Antebellum period Rural Home was built in the late 1820s or early 1830s on land that had been taken from the
Muscogee people due to the
Indian Removal Act. The land, located across the
Flint River about six miles east of
Fayetteville and about five miles southeast of
Jonesboro, was first purchased by John Ward, who likely never lived there. The house was looted, but not destroyed.
Reconstruction and later years During the
Reconstruction era following the war, the Fitzgeralds made drastic changes to the house. In 1873, a two-story balloon-framed addition with six rooms and high ceilings, laid out in an L-shaped plan, was added to the north end of the original house. Finishing with lapped siding and featuring end gables with elaborate baseboards, the house became an example of
Eastlake architecture. The original house was renovated as well, with the removal of end chimneys and fireplaces, replaced by a center chimney and the addition of closets where the staircase had originally been. Three additional bedrooms were also added, and a spacious parlor. One of the Fitzgerald daughters, Katherine, married William Stephens in the house's parlor in 1875. During this time, the plantation was being farmed by
tenant farmers and
share-croppers who continued to grow cotton. Philip Fitzgerald died in May 1880, leaving the house and 503.5 acres of land to his wife and unmarried children. He specified in his will that the home should serve as a "refuge" for any of his children or grandchildren should they become widowed or destitute. In the 1920s, legal disputes ensued regarding the terms of the will, leading to a rift in the family. The two unmarried Fitzgerald daughters, Mary Ellen and Sarah, continued to live at Rural Home, often hosting relatives at the house, including their niece,
Maybelle Stephens Mitchell and her daughter,
Margaret Mitchell. Margaret Mitchell's experiences at Rural Home inspired the fictional
Tara Plantation in her novel
Gone With the Wind. The plantation suffered major losses in 1919 with the
boll weevil invasion throughout the Georgia piedmont region, which killed much of the crop. By the end of
World War I, the Fitzgeralds failed to produce any cotton. They turned to their sister, Ann Elizabeth, who paid for the taxes on the house. Ann Elizabeth attempted to return to the house to take up residence after living as a widow, per the terms of her father's will, but her sisters and niece prevented it. Ann Elizabeth filed a lawsuit in the Clayton County Superior Court to gain control of the property, but the court sided in favor of her sisters. In 1928, Eugenia Gress, a daughter of Ann Elizabeth, got quit-claim deeds from the other Fitzgerald heirs, paid her aunt and cousin $5,000, and took possession of the house. Gress set about fixing up the dilapidated Rural Home, enclosing the breezeway and remodeling the kitchen. Gress moved her mother into the house and retained the property after her mother's death. In 1937, she rented Rural Home to her brother, Alexander H. Stephens, and his wife, Mary Grace Rogers. They continued to operate the plantation as a working farm until the end of
World War II. In the 1940s, indoor plumbing and electric lighting were installed in the house.
Demolition In 1958, Grace Rogers Stephens died. Alexander Stephens, now age 80, was no longer considered able to care for the home in the opinion of Gress. She revoked the 1937 rental agreement and took control of Rural Home. It remained a rental property for the next 40 years. Gress died in 1966, and the remains of the estate were placed in trust for her children. The house was rented for a few more years, but by 1980, the value of the land was worth more than the rundown house and
outbuildings. The house and other buildings were removed from the original site following a survey by the Historic Preservation Section of the
Georgia Department of Natural Resources in November 1977. In July 1980,
Betty Shingler Talmadge, the ex-wife of Senator
Herman Talmadge, bought the house and moved it to her plantation home in nearby
Lovejoy. She had the 1873 addition dismantled, and she stored the framing and finish materials in an old milk barn on her property; the original antebellum house and kitchen were moved intact to a field across the drive from her house. Talmadge died on November 7, 2005, never finishing her plans for Rural Home. On July 6, 2005, a tornado knocked the house off its temporary foundation. Subsequently, the house was dismantled. == References ==