Maddox family history preserved in print
♦ The old homestead is now the site of Georgia Highlands College.
The Maddox named is firmly entrenched in the history of Rome and Northwest Georgia.
Nancy Hale Johnson has published a book tracing the family of John W. Maddox — her great grandfather — going back to the time he left his native Chattooga County and rode off to battle in the Civil War with his hunting rifle slung over his shoulder.
John W. Maddox enlisted in the Confederate army at the age of 14. After the war, he returned to Northwest Georgia and served stints as the mayor of Summerville and as a Chattooga County commissioner before ultimately moving to Rome.
He came to Rome around 1890 and served his community with distinction in the United States Congress from 1893-1905.
He later served as mayor of Rome and was appointed as a Superior Court judge. Then John W. Maddox stepped away from the bench in 1912 to become president of State Mutual Insurance Co.
Maddox and his wife had eight children and the family, according to Johnson, is dotted with lawyers, judges, doctors.
“They were influential in shaping the history of Rome,” Johnson said.
A direct descendant of Maddox served in the Maddox law practice for over 100 consecutive years, according to the book.
The Maddox homestead in Rome was at the intersection of Third Avenue and Glenn Milner Boulevard, where the downtown campus of Georgia Highlands College now sits.
The building on that campus is named for one of his descendants, James Dickson “Jimmy Dick” Maddox, who was one of the leaders of the effort to establish what was originally Floyd Junior College.
His daughter, Rebecca Maddox, currently serves as director of the nursing program at the college now known as GHC.
Johnson recalls that some of the Maddox children spent a lot of time playing football with Von Gammon, the Rome native who died as the result of injuries sustained in a football game at the University of Georgia in October of 1897.
The Gammon home on Third Avenue still stands, but the Maddox home and property — which stretched all the way down to Fifth Avenue — was purchased by the city decades ago for the old East Rome Junior High School.
The Maddox Track, which surrounds the football field at Barron Stadium, is named after another grandson, also named John W. Maddox.
Johnson said she was inspired to write the book — available on Broad Street at Dogwood Books and Living & Giving — out of her love for both family and Rome history.