In the 1850s, Hannah and William Root shared their home with their children and extended family. Hannah Root’s father, Leonard Simpson, lived with the family and passed away on October 11, 1856. During the month of October, visitors to the William Root House will see the home decorated for mourning as it would have been at the time of Leonard Simpson's death. Curtains will be drawn, and rooms will be adorned with black crepe and ribbons. Special tours will teach visitors about 1850s mourning practices and superstitions about death.
WHAT: Mourning in the 1850s WHEN: The Root House Museum is open Wed.-Sat., 11am-4pm. Special night tours will be offered every Fri. and Sat. night in October from 7pm-10pm, and also Halloween night, Oct. 31. WHERE: William Root House Museum and Garden; 80 N Marietta Parkway, Marietta, GA 30064 INFORMATION: 770-426-4982; roothousemuseum.com/mourning BACKGROUND INFORMATION: During the 1850s, Hannah and William Root shared their home with their children and extended family. Hannah Root’s father, Leonard Simpson, lived with the family and passed away on October 11, 1856. In the 1850s, only those invited would attend a funeral. Special funeral invitations were made with a black border; the width of the border would indicate how closely related the guest was to the deceased. Antebellum parlors were used for guests, family gatherings, and special occasions such as weddings and funerals. During a funeral, the coffin would have been kept in the parlor with the feet of the body facing towards the door. Many of the items in the parlor would have been draped in a black fabric. The fabric, called crepe, was commonly used for funerals because it was inexpensive and had a matte, lusterless surface that was deemed appropriately solemn for mourning. It was also customary to have flowers for a wake. Lilies were the most commonly used flower at this time because, in the “language of flowers,” lilies symbolize purity. In the dining room, some of the furnishings would have been moved around according to need. During a funeral, furniture would have been moved to the side to make room for chairs for the ceremony. Funeral guests would have been seated across the hall from the parlor so they could view the ceremony through the doorways without being too close to the family and the body. They would be permitted to see the body one at a time after the ceremony. A traditional food for funerals was funeral biscuits. These were shortbread cookies made especially for funerals. They would have an image imprinted on the cookie, such as a heart, cherub, winged head, hourglass, or skull. It was customary to serve the funeral biscuits with beer or ale, and they were usually dipped in the ale before being eaten. ABOUT THE WILLIAM ROOT HOUSE MUSEUM AND GARDEN: Owned and operated by Cobb Landmarks and Historical Society, the William Root House Museum and Garden offers an authentic look at life for a middle class Georgia family in 1850s. The simple frame house is more typical of its time and place than the grand plantations and columned mansions people typically imagine when they think of the Old South. Visitors to the museum will learn the story of the house, the Root family, and life in antebellum and Civil War Georgia. Tours include opportunities for visitors to actually handle historic artifacts and to test their skills with various 19th century games. Using electronic tablets, visitors can analyze historic records, family photos, archaeological information, and more. These primary resources help explain how the Root family lived, and how the house has evolved over time. For information about the Root House, hours of operation and admission call 770-426-4982 or visit http://www.roothousemuseum.com/.
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It seems as though the Big Chicken has been around forever. Standing like a beacon on the corner of Cobb Parkway and Roswell Road, the Big Chicken has helped many a weary traveler navigate through Cobb County. When you’re lost in Atlanta, locals may direct you to Peachtree Street (there are over 70 streets in Atlanta with “Peachtree” in their name). When you’re lost in Cobb, making a turn at the Big Chicken will always get you where you need to go. But how did the Big Chicken come to be? Who was responsible for creating this googley-eyed monument to chicken?
The story begins with an Atlanta restaurateur named Stanley Reginald Davis. Known by his friends and family as “Tubby,” he began his career in 1939 when he opened Davis Brothers Cafeteria in a vacant typewriter shop on Luckie Street. Tubby prided himself on providing quality food at competitive prices. His business quickly grew, and Tubby eventually launched several other successful restaurants, including one inside Atlanta’s Piedmont Hotel. In 1956, Tubby came to Marietta and opened a restaurant called Johnny Reb’s Chick, Chuck and Shake. Wanting to capitalize on the north/south traffic on Highway 41, Tubby decided he needed to erect something to attract travelers. He hired Hubert Puckett, a Georgia Tech architecture student, to design a novelty chicken structure over his restaurant. Fabricated by Atlantic Steel, the 56-foot-high chicken was completed in 1963. “I wanted to build it as high as I could to attract customers,” said Tubby. “I had no idea it would become a landmark.” Tubby continued to operate Johnny Reb’s until he sold the business to one of his brothers. The restaurant was taken over by Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) in 1974. At the time, KFC executives (including Colonel Sanders himself) planned to remove the Big Chicken to make the restaurant match their own branding. Persuaded by the Davis family, KFC executives finally decided to keep it. The Big Chicken was safe, and everyone thought it would be preserved forever. But mother nature had other plans. In January 1993, a winter storm blew into Cobb County. The gusts battered the old chicken, and entire sheets of metal were ripped from the structure. When the storm subsided, the chicken stood with gaping holes in her side. Within days engineers were on site to assess the damage. What they found was less than encouraging. The Big Chicken was badly damaged and needed to be completed rebuilt or torn down. KFC had a decision to make: tear down the Big Chicken or spend the $100,000 estimated to rebuild the structure. The answer came down to money, and demolition of the Big Chicken was announced on January 15th. The decision did not go over very well with the people of Marietta. After receiving almost 10,000 phone calls and letters from concerned Mariettans, KFC determined that tearing down the structure was not really an option. On January 27, 1993, KFC Vice President Chuck Rawley announced that the company would “invest up to $200,000 in a new landmark so that the Big Chicken can fly again.” Work quickly began on a new structure, and the restaurant reopened in 1994. Renovated in the spring of 2017, the Big Chicken is one of Marietta’s most popular attractions. The new restaurant features a gift shop and mini museum displaying the history of the Big Chicken and a collection of souvenirs and artwork inspired by the landmark. Many types of plants are grown in the garden at the 1850s William Root House, however, there’s one plant in particular that fascinates visitors young and old. It’s a fairly unassuming vine that climbs the fence and has pretty small white blossoms. But as the summer progresses, the blossoms form into green “puffs” filled with humid air. So now that we have the “puff” part, where’s the love? Inside are small green seeds. As the puffs wither and turn brown, the seeds inside turn black. When the puffs are opened, each black seed has a white heart on it. ❤ Aww, there’s the love.
The Latin name for the plant is cardiospermum halicbabum. Be sure to stop by the museum sometime to check out this interesting plant. It’s prohibited from sale in Georgia, so you likely won’t see it growing many other places than a museum! After being burned by Union troops in 1864, the 1853 Cobb County Courthouse stood in ruins on the Marietta Square for eight years. The charred columns were a constant reminder of Sherman’s March to the Sea. By the 1870s, the time had come for the ruins to be taken down and a new courthouse to be constructed. Architect William Hunt designed a Greek Revival courthouse with oversized doors and windows, a clock tower, and a portico with four Corinthian columns. The new courthouse was completed in 1873.
This courthouse served Cobb County until 1899 when it was extensively remodeled in the Romanesque style. The remodeled courthouse was demolished in 1969. The loss of the old Cobb County Courthouse was one of the factors that led to the formation of Cobb Landmarks and Historical Society in the 1970s. The first library in Marietta was located in the home of Sarah Freeman Clarke, who was responsible for the construction of this building in 1893. Located on the corner of Polk and Church Streets, the library was built on the former site of the 1840s William Root House, which was saved from demolition and moved to make way for the library. The octagonal library was modeled after the reading room at the British Museum in London. The city took over the library in 1936, and continued to operate there until a new library opened in the former Marietta Post Office building in 1963. Cobb Landmarks used the library building as its headquarters in the early 1990s. Today, the historic library houses K. Mike Whittle Designs.
This community schoolhouse was constructed in 1873 on property owned by Mars Hill Presbyterian Church. The schoolhouse was deeded to the Cobb County Board of Education in 1902 and served as a school until 1938. Today, the schoolhouse is used by the Mars Hill Memorial Association. The Association is responsible for maintaining the nearby Mars Hill Cemetery, which was established in 1837.
Want to visit this historic site? Click here for directions. In 1937, Gone With the Wind director George Cukor and interior decorator Hobe Erwin asked Margaret Mitchell to take them to locations that inspired her. She knew she had to bring them to Marietta to see the home of her long-time friend Sallie Camp. When they arrived at Tranquilla (c. 1849), Hobe Erwin began taking notes and making sketches of various architectural details throughout the home. After their visit, Margaret wrote Sallie to say that she wanted George Cukor and Hobe Erwin “to see a home that had beauty and grace and tradition,” and that Tranquilla had “all those things and more.” Margaret went on to write, “I was so anxious for the movie people to see Marietta and Marietta people, for Marietta, to me, is really so beautifully old South.”
Photo by Jim DiVitale This year, the National Park Service announced that Cobb Landmarks and Historical Society’s house museum, the William and Hannah Root House, had been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The National Register provides formal recognition of a place deemed to be of architectural, historical, and/or structural significance. The news of this honor was received with much rejoicing throughout Cobb Landmarks, as it confirmed our long-held view of the importance of this historic structure. The National Register status is the culmination of a process begun in 1991 representing thousands of hours of hands-on restoration work and advocacy.
The Root House, believed to be the oldest frame house in Marietta, was built in 1845 by druggist William Root across from St. James’ Episcopal Church at what is now the corner of Church and Lemon Streets. The house was moved in 1893, around the corner facing Lemon Street, and then again in 1989, when it was donated to Cobb Landmarks and relocated to its present site at Polk Street and the Marietta Loop, to save it from demolition. Since its acquisition by CLHS, the Root House has truly become the flagship property of Cobb Landmarks, providing the only example of a middle-class town house in Marietta before the Civil War. Thousands of visitors every year, many of them school children, are able to have a glimpse into the lives of a typical middle-class family in our town. For many, it is eye-opening to realize that most people did not live at Tara during the antebellum period. The costumed docents at the Root House provide a picture of a way of life that was much more typical of the time than is provided by much of the romantic fiction depicting life in the mid-19th century South. During this year of commemorating the Civil War and its impact on Cobb County, a visit to the Root House to see the Civil War years interpretation of the life of the Root family should be a goal of every citizen of Cobb County who is interested in our history and heritage. Kudos and thanks go to those far-sighted people at Cobb Landmarks who saw the importance of saving this piece of our history for future generations, and thanks to the National Trust for this great honor. |
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