Barrowville
a.k.a. Col. William McKinley House
E of Milledgeville on GA 22/24, Milledgeville, GAThe significance of McKinley House is primarily architectural. It is a pure example of a Downing Gothic-style cottage and has remained in the hands of the family of the original owner. It has been preserved practically unaltered since its construction. The second area of significance stems from the plantation records kept by Col. McKinley concerning the agriculture and weather of the region in the late 1850s, making this site most interesting from the standpoint of American civilization and agriculture.
The McKinley House is a Gothic-style cottage that, with minor modifications, was directly adapted from Plate XXVI, "A Country-House in the Pointed Style" described in A. J. Downing's The Architecture of Country Houses, which was published in 1850. Col. McKinley owned this book which is still in the library of the McKinley House, with Plate 26 removed.
On July 27, 1858, William McKinley laid the cornerstone for his new brick house, made of bricks kilned by McKinley at a brickyard he set up for this purpose. The house was to be called Barrowville, named for his first wife, Patience Barrow. The brick walls began to go up on September 6, 1858. Masons began the second story two months later on November 1st. The house was completed shortly after the new year of 1859. Col. McKinley kept a detailed record of the construction of the house.
Among the family papers in the library of the house is a bid for the construction of the house by one "Demarest." He was probably the carpenter for the house, as in 1856-57 Demarest, Alling, and Company were paid for carpentry work on the Central Building, State Lunatic Asylum (Powell Building, Central State Hospital), and in 1857-58 Demarest, Baldwin, and Company were paid for carpentry work on the same. From the bid and subsequent adjustments, it appears that brackets were eliminated from the piazza and that a lookout in the original plan ("Platform on top, rail and scuttle-latter") were also eliminated for economic reasons.
Other notations by McKinley that "Mullaly and two men began to blast rock for my house" and "Rock mason, Mullaly and Keough finished basement of my house" probably refer to Mr. Mullally of Hancock County, a bricklayer who bid on the erection of a wall at the State Lunatic Asylum in 1858-59.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.