Book Description

Pulling Up Roots: Book One follows a remarkable line of descent of Edmund Rootes, an educated gentleman who died penniless on September 13, 1613 in Ashford, England, leaving his young family in desperate financial circumstances. The Rootes family suffered but persevered. In 1635, Edmund’s three sons, Puritans, after enduring years of religious oppression, left England for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Upon their arrival in America, the Rootes boys settled in Salem, then more shantytown than village. Over the next fifty years, Salem grew into a commercially important seaport—and a troubled community that would become forever infamous for its witch trials and public executions in 1692. Among those falsely accused and cruelly punished was elderly Susannah Rootes. By the end of the 17th century, the Rootes family had uprooted again, moving away from Massachusetts, first to Connecticut and then on to the wilderness of Vermont. The Rootes family story provides a unique look at the evolution of America from a fragile English outpost to an independent nation—seen from the perspective of one family compelled by circumstances and chance to continue moving on and experiencing more of the young and growing country. A family history—particularly one going back centuries—faces the difficult task of telling the stories of people who are now largely unknowable. This book begins with Edmund Rootes. Who was he really? What was he like? Kind or callous? Good-natured or sullen? Handsome or hideous? We cannot know. But we can draw inferences by learning more about what these long-gone people experienced. By examining shreds of evidence from aged records and linking them with the sweep history, the dead gradually come into focus. Christopher Eiben is a writer and historical researcher who lives in Cleveland, Ohio.