Background
Joseph Pomeroy Root, son of John and Lucy (Reynolds) Root, was born in Greenwich, Massachussets His father was descended from John Roote who settled in Farmington, Connecticut, about 1640.
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Joseph Pomeroy Root
Edit Profiledelegate Diplomat Doctor physician political
Education
After his early schooling was completed, he attended the Berkshire Medical College, Pittsfield, Massachussets, graduating in 1850.
Career
He joined the practice of politics to that of medicine, and was elected as a Whig to the Connecticut legislature in 1855. Moved by his social and political convictions to throw himself into the antislavery movement, he joined a company of emigrants (the Beecher Bible and Rifle colony) starting for Kansas in March 1856. He settled at Wyandotte, and at once began an active part in the affairs of the distracted territory. He was chairman of the Free-State Executive Committee, and in August 1857 was elected to the Kansas Senate under the Topeka constitution. He was one of the pioneer corps who located the public road from Topeka to Nebraska City, and he was sent East as an agent to obtain arms and aid for the free-soilers. He contributed editorially to the Wyandotte papers, the Register (1857) and the Gazette (1858). In December 1859 he was elected lieutenant-governor of the new state on the Republican ticket. In 1861 he was chosen one of the officers of the first annual meeting of the Kansas State Temperance Society. During the Civil War he was surgeon of the 2nd Kansas Cavalry (as it was finally designated) and was medical director of the Army of the Frontier. In 1866 he presided over the Republican state convention. On September 15, 1870, President Grant appointed him minister to Chile, an act which recognized his services and at the same time eliminated him from active participation in state politics. He presented his credentials on December 2, 1870, and since diplomatic duties were not pressing, he gave much time to a general interest in Chilean affairs. He traveled extensively. Once he crossed the Andes into Argentina and reported the trip to the Department of State in the form of a treatise on the cause of earthquakes. Later he accompanied the minister of foreign affairs to southern Chile to investigate the Indians. Improvements in transportation fascinated him; he was enthusiastically in favor of an intercontinental railroad, he urged subsidies by the United States to West-Coast steamship lines, and he undertook on his own account to have Chile establish a system of towboats in the Straits of Magellan. Root won great popularity with the Chileans for his efforts during a frightful smallpox epidemic in 1872. He served on the Santiago Board of Health and contributed his services to hospitals and private patients, laboring to improve the sanitary treatment of the disease. In recognition of his work a street in Santiago, the "Calle de Root, " was named for him. He was recalled in June 1873 to make a place for Cornelius Logan. In 1874 he was elected a vice-president of the Temperance Convention which forced the Republican convention to adopt an anti-liquor plank. Governor St. John appointed him surgeon-general of Kansas. In 1876 he published Catechism of Money, advocating greenbackism; in this same year he was named a member of the Chilean Centennial Commission. In 1884 he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention. Except for two years (1877 - 79) when he was on the staff of a sanitarium at Clifton Springs, New York, United States, he lived at Wyandotte until his death. He took a lively interest in the Kansas Historical Society and contributed several manuscript writings to its archives, among them a memoir of his experiences in Kansas in 1856.
Religion
In 1861 he was chosen one of the officers of the first annual meeting of the Kansas State Temperance Society.
Membership
chairman of the Free-State Executive Committee
Connections
In 1851 he moved to New Hartford, Connecticut, and in September married Frances Evaline Alden, by whom he had five sons.
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Born
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Died
July 20, 1885 (aged 59) -
Resting place
Wyandotte, Michigan, United States -
Nationality
American -
Political Party
Republican