Catherine R. Root House (1870)

The Italianate house at 105 High Street in Bristol was the home of Catharine R. Root. A school teacher in her youth, Catherine Roberts married Joel Henry Root in 1852. According to Bristol, Connecticut: “In the Olden Time New Cambridge” (1907), in 1859 Mr. and Mrs. Root moved into their house on High Street “where they have lived ever since and which was one of the very first houses to be built on that street.” This is probably the house 105 High Street, which is listed in the Federal Hill Historic District nomination as the “Catharine R. Root House” built c. 1870. Joel H. Root (died 1885) was a successful industrialist, who built a factory on Root’s Island that produced piano hardware and brass butt hinges. His son, Charles J. Root (1858-1907), continued the business and engaged in others, including real estate. On August 20, 1907, a car accident took the lives of Charles J. Root and his mother Catharine R. Root. As described in the Bristol Press (and reprinted in the 1907 history quoted above):

No happier party, comprising Charles Root, his mother, Catherine R. Root [who was eighty years old at the time], Miss Mary P. Root [his sister], Miss Candace Roberts [his aunt] and Miss Catherine Root, a fourteen years old niece [daughter of Theodore Root], left Bristol last Sunday, Aug. 18, 1907, and not many people enjoyed automobile riding so much as these people.
[. . .]

The party left here soon after nine o’clock Sunday morning. Mr. Root and Miss Roberts occupied the front seat of the big Stanley steam touring car. The other three were on the rear seat. The route led through Torrington and Norfolk which was reached about noon. From there the route was to Ashley Falls in Massachusetts. Near the Ashley Falls station the fine, hard highway runs parallel with the railroad tracks for perhaps a mile and is only a few feet distant. While the Root automobile was speeding along this road an overdue express train came in sight at terrific speed. The highway crosses the track at an abrupt angle. Express train and auto reached the fatal crossing almost at the same moment. Just how it happened can never be known but the automobile struck the train, probably the baggage car, a glancing blow and was instantaneously and completely wrecked. The occupants were hurled out with awful force, apparently striking their heads against the train, and were then carried some distance. All were frightfully mangled. Mr. Root and Miss Roberts were killed instantly. Mrs. Root had her skull fractured and died while being taken to Great Barrington. Miss Root had her skull fractured and her right shoulder crushed. She was removed to the House of Mercy in Pittsfield.

The only one to escape was Miss Catherine Root, and the manner in which she came through the crash is little short of miraculous. She was buried beneath the wreckage of the machine which for some unaccountable reason did not take fire. She was taken to the home of a friend in Great Barrington. She was dazed but appeared not to be seriously hurt, and was brought to the home of her parents, here, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Root, on Monday.

Unfortunately, the young Miss Catherine Root died less than a year-and-a-half later, at Miss C. E. Mason’s School, The Castle, in Tarrytown, New York. As related in the Utica Herald-Dispatch on January 6, 1909:

While apparently only slightly injured at the time of the incident, Miss Root had suffered with convulsions since that time. Recently her health had been improving and she returned Monday from spending the holidays at her home and seemed in better health than ever.

Yesterday Miss Root had an attack and fell to the floor, striking her head on the edge of a box in her room. A trained nurse who stays at the school hurried to her assistance and Dr. Coulant, who lives Just outside the school grounds, was called in, but the young lady died of a hemorrhage of the brain before he arrived.