funds needed for garden enhancements

A courtyard is situated between the Root House and the Manning Family Cabin. The cabin is used to help tell the stories of the enslaved individuals who labored at the Root House property and would have lived in a similar cabin. Cobb Landmarks is currently seeking funds to transform this courtyard space. The new courtyard design includes a sculpture created in collaboration with Kennesaw State University’s School of Art and Design. The sculpture will honor the hundreds of enslaved people living in Marietta prior to the end of the Civil War whose names were not recorded and are now lost to time. Other improvements include new plants, garden lights, and outdoor seating for museum guests. 

Cobb Landmarks hopes to raise $10,000 for this project. Funds raised beyond that amount will be used to expand the scope of the project to include the addition of on-site interpretive signage and other site improvements. If you would like to support this project, please donate below.

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This rendering shows the placement of the statue in the courtyard area.

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​The Sculpture

For the sculpture project, KSU students used state-of-the-art scanning technology to 3D scan living history interpreter Misha Harp. This scan was then used to print a maquette of the sculpture (pictured) using a 3D printer. The maquette will help inform sculptors as they craft the full-size sculpture.

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Press

WABE - The William Root House In Marietta Creates A New Sculpture To Honor Enslaved Individuals Of The Area, March 26, 2021
Atlanta Journal Constitution - Root House Museum Seeks to Raise $10K to Remodel Garden, March 2, 2021
Marietta Daily Journal - William Root House Museum seeks funds for garden enhancements, March 2, 2021

About the Root House Gardens

The Root House was built circa 1845 for Hannah and William Root, early settlers of Marietta. 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. Homes like the Root House typically had three distinct gardens: an ornamental garden in front of the house with flowers and shrubs, a kitchen garden near the cookhouse with  culinary and medicinal herbs, and a vegetable garden at the back of the property.

Since 1990, the Master Gardener Volunteers of Cobb County have managed the Root House gardens as one of their many and varied gardening projects. Dedicated volunteer gardeners spend countless hours each year working in the Root House gardens to demonstrate to visitors the importance of heirloom gardening.
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