The man behind a former cultural centerpiece of Macon

Directly in front of the Johnston monument in the Holly Ridge Section of Rose Hill Cemetery is the Ralston family lot. While James A. Ralston, who is buried in this lot, may not be well known today, he was once a prominent citizen in Macon. 

Ralston married Aurelia Lamar in 1845, and they had five children. Mr. Ralston was a planter and a speculator. The 1860 census lists his personal estate as valued at $60,000 and his real estate holdings at $120,000. The real estate holdings would be the equivalent of approximately $4.7 million in today’s dollars.

The Ralston home overlooked Macon from the top of Coleman Hill, where the Mercer Law School is now. According to pictures, it was as large as the neighboring Bond house. 

During Macon’s first quarter century, meeting and entertainment space was scarce. This changed in 1853 when Ralston built Ralston Hall at the corner of Third and Cherry streets. 

Ralston Hall sat 1,200 people and was described as “exceedingly plain” yet “possessing fine acoustic properties.” The surrounding buildings included restaurants, a bakery, clothing shops and grocery stores.

Ralston Hall quickly became a centerpiece of Macon’s cultural life. Ads during the 1850s and 1860s mention performances by “the eminent tragic actress Mrs. W.M. Ward,” “the greatest comedian of the age, Mr. J.B. Tozer” and “world-renowned and greatest of living violinists, Henry Vieuxtemps.” In addition, fundraisers featured local performers, and occasionally, political rallies drew people to Ralston Hall. 

Oliver Wilde, John Wilkes Booth’s father, and John Wilkes Booth himself performed at Ralston Hall, according to a Macon Telegraph article from 1953.

While Ralston Hall was an important part of Macon in the late 1800’s, fire was its enemy. In 1856, Ralston Hall partially burned, but was rebuilt by 1857. 

In 1859, another horrible tragedy involving fire also occurred at Ralston Hall. George Marsh and the Marsh Juvenile Comedians were scheduled for a performance. George and his wife let their daughter, Eliza, take part in the performance for the first time. Eliza, aged nine, stepped too close to the stage lighting, and her dress caught fire. She died the next day. 

The last fire to strike Ralston Hall was in 1886. On one of the coldest nights in Macon, when the Ocmulgee River is said to have frozen solid, a fire started in the kitchen of a bar attached to Ralston Hall. While the Macon fire department came out in force, their efforts were nearly useless because the fire hydrants were frozen. Ralston Hall, along with seven stores and a number of offices were destroyed. Today, The Bohemian Den sits where Ralston Hall once served as a cultural hub for the Macon community. 

Ralston didn’t live to see the destruction of Ralston Hall. He acquired tuberculosis while he was a prisoner in Kentucky during the Civil War and passed away in 1864.  

Ralston, his wife Aurelia, and their children are buried in a family plot in the Holly Ridge section of Rose Hill, overlooking the river. Little Eliza Marsh, whose real last name was Guerineau, is buried alone in a plot in the Magnolia Ridge section of Rose Hill. 

In 2025, Liz Riley and Kathleen O’Neal began a visual inventory of every monument in Rose Hill Cemetery. The goal of this project is to provide a free, complete and accurate database of those interred, as well as maps for locating them. This column shares the fascinating stories discovered during this project.