Introduction

Biography

Charles was the son of Hez­e­ki­ah Root and Ma­ria Jencks. He mar­ried twice, to An­nie Eli­za At­chin­son (1869) and Ge­nev­ra B. Mc­Lean (1881) .

He re­ceived his ear­ly edu­ca­tion in Lud­low. In part­ner­ship with his fa­ther, he ran a gen­e­ral store there for se­ver­al years. Af­ter they sold out, Charles be­came a tra­vel­ing sales­man, for which he seemed es­pe­cial­ly gift­ed, and which he re­mained through­out the ac­tive years of his life.

The 1871–72 city di­rec­to­ry of Spring­field, Mas­sa­chu­setts, stat­ed Root was in the choir of the First Con­gre­ga­tion­al Church. In 1880, he moved from Lud­low to Bos­ton, Mas­sa­chu­setts, and was a so­lo­ist in some of the lead­ing choirs of the ci­ty.