the street to hang Dr. Battey if Julia died, but she survived the surgery and lived fifty more years, dying of organic heart failure.

            The Battey Mausoleum is the largest in Myrtle Hill Cemetery and contains over forty bodies.  The identity of some in the mausoleum is unknown.  Before modern burial techniques and modern refrigeration, families of those from out of town who died while visiting Rome, asked the Battey families’ permission to store the bodies here until cooler weather.  Many never returned to retrieve the bodies.

             A monument stands on the lawn of Rome’s City Hall in the memory of Dr. Robert Battey.  The monument was erected by The Medical Association of Georgia at its annual meeting in Rome on April 05, 1921.  Each of the four sides is inscribed with a word that describes the virtues of Dr. Battey.  Dr. Robert Maxwell Harbin, Sr., chose the words: Honesty – Courage – Modesty – Fidelity.  Dr. Robert Battey served as president of the Georgia Medical Association and as president of the American Gynecological Association.  He was also a delegate to the International Medical Congress in 1881.

            During the Civil War, Rome was best known as a hospital area for wounded soldiers.   Dr. Battey served as senior surgeon with Hampton’s brigade.  This dedication to the medical field has endured into present times.

George Magruder Battey, JR.

George Magruder Battey Jr., author and historian, was born in Rome, Georgia on February 11, 1888.  He was the son of George Magruder Battey and the former Mary Hamilton Van Dyke.  He is the grandson of Dr. Robert Battey, who operated the first post-Civil War private hospital in the South.

George Magruder Battey was educated at the University of Georgia and Princeton University.  He served in WWI as a navy seaman. He spent many years as a writer for several papers – The Rome News, The Atlanta Georgian and The Brookland Eagle. During WWII, he held a government post in Washington.

For most of his life he followed his personal interests – reading, writing, and traveling throughout the world.  He lived at various times in Canada, Shanghai, the Azores, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.  He combined his interests and wrote A History of Rome and Floyd County. Published in 1922, it was planned to be the first of a two-volume history, but regrettably a sequel was never published.  He also authored 10,000 Miles on a Submarine Destroyer and Chart House Poems.

George Magruder Battey never married and spent his last years with his sister Miss Adrienne Battey in Atlanta. He died on August 21, 1965 and was entombed in the family mausoleum in Myrtle Hill Cemetery in Rome, Georgia.

If you have information about other owners of The Bones House, please contact us and we will add any information and pictures you may have on them.