Early Years and Education
John Wellborn Root was born in 1850 in Lumpkin, Georgia, the son of Sidney Root, a planter, and his wife, Mary H. Clark. He was named after a maternal uncle, Marshall Johnson Wellborn. Root was raised in Atlanta, where he was first educated at home. When Atlanta fell to the Union during the American Civil War, Root's father sent young Root and two other boys on a steamer to England, while his mother and sister went to Cuthburt, Georgia. John's father, Sidney, had a shipping business based in Liverpool, England.
While in Liverpool, Root studied at Clare Mount School. His later design work was said to have been influenced by the pioneering work of Liverpool architect Peter Ellis, who designed and built the world's first two metal-framed, glass curtain-walled buildings, Oriel Chambers (1864) and 16 Cook Street (1866).
After Root returned to the U.S., he earned an undergraduate degree from New York University in 1869. After graduation, he took a job with the architect James Renwick, Jr. of Renwick and Sands of New York as an unpaid apprentice. Later he took a position with John Butler Snook in New York. While working for Snook, Root was a construction supervisor on Warren and Wetmore's Grand Central Terminal. Root was greatly influenced by the architecture of Henry Hobson Richardson.
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