Bulloch Hall is a Greek Revival mansion in Roswell, Georgia, built in 1839–1840 by enslaved African Americans. It is one of several antebellum houses in the city and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. This is where Martha Bulloch Roosevelt ("Mittie"), mother of Theodore Roosevelt, 26th U.S. president, lived as a child. It is also where she married Theodore Roosevelt's father, Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. Roosevelt himself visited the house in 1905. The descendants of Theodore Roosevelt and his three siblings, Anna, Elliott, and Corinne, are therefore descendants of Archibald Bulloch, the first governor of Georgia (17301777). It is now a historic house museum owned by the city of Roswell.
History
The antebellum mansion was built by Mittie's father, Major James Stephens Bulloch. He was a planter from the Georgia coast, invited to the new settlement by his friend Roswell King. After the death of his first wife, Hester Amarintha "Hettie" Elliott (mother of his son James D. Bulloch), Bulloch married the widow of his first wife's father, Martha "Patsy" Stewart Elliott, and had four more children: Anna Bulloch Martha Bulloch Charles Bulloch (who died young) Irvine Bulloch.
Major Bulloch received a ten-acre plot in the new town and, with the craftsman-architect Willis Ball, designed and built the Greek Revival house. The family moved in during 1839; the National Register nomination dates the house's completion to about 1840.
Bulloch Hall was built by enslaved African Americans, and the Bulloch family held people in slavery to work the surrounding cotton land and the household. A list of 33 enslaved people associated with the house survives; those who worked inside it included the cook, known as Maum Rose, the housekeeper Maum Charlotte, and Daddy Luke. William Jackson, the coachman and butler, was known as Daddy William, and Grace Robinson, the children's nursemaid, as Maum Grace.
Birth and marriage of Martha Bulloch
Martha Bulloch was born on July 8, 1835, in Hartford, Connecticut, and was raised at Bulloch Hall; she was known as Mittie.
The date of their first meeting is unclear. When Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. was 19, he came to Roswell, Georgia, with his friend Hilborne West, who was to marry Mittie's oldest half sister, Susan Elliott. Mittie was 15 at the time. "Thee," as he was called, met Mittie again when she went to Philadelphia in January 1853 to stay with her sister Susan. They fell in love and began planning their wedding through letters between Mittie in Roswell and Thee in New York. They were married in the dining room of Bulloch Hall on December 22, 1853. A bridesmaid, Eva King Baker, later recalled the wedding in an interview with Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind, published in the Atlanta Journal in 1923.
After the marriage, the couple moved to New York City. The couple lived with Thee's parents while a house, a wedding gift from them, was constructed at 28 E 20th Street. In 1856, Martha, Anna, and Irvine moved to Philadelphia to live with Martha's daughter Susan West. Anna and Martha later moved in with Mittie and Thee in New York. The Roosevelt couple became the parents of Anna; Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States; Elliott, and Corinne. Later Elliott married Anna Rebecca Hall, and his daughter was First Lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt.
President Roosevelt's visit in 1905
Theodore Roosevelt visited Bulloch Hall while touring the South in 1905, some years after he had been criticized in the South for inviting Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House.
President Roosevelt and his wife Edith arrived in Roswell, Georgia on October 20, 1905. At Bulloch Hall, he spoke as follows:
Eleanor Roosevelt visited Bulloch Hall several times.
Historic designation It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places individually, With and also as a contributing building in the Roswell Historic District.
In popular culture Bulloch Hall provided the model for the cover illustration of William Harben's 1907 novel Mam' Linda.
See also Archibald Smith Plantation Home Barrington Hall (Roswell, Georgia) Mimosa Hall (Roswell, Georgia) Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site List of plantations in Georgia (U.S. state)
Notes
References
Further reading Roosevelt, Theodore. An Autobiography. (1913) Harbaugh, William Henry. The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. (1963) Huddleston, Connie M. and Gwendolyn I. Koehler. Mittie & Thee: An 1853 Roosevelt Romance. (2015) Koehler, Gwendolyn I. and Connie M. Huddleston. Between the Wedding & the War: The Bulloch/Roosevelt Letters 1854–1860. (2016) Huddleston, Connie M. Seldom Told Stories: Daddy Luke, Maum Charlotte, Maum Grace, and Daddy William of Bulloch Hall. (2018) Morris, Edmund The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (1979) Morris, Edmund Theodore Rex. (2001) Mowry, George. The era of Theodore Roosevelt and the birth of modern America, 1900–1912. (1954) McCullough, David. Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt (2001) National Register Information System
External links Bulloch Hall official website Bulloch Hall historical marker