Bulloch Hall - Birth and Marriage of Martha Bulloch

Birth and Marriage of Martha Bulloch

In 1835 while on a visit to Hartford, Connecticut, James' wife gave birth to a daughter, also named Martha. She was known affectionately as Mittie. Mittie was raised at Bulloch Hall. When Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. was 19, he came to Roswell, Georgia with his friend Hilborne West, who had married Mittie's oldest half sister, Susan Elliott. Mittie was 14 at the time, and did not like Theodore very much. "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 were married in the dining room of Bulloch Hall on December 22, 1853. The marriage was a gala affair with people coming for many miles and staying for a week. Mittie's friend and bridesmaid, Mrs. William Baker, left a recollection of the wedding in an interview by Margaret "Peggy" Mitchell of "Gone with the Wind" fame, in the Atlanta Journal, June 10, 1923.

After the marriage, the couple moved to New York City. 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.