The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1905-11-15
VISITS MOTHERS HOME
President Roosevelt Given . Touch.
ing Reception at Roswell, Ga
First Time He Fad Ever Visited Scene
of His Mothers Birthplace
Meets Old Servants.

s.-
Atlanta, Cato President Roosevelt
the pl~easantest incident of his South.
ern trip was his visit to Roswell, TWEEN.
ty miles north Of Atlanta. It was the
first time Mr.. Roosevelt had ever WIS.,
tied the place where his mother,
Martha Bullock, was born and spent
her girlhood. Roswell was settled by
the Presidents grandfather and four
or five other men, who established
wooden mills. Their typical Southern
houses still remain as they were in
: 1910, and the settlement has grown
to a smart manufacturing town Of
about 1000 inhabitants.
The villagers were in a sort OF
ecstasy. The county sheriff and a
dozen leading citizens On horseback
met the President and Mrs. Roosevelt
at the station and escorted them over
the new road to Roswell. Among the
horsemen was Warren Crockett, OF
Marietta, a trooper in Colonel Roose-
velt's regiment of rough riders, and he
and Captain John Greenway, who is
travelling with the President, had u
little impromptu reunion with their
colonel at the Roswell station.
There is only one street in the little
town. Almost at the extreme end
stands Bullock Hall. where Martha
Bullock was born and where she was
married to the Presidents father. The
President and Mrs. Roosevelt went d.
rectly to the hall. The old mansion is
a stately house, guarded by tall white
pillars and surrounded by trees. It is
now owned and lived in by J. B. Wing
and his wife, and they greeted Mr.. and
Mrs. Roosevelt on the broad front por-
tieo. "a
Several of the old servants of the
Bullock family with their descendants
are still a part Of the household, among
them being old Aunt Grace, who was
Martha Bullock's nurse in her girlhood;
Aunt Charlotte and Daddy Luke, Aunt
Charlotte's son, himself an aged negro
now, were also there, and the President
and his wife shook hands with them
before they entered the house.
>. Upon coming out Of the house the
President asked that a photograph be
taken Of Mrs. Roosevelt and himself
surrounded by the old family servants.
The President then drove to a stand
erected in the public square, and after
q young man had delivered an grafton
especially prepared In honor Of the
Presidents visit, Senator Clay intro
duced; the President to the crowd gath
cred on the four sides Of the stand.
The President said, in part:
Senator, and you, my friends, whom
it is hard for me not ~ call my neigh
bors, for I feel as If you were: You
can have no idea how much it means
to me to come back to Roswell, toIthe
home of my mother and of my mothers
people. r
"It las been my very great good for
tune to have the right to claim that
lily blood is half Southern and half
Northern. And I would deny the right
of any man here to feel a greater pride
in the deeds of every Southerner than
I feel.
"Of the children, the brothers and
sisters of my mother. who were born
and brought up in that house On the
hill there, my two uncles afterWard
entered the Confederate service and
served in the Confederate navy.
MEN and women, don't you think
that 1 have the ancestral right to claim
n proud kinship with those who showed
their devotion to duty Is they saw the
duty, whether they wore the gray or
whether they wore the blue? An
Americans who are worthy of the
name feel an equal pride in the valor
of those who fought ON one side or the
other, provided only that each did with
all his strength and soul and mind his
duty as it was given him to see his
duty"
Mr.. Roosevelt then drove to the Pres
byterian Church and stood with Mrs.
Roosevelt in the Bullock pew while the
aged pastor said a brief prayer and
pronounced a benediction On the Presi.
dent.