Bonar Hall | |
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| Location | 962 Dixie Avenue Madison, Georgia 30650 |
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| Coordinates | 33°35′15″N 83°28′54″W / 33.5875°N 83.4817°W |
| Area | 10 acres (4.0 ha) |
| Built | 1839 |
| Architectural style | Late Georgian |
| MPS | Madison Historic District |
| NRHP reference No. | 72000388[1] |
| Added to NRHP | January 20, 1972 |
Bonar Hall is an 1839–40 Georgian-style house in Madison, Georgia, one of the first of the grand-style homes built during the town's cotton-boom heyday, 1840–60. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
The two-story brick townhouse was built by John Byne Walker, an early Morgan county pioneer, and his heiress bride, Eliza Fannin, half-sister of a war hero, James W. Fannin, Jr., the famous commander at the Goliad Massacre during the Texas Revolution after whom counties in Georgia[2] and Texas[3] are named. Their home sat on a large tract of land that she inherited from her father, Isham Fannin, one of the founders of Madison and Morgan County, he being on the first board of county officials who were, in turn, responsible for founding the town.[4]
The first bricks, made on John Byne's plantations, were laid on February 25, 1839, starting with the brick kitchen; all of the brickwork was finished by early July. They moved into their new home 10 months later.[5] Designed by an unknown professional architect, the main house, known then as the John Byne Walker Townhouse, was originally a four-over-four traditional Georgian manor house with rooms 20’x 20’, eight fireplaces, 18"-thick walls, silver doorknobs and 13' ceilings.[6] The Georgian-style house featured a small one-story portico with four white columns,[7] with small brick "summer houses" on either side (now a tea house and an orangery) and, in back, a three-room brick kitchen flanked on either side by matching his and her brick “necessaries”. Today, the 13-acre (53,000 m2) estate includes, in addition, a two-room cabin originally from downtown Madison and one of the oldest buildings in the town (c. 1810–1815), a slave cabin (c. 1830), a tenant house (c. 1900), a classic 1880s Victorian carriage house, a 1920s log smoke house, and a working well. Of particular note is the classic formal boxwood garden dating from around 1850 and described in numerous books on historic gardens of the South.[8]
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ Archives of Fannin County at the Wayback Machine (archived August 29, 2001)
- ^ Fannin County, Texas
- ^ Madison’s History and Development, Chapter 1, page 4; www.madisonga.com/4/documents/10594.pdg.
- ^ John B. Walker Plantation Book Commencing February 8th 1827 at which time he began the Business of Farming and General Agriculture, 1827-1864.
- ^ Parker, Inez E., "Madison House of History and Romance" Atlanta Journal 18 Nov. 1923.
- ^ Photograph held by the Alex Newton family.
- ^ Cooney, Loraine M., Garden History of Georgia, 1733-1933, 1933; “Madison Middle Georgia Minerva” Georgia Review Spring, 1951; Teacher’s Heritage Resource Guide, U.S. Department of Interior, National Park Service, National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, Publication No. 1999-20, Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, Inc. and The Morgan County Landmarks Society, Morgan County Vol 2 1996, pp. 6-7.