By Larry Felton Johnson

The William Root House is a landmark in Marietta, an antebellum house near Marietta Square, built by druggist and merchant William Root. Root moved to Marietta from Philadelphia in 1939, and built his house in 1845.

I often delve into the collection of 19th-century newspapers, digitized at the Georgia Historic Newspapers website, which is housed at the University of Georgia.

You can learn a lot about what William Root sold by looking over the ads he ran in Marietta newspapers. His products ranged from hardware to miracle cures.

While the hardware ads are informative about what life was like in the first half of the 19th century, the pharmaceutical ads are both enlightening and entertaining. They shed light on the state of medicine and the pharmacy trade of that era.

The following two ads are from the June 17, 1847, issue of the Marietta Helicon, one of the first newspapers in Cobb County.

Here’s the first one, with a long list of miracle cures offered in Root’s drug store.

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Important to the Afflicted!

It is of great importance that the afflicted should know, when a medicine is recommended to them, where to get the genuine article, as counterfeits are generally worthless and frequently very injurious, besides costing as much as the genuine. Taking these things into consideration, I have secured the agency for the sale of the following very valuable medicines:

• Moffat’s Life Pills and Phoenix Bitters
• McAlister’s All-Healing Ointment
• Wistar’s Balsam of Wild Cherry
• Bronson’s Pulmonary Elixir
• Champion’s Pills and Vermifuge
• Tyler’s Fever and Ague Pills
• Western Tonic for Fever and Ague
• Brandreth’s Pills
• Wright’s Indian Vegetable Pills
• Sand’s Sarsaparilla
• Peter’s Pills and Lozenges
• Pile Specific, a certain cure for piles
• Hay’s Liniment for Piles
• Godbold’s Pain Extractor
• Jayne’s Tonic Vermifuge
• McAlister’s Hair Oil
• Jayne’s Hair Tonic
• Swayne’s Syrup of Wild Cherry
• Jayne’s Carminative Balsam
• Indian Dyspepsia Pills
• Hunter’s Pulmonary Balsam
• Jayne’s Expectorant
• Jayne’s Alterative
• Jayne’s Sanative Pills
• Hooper’s Female Pills
• Dr. Beach’s Medicines

In addition to the above, I still keep on hand a great variety of other medicines, paints, oils, window glass, and a greater variety of dye stuffs than anyone else in the place.

Remember, to find the genuine medicines above named, call on the only agent in Marietta.

WILLIAM ROOT
May 13

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And if that weren’t enough, on the same page, Root also ran an ad for a cherry cough syrup that the creator of the magical elixir promised would cure bronchitis and consumption (tuberculosis). While I don’t doubt that the cough syrup might have relieved the minor symptoms of the common cold (cough, sore throat), extending that claim to bronchitis and tuberculosis is questionable, to put it charitably. Here’s the text of the ad:

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Dr. Swayne’s Compound Syrup of Cherry

This medicine has now been before the public some eight years and is the original preparation from the Wild Cherry tree. Its reputation as a remedy for coughs, colds, bronchitis, and consumption of the lungs—based entirely upon its intrinsic merits—owes but little to inflated newspaper puffs.

Those who give it a trial, being benefited by it, recommend it to their neighbors, and thus gradually and surely it has gained an enviable reputation and worked its way into general use. One bottle never fails to cure a recent cough or cold. With strict attention to the directions that accompany each bottle, its use in pulmonary diseases of long standing and of the most alarming character has always given relief, and in very many instances has effected complete and permanent cures.

Prepared only by Dr. Swayne, N.W. corner of Eighth and Race Streets, Philadelphia, and for sale by respectable druggists in nearly all the principal towns in the United States.

For sale by William Root, agent for Marietta; Dr. P. M. Cohen, Charleston; J. E. Marshall, Augusta; and by dealers in medicine generally.

May 20 – 32-3m

About Georgia Historic Newspapers

Georgia Historic Newspapers is a part of the GALILEO project and is housed at the University of Georgia. It’s an amazing resource for anyone with an interest in the history of Georgia and its regions.

According to the “About” page on its website:

The Georgia Historic Newspapers Archive is a project of the Digital Library of Georgia (DLG), a part of Georgia’s Virtual Library GALILEO and is based at the University of Georgia Libraries. Since 2007, the DLG has partnered with universities, archives, public libraries, historical societies, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions to digitize historical newspapers from around the state. The archive is free and open for public use and includes over two million Georgia newspaper pages between 1763 and 2021.

Newspaper titles are regularly digitized and added to the archive. If you are interested in including a particular title, you can visit our participation page. A majority of the newspapers on this site were digitized from the microfilm produced by the Georgia Newspaper Project (GNP). For more information about the microfilm available through the GNP, please visit their website.