One of the oldest homes in the Atlanta area, the Root House is more typical of its time and place than the columned mansions popularized by Gone With the Wind. Though the home and grounds have been meticulously restored to their 1860 appearance, modern touchscreens and interactive displays have been added to help tell the story of the Root family and their enslaved house servants.
William was one of Marietta’s earliest merchants and its first druggist. Born in Philadelphia in 1815, William moved to Marietta in August 1839 to open a drug/mercantile store on the Marietta Square. William would have likely used many herbs from his personal garden in his pharmacy. The gardens at the William Root House have been reconstructed to reflect the gardening practices of the mid-19th century. All of the vegetables, herbs, fruit trees, decorative flowers, and blooming shrubs found in the garden today were researched for availability in Georgia during the 1860s.
