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Hope
Babel parked her black Honda Accord
sedan, eased back the seat and soaked
up the afternoon sun. Under clear
Roman skies and 60-degree
temperatures, the 24-year-old Rome
native and her friend, Kathryn
Thomas, 23, who both work at Heaven’s
Attic Christian bookstore, spent
their half-hour lunch break above the
city on Myrtle Hill. “You kinda feel
like you’re spying on the town below,
like you’re floating on a cloud over
Rome,” Babel said. “Hey, what a view.
Right?” she asked. “It’s beautiful.”
Rome’s founders in 1834 thought so,
too. In May of that year, Zachariah
B. Hargrove, Philip Walker Hemphill,
William Smith, John H. Lumpkin and
Daniel R. Mitchell drew names from a
hat, each vying for a chance to name
the would-be city. As luck would have
it, Mitchell’s name was drawn and his
suggestion for “Rome” was adopted.
Other suggestions included Hillsboro,
Hamburg, Warsaw and Pittsburgh. But
Mitchell thought the city’s
topography mirrored that of ancient
Rome and its seven hills: Palatine,
Capitoline, Quirinal, Viminal,
Esquiline, Caelian and Aventine.
Today, the modern “City of Seven
Hills” includes Myrtle, Blossom,
Clock Tower, Jackson, Lumpkin and Old
Shorter hills and Mount Aventine. And
all have evolved — in name, geology
and mystique — through Rome’s fabled
history. After all, “anything of our
history is who we are today,” Babel
insisted.
Myrtle
Hill
Named
for 600 crepe myrtle shrubs planted
at the cemetery’s inception, Myrtle
Hill became the city’s “new” cemetery
in 1857, replacing Oak Hill, which
had served Rome since 1837. Myrtle
Hill is listed on the National
Register of Historic Places. But
before it became a cemetery, Myrtle
Hill, located in what was then
Hillsboro, was called Fort Stovall,
said Chip Tilly, archivist for the
Rome Area History Museum. Stovall’s
vantage point was ideal for artillery
position during the Civil War, Tilly
said. The hill towers over the Etowah
River near its confluence with the
Oostanaula, where both rivers form
the Coosa. Armament stockpiles once
were kept inside a tunnel located at
“Stovall’s” northern peak. The
tunnel, Tilly said, burrowed through
Myrtle’s center, exiting at the
cemetery’s southern slope, where
Confederate and Union soldiers are
now buried. “Legend has it, the
Battey vault was built where the
tunnel’s opening once was,” Tilly
speculated. The vault, or mausoleum,
holds the body of Dr. Robert Battey,
a Rome surgeon recognized for
performing the world’s first
oophorectomy, or, surgical removal of
the ovaries. The surgery took place
in the Omberg House, which is still
located at 615 W. First St. behind
City Hall. Battey’s vault is the
cemetery’s largest. A black and white
photo at the museum shows a
cavern-like entranceway on Myrtle’s
then barren peak, where the vault now
stands. Before refrigeration was
invented, Romans, whose out-of-town
relatives had died while visiting the
city, asked for and were granted
permission to store their loved ones’
bodies inside the vault. More than 40
bodies were never claimed and remain
there today, according to a Greater
Rome Convention and Visitors Bureau
leaflet. Tilly said the tunnel was
eventually imploded, destroying any
evidence it ever existed. But fact or
fiction, Rome native Anne Culpepper
considers Myrtle Hill her “25-acre
classroom.” The 1951 Rome High School
graduate conducts tours there
year-round. “It’s just beautiful,”
she said, delighting in Myrtle Hill’s
terraced slopes, manicured landscape,
hulking oak and magnolia trees and
elaborate monuments. Two of Rome’s
founders are buried at Myrtle’s
northern peak, Daniel Mitchell of
Canton, who named and planned Rome,
and Zachariah B. Hargrove of
Cassville. A large marble slab marks
Hargrove’s grave, but “there’s no
actual record of him being buried
there,” said Culpepper. Other notable
Roman’s interred in Myrtle Hill are
Ellen Louise Axson Wilson, a Rome
native and the first wife of Woodrow
Wilson, 28th president of the United
States, and Alfred Shorter, for whom
Shorter College is named. He also
sold the Myrtle Hill property to the
city of Rome. America’s Known
Soldier, Charles Graves, is entombed
in Myrtle Hill’s northeast corner.
The South Broad Street Bridge, which
serves as the cemetery’s access to
central Rome, was named in Graves’
honor in 2000. He was among the last
U.S. casualties during World War I.
It comes as no surprise, said Babel
during her lunch break, that Romans
would honor their dead atop Myrtle
Hill’s lofty perch, or any hill in
Rome for that matter. From there,
they’re closer to God, “but God is
everywhere, vertically speaking,” she
added. And hills protect the buried
from floods, which were a frequent
occurrence before the levee system
was built around the city’s central
business district in the late 1930s,
Culpepper said. Thus, two more hills
in Rome also serve as hallowed
ground: Mount Aventine and Lumpkin
Hill.
Mount
Aventine
Named
after ancient Rome’s Mount Aventine,
this 4-acre enclave sits between
South Broad Street and the Etowah
River. It was developed in 1875, said
Paula Blaylock, an interior designer,
who as president of the Mount
Aventine Community Association raised
money to build a marker commemorating
Aventine’s inception, “Est. 1875.”
The iron and stone marker stands in
the center of the neighborhood along
Lookout Circle. In the mid 1800s,
workers at the Noble Foundry, an
armament manufacturer located at East
First Avenue where Southeastern Mills
now sits, test-fired cannons across
the Etowah River into Aventine’s
northern ridge. In Roger Aycock’s
book, “All Roads to Rome,” the former
Rome News-Tribune reporter and local
historian wrote: “Rusted relics of
Civil War days, these balls once
whistled daily across the river when
each newly made cannon was test-fired
to prove its accuracy.” Apart from
those rusted relics, Aventine’s
hidden treasure is a Jewish cemetery
dating back to the early 1800s. It is
located at the hill’s highest point,
Culpepper said, and is a couple
hundred feet from her childhood home.
“Isn’t it magnificent?” she asked,
pulling open an iron gate at the
cemetery’s stone entrance. Culpepper
strolled past each headstone,
reciting on-cue biographies of the
interred, as though they whispered
them in her ear. Tracey Chesser, 35,
and her husband, Joe, have called
Aventine home since they relocated to
Rome from Memphis about three years
ago. “There was a lot of history
attached to the neighborhood,” said
Chesser. “I’ve always been drawn
toward older neighborhoods.” “It’s a
good view, when the leaves are off
the trees, and when its cold, the
sunlight just twinkles,” Blaylock
said. Looking north from Mount
Aventine toward Eighth Avenue and
Riverside Parkway, Oak Hill Cemetery,
central Rome’s third hilltop respite,
lies in the
distance.
Lumpkin
Hill
Though
highway workers during Turner McCall
Boulevard’s construction in 1956
leveled Lumpkin’s peak, the cemetery
remains intact. A stone wall boundary
lines Riverside Parkway across from
the Rome-Floyd County Library, behind
T.J. Applebee’s restaurant and
Kentucky Fried Chicken. Oak Hill’s
first interments were Rebecca Wright
Mann and James McIntee. John H.
Lumpkin, one of Rome’s founders —
born June 13, 1813, and died, July
10, 1860 — also is buried there. A
monument, about 20 feet tall, stands
over his plot. After Lumpkin Hill was
dismantled by workers, its dirt was
used to reinforce a foundation for
the Holiday Inn, now the Ramada Inn,
across Turner McCall Boulevard, said
Shirley Kinney, a genealogist. It
also helped fortify the levee along
the Oostanaula at the Kirkland
Bridge.
Blossom
Hill
Blossom
Hill, Although three of Rome’s seven
hills provide safe havens for Rome’s
deceased, three more have provided
life to a thriving mountain
metropolis. Clock Tower Hill and
Jackson Hill both have supported
Rome’s water reserves in the past.
And today, Blossom Hill’s Bruce
Hamler Water Treatment Plant, named
for a former city manager, handles
about 10 million gallons per day from
the Oostanaula and Etowah rivers,
giving thirsty Romans a safe and
ample supply, said Joe Finger, the
plant’s superintendent for 21 years.
The hill, which adjoins Jackson Hill
from the north, overlooks the city’s
public works complex on Vaughn Road.
The Hamler plant was built in 1939,
Finger said, and was upgraded in
1955. George MacGruder Battey Jr., a
descendent of Dr. Robert Battey,
wrote in his “A History of Rome and
Floyd County”: “Many years ago,
Blossom Hill was founded by Mrs. Mary
Shephard, a former slave, and her
daughter, Maggie. The exact year is
not known.” Battey continues, “after
emancipation, Mary and Maggie were
wandering in search of shelter and
food. The stopped at a house in North
Rome and asked for food. It was the
home of Judge J. Reece.” The judge
and his wife, wrote Battey, gave the
mother and daughter food and jobs as
maids. While Mary and her daughter
lived with the judge, they would pick
blossoms from trees on a nearby hill.
Mary named it “Blossom Hill.” John
Garrett of Rome, an artifact
collector with an extensive
collection of Civil War relics, said
Battey’s account makes sense. In the
early 1800s, both Blossom and Jackson
hills were covered with peach
orchards.
Jackson
Hill
Jackson
Hill encompasses about 50 acres
around Reservoir Street and Dogwood
Drive in East Rome, situated on the
south end of Blossom Hill. Before the
Rome Convention and Visitors Bureau
and Coosa Valley Regional Development
Center located there in the late
1970s, the hill held Fort Norton from
1863-1864, according to a city
sponsored development plan. Fort
Norton was named for Charles B.
Norton, according to Gilbert Smith’s
“Historical Narrative of Fort
Norton/Jackson.” Norton was killed at
the first battle of Manassas during
the Civil War. Smith also wrote that
a Jackson family owned most of the
surrounding property, hence the name
“Jackson Hill.” Its wooded peaks
shelter entrenchments and earthworks
left from Confederate soldiers who
fought approaching Union troops
during the Civil War. Jim Dixon,
Rome’s assistant city manager, said
plans to develop the hill into a park
and nature preserve are ongoing . He
also said the city hopes to develop
theme trails highlighting the area’s
history: the Civil War, Works
Progress Administration during the
great depression and the site of
Rome’s waterworks. The Jackson Hill
waterworks opened March 24, 1894. It
replaced a reservoir housed in Rome’s
Clock Tower. Jackson was abandoned in
1967 but remnants of the old
structure still remain. The Rome
Civic Center also is located on
Jackson Hill. Its stone facade
reflects an architectural era made
popular by the Works Progress
Administration during the depression,
said Anne Culpepper. Several historic
markers can be found outside the
visitors center.
Old Shorter
Hill
What
began as the Cherokee Baptist Female
College in 1843 was renamed Shorter
Female College in 1877. Alfred
Shorter of Washington, Ga., moved to
Rome with his wife, Martha, in 1837.
He was a successful businessman,
according to historical records, and
he contributed $6,000 toward
construction for First Baptist Church
in Rome. As a result, the female
college, which eventually became
Shorter, was founded in the church’s
basement. Shorter College was located
in downtown Rome, in the Between the
Rivers District between Third and
College avenues. The president’s
house, Bellevue, is all that’s left
of the original campus. It is now the
home of Dr. Hugh H. Hanson, a retired
physician and his wife, Ann, a Rome
native. They restored the
Victorian-style house in 1985. Most
of its original hardware, including
glass paned windows and a twist-style
brass doorbell are still in use.
Hanson said the original Shorter
College was eventually demolished on
site and buried in the hill.
Shorter’s gymnasium once stood in the
middle of Hanson’s cul-de-sac, he
said. The school’s top floors burned
in a fire and the building eventually
outlived its usefulness, Hanson said,
so the high school was moved down the
street. Fortress-like stone walls
left from the college line Third
Avenue today. Wrought iron gates and
a three-tiered steel stairwell that
once led to the school now lead to
the new
neighborhood.
Clock Tower
Hill
Rome’s
Clock Tower is the city’s most
recognized landmark. And Clock Tower
Hill is Rome’s most visible, said
Anne Culpepper during a guided tour.
In 1872, James Noble’s Foundry built
Rome’s first centrally located
waterworks systems — the same foundry
that fired cannonballs into Mount
Aventine— on the hill. When the
waterworks moved to Jackson Hill, a
250,000 gallon, 63-foot-tall tank
left behind provided an ideal base
for the clock’s brick decagon
superstructure. The inside of the
tower has since been turned into a
museum and features a painted mural.
A spiral staircase, totaling 107
steps, winds around the tank’s outer
wall to an observation deck. The
tower, which includes the clock works
and four faces, is 104 feet tall.
“Guess who was up here the when the
clock struck midnight in 1999?” asked
Culpepper, winking. Rome is replete
with history. It’s where the rivers
meet and the mountains begin, And its
hills offer a glimpse into an
intriguing past and a promising
future. Montgomery M. Folsom, in his
poem “Rome,” wrote:
“Pictured
plains and verdant valleys Flushed
with glorious harvest hopes, Blithe
the balmy breeze that dallies On thy
bloom-embroidered slopes; Opulent
with promise springing From the
freshly-furrowed loam, Jubilant the
joy bells ringing On thy hills,
resplendent Rome!”
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Tower
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