The Roots of the Root House

See the two houses above? They are the same house - if I interpreted the below page out of MARIETTA - THEN & NOW right. The house is the oldest house standing in Marietta. It was built by a pharmacist Doctor Root in the mid 1830s, shortly after the white man could move to Cobb County.

I took the picture of it in a neighborhood in the 1980s or early 1990s, after either my mother or father told me that is where she (mother) lived before she married my father. When I took a picture of it, it was on Lemon Street. The other picture, as a landmark and historical piece of work, I took the picture after the house was moved to the Marietta Loop, at the corner of Polk Street.



In the book MARIETTA - THEN & NOW* by Joe Kirby and Damien A. Guarnieri, a picture of the house is on Lemon Street – the same picture I took, and it tells of it being built on Lemon Street by Marietta's first druggist Doctor William Root and recently moved to its present location.

There are some structural differences in the house from one place to another: The chimney appears in one to be on the edge of the roof and the other, more in from the edge, and one has an center eve and the other one doesn’t. Oh well, I guess the hammer and crowbar did some adjustments for appearances sake.

Mama came to Marietta from Murray County, Georgia, to work in a mill. Her father had recently died and she had to work and send money home. I am not sure if her sisters came with her or shortly afterwards. They lived in two houses during Mama and Daddy’s courtship. One was on Washington Avenue across from the National Cemetery and the other one was on Lemon Street.

What I didn’t know was the house on Lemon Street was the oldest standing house in Marietta. Now, it is a museum – or a sort.

My mother lived in the oldest house in Marietta that one day would become a history museum and a landmark building for the Cobb County Landmarks Association.

How is that for a “claim to fame”? Surely that comes with some bragging rights, right?

*excellent book about Marietta, its history and its growth.