The William Root House is a typical I-House form with a shed room at the rear (Plantation Plain), enhanced by a vernacular Greek Revival portico. Built circa 1845, it is one of the oldest houses in Marietta and an inspiring preservation success story. It was facing demolition when it was saved by Cobb Landmarks and now serves as a cultural and historic focal point. It was originally located two blocks east on the northeast corner of Church and Lemon streets and has been relocated twice. In 1893, the house was repositioned on its original lot. In 1989, it was relocated two blocks to its present location and restored. It is now an award-winning house museum, operated by Cobb Landmarks.
William Root (1815-1891), a native of Philadelphia, moved to Marietta in 1839, five years after the city’s founding. He began working as an assistant in William H. Kitchens’s drug store in Augusta in 1836, then relocated to Hamburg, South Carolina, in 1837. After a brief return to Philadelphia in 1838, he came back to Augusta in 1839 and then moved to Marietta to open a new drug and grocery store for Kitchens. On 15 September 1840, he married Hannah Rhemer Simpson (1807-1886).
The business grew quickly and Root became an influential pioneer citizen of Marietta. He helped establish St. James Episcopal Church. In 1844 he purchased the business from Kitchens and built this home about a year later. The Roots had five children (one son died as a toddler), and, according to the 1860 census, four enslaved people in their service. Cobb Landmarks has identified two of the enslaved by name: Lall Burge, who was likely a butler, or house servant, and Elsay Blake, also a domestic laborer.
With Atlanta and environs in the crosshairs of the Union armies, the Root family relocated to Washington, Georgia, in June 1864. They returned to a ruined Marietta on 15 July 1865, but fared better than many others, who lost everything. They were able to reoccupy their house. According to family papers, William Root noted, “Our dwelling, though damaged, was in tolerable condition.”
In 1866 William Root opened a new store on the Marietta Square, and owned the entire block bounded by Church, Ardis, Cherokee, and Lemon streets, the block on which the Root House originally stood. Marietta quickly rebuilt after the war and by the 1870s, Root’s sons joined him in business. He sold it to John R. Winters in 1884 and retired.
National Register of Historic Places
