Batteries

Thank you for letting me ask questions, it is greatly appreciated.

I purchased four type 27 102 amp hour batteries four weeks ago in preparation for a move to some very remote property in the Oregon desert.  The batteries will be used in conjunction with my three 45 watt solar panels.

I wired them in parallel and hooked them up to a "fully automatic" battery charger at 2 amps
to keep them topped off thinking that the charger would only charge if needed.  Imagine my surprise when I checked on them and they were almost too hot to touch and were dry.

I replaced the batteries but kept the fried ones.  I re-filled them with distilled water and charged them to see if I could I use them at all.

Surprisingly, they held 49, 58, 63, and 84 amp hours respectively.  I hooked them up individually to a 50 watt headlamp and feeling I had nothing to lose deep cycled them until the light dimmed and calculated the amp draw accordingly.

Since I have them I would like to put them to some use.  I know it is unwise to wire four batteries that are not identical together but it would be nice to have a backup battery bank and I could always charge them with the generator as I use it for other, larger needs, or purchase another panel for these battery as a separate system.

Would I only get the benefit of the worst battery in the bank?  Is it even wise to fool around with batteries in this condition.  I'm not sure how this works.

Thanks for the help,

Arch