Joe Root (Pennsylvania)
Encyclopedia
Joseph "Joe" Root was a resident who was born in Erie
, Pennsylvania
, USA
. He was considered to be one of America's earliest naturalists. Root's unique talents allowed him to find a virtual buffet on Presque Isle without having to resort to modern day conveniences. Concession stand
s selling hot dog
s and modern restrooms were not available on the peninsula when Root made his permanent residence there.
while still in his adolescent years. As one of the first permanent inhabitants to the peninsula (Presque Isle wasn't declared an official state park until 1921), he built a number of shacks in various parts of the peninsula to suit the particular activity of any given day. There was also a lighthouse
keeper who resided at the park during the late 19th century and he often had his tomatoes swiped by Root. His name was Andrew Jansen and he would serve his time there until 1914 when the Life-Saving Service and the United States Revenue Cutter Service
merged in 1915 to become the United States Coast Guard
.
Root would have built his shack
s out of driftwood
, packing crate
s and anything else that washed up on shore. Fishing
and hunting
would become two of the methods that Root would use to survive the harsh terrain (he would become fond of raw fish in particular). A dead cow
(either from the wild or from a farmer's field) once washed up on the shore of Presque Isle and Root ate the lifeless body for an entire week (without using any implements to either cook or eat the animal). Other foods that made their way into Root's taste buds included: wild cattail
s, duck potato
es, spatterdock
s, rice, blueberries
, dewberries
, and wild strawberries
.
The child
ren of the local area and Root learned to like each other mutually; especially when he was entertaining them with ventriloquism
and stories about his friends. These friends were called the Jee-Bees (alternatively known as either GBs or jeebies); they were highly invisible nature spirits who could accurately predict the weather
. During long winter nights, Root would walk to Erie to spend some time at the local poorhouse
.
Locals could sometimes see him walking on State Street with either a fishing net
or a cane pole.
factory
using the prevailing westerly winds
to transport travelers across state lines to Buffalo
, New York
while another used feather
s from the birds. Financial concerns would ultimately prevent his ideas from becoming a reality even though they were considered to be innocent and harmless.
Root was committed to the Warren State Hospital for the Insane in Warren
, Pennsylvania
on April 14, 1910 after a short stay at an Erie-area poorhouse. This life imprisonment was for an act of violence
that actually made him a victim. People also say it was to make sure that he never received his squatters' rights
. While he was not considered a proper role model for young people even back in his era, Root's role as entertainer provided a much needed morale boost for children who admired his talents.
Erie, Pennsylvania
Erie is a city located in northwestern Pennsylvania in the United States. Named for the lake and the Native American tribe that resided along its southern shore, Erie is the state's fourth-largest city , with a population of 102,000...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. He was considered to be one of America's earliest naturalists. Root's unique talents allowed him to find a virtual buffet on Presque Isle without having to resort to modern day conveniences. Concession stand
Concession stand
A concession stand , snack kiosk or snack bar is the term used to refer to a place where patrons can purchase snacks or food at a cinema, fair, stadium, or other entertainment venue. Some events or venues contract out the right to sell food to third parties...
s selling hot dog
Hot dog
A hot dog is a sausage served in a sliced bun. It is very often garnished with mustard, ketchup, onions, mayonnaise, relish and/or sauerkraut.-History:...
s and modern restrooms were not available on the peninsula when Root made his permanent residence there.
Presque Isle State Park
Root moved away from his childhood home to Presque IslePresque Isle State Park
Presque Isle State Park is a Pennsylvania state park on an arching sandy peninsula that juts into Lake Erie, west of the city of Erie, in Millcreek Township, Erie County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The peninsula sweeps northeastward, surrounding Presque Isle Bay along the park's...
while still in his adolescent years. As one of the first permanent inhabitants to the peninsula (Presque Isle wasn't declared an official state park until 1921), he built a number of shacks in various parts of the peninsula to suit the particular activity of any given day. There was also a lighthouse
Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....
keeper who resided at the park during the late 19th century and he often had his tomatoes swiped by Root. His name was Andrew Jansen and he would serve his time there until 1914 when the Life-Saving Service and the United States Revenue Cutter Service
United States Revenue Cutter Service
The United States Revenue Cutter Service was established by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in 1790 as an armed maritime law enforcement service. Throughout its entire existence the Revenue Cutter Service operated under the authority of the United States Department of the Treasury...
merged in 1915 to become the United States Coast Guard
United States Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency...
.
Root would have built his shack
Shack
A shack is a type of small house, usually in a state of disrepair. The word may derive from the Nahuatl word xacalli or "adobe house" by way of Mexican Spanish xacal/jacal, which has the same meaning as "shack". It was a common usage among people of Mexican ancestry throughout the U.S...
s out of driftwood
Driftwood
Driftwood is wood that has been washed onto a shore or beach of a sea or river by the action of winds, tides, waves or man. It is a form of marine debris or tidewrack....
, packing crate
Crate
A crate is a large shipping container, often made of wood, typically used to transport large, heavy or awkward items. A crate has a self-supporting structure, with or without sheathing. For a wooden container to be a crate, all six of its sides must be put in place to result in the rated strength...
s and anything else that washed up on shore. Fishing
Fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....
and hunting
Hunting
Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...
would become two of the methods that Root would use to survive the harsh terrain (he would become fond of raw fish in particular). A dead cow
Cattle
Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...
(either from the wild or from a farmer's field) once washed up on the shore of Presque Isle and Root ate the lifeless body for an entire week (without using any implements to either cook or eat the animal). Other foods that made their way into Root's taste buds included: wild cattail
Typha
Typha is a genus of about eleven species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. The genus has a largely Northern Hemisphere distribution, but is essentially cosmopolitan, being found in a variety of wetland habitats...
s, duck potato
Sagittaria
Sagittaria is a genus of about 30 species of aquatic plants whose members go by a variety of common names, including arrowhead, duck potato, iz-ze-kn, katniss, kuwai , swan potato, tule potato, and wapato...
es, spatterdock
Nuphar lutea
Nuphar lutea is an aquatic plant of the family Nymphaeaceae, native to temperate regions of Europe, northwest Africa, and western Asia.-Growth:...
s, rice, blueberries
Blueberry
Blueberries are flowering plants of the genus Vaccinium with dark-blue berries and are perennial...
, dewberries
Dewberry
The dewberries are a group of species in the genus Rubus, section Rubus, closely related to the blackberries. They are small trailing brambles with berries reminiscent of the raspberry, but are usually purple to black instead of red.Dewberries are common throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere,...
, and wild strawberries
Strawberry
Fragaria is a genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, commonly known as strawberries for their edible fruits. Although it is commonly thought that strawberries get their name from straw being used as a mulch in cultivating the plants, the etymology of the word is uncertain. There...
.
The child
Child
Biologically, a child is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. Some vernacular definitions of a child include the fetus, as being an unborn child. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority...
ren of the local area and Root learned to like each other mutually; especially when he was entertaining them with ventriloquism
Ventriloquism
Ventriloquism, or ventriloquy, is an act of stagecraft in which a person manipulates his or her voice so that it appears that the voice is coming from elsewhere, usually a puppeteered "dummy"...
and stories about his friends. These friends were called the Jee-Bees (alternatively known as either GBs or jeebies); they were highly invisible nature spirits who could accurately predict the weather
Weather
Weather is the state of the atmosphere, to the degree that it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate...
. During long winter nights, Root would walk to Erie to spend some time at the local poorhouse
Poorhouse
A poorhouse or workhouse was a government-run facility in the past for the support and housing of dependent or needy persons, typically run by a local government entity such as a county or municipality....
.
Locals could sometimes see him walking on State Street with either a fishing net
Fishing net
A fishing net or fishnet is a net that is used for fishing. Fishing nets are meshes usually formed by knotting a relatively thin thread. Modern nets are usually made of artificial polyamides like nylon, although nets of organic polyamides such as wool or silk thread were common until recently and...
or a cane pole.
Business ideas and later life
One of his business ideas was to build a balloonBalloon
A balloon is an inflatable flexible bag filled with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, or air. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as rubber, latex, polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, while some early balloons were made of dried animal bladders, such as the pig...
factory
Factory
A factory or manufacturing plant is an industrial building where laborers manufacture goods or supervise machines processing one product into another. Most modern factories have large warehouses or warehouse-like facilities that contain heavy equipment used for assembly line production...
using the prevailing westerly winds
Westerlies
The Westerlies, anti-trades, or Prevailing Westerlies, are the prevailing winds in the middle latitudes between 30 and 60 degrees latitude, blowing from the high pressure area in the horse latitudes towards the poles. These prevailing winds blow from the west to the east, and steer extratropical...
to transport travelers across state lines to Buffalo
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
while another used feather
Feather
Feathers are one of the epidermal growths that form the distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on birds and some non-avian theropod dinosaurs. They are considered the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates, and indeed a premier example of a complex evolutionary novelty. They...
s from the birds. Financial concerns would ultimately prevent his ideas from becoming a reality even though they were considered to be innocent and harmless.
Root was committed to the Warren State Hospital for the Insane in Warren
Warren, Pennsylvania
Warren is a city in Warren County, Pennsylvania, United States, located along the Allegheny River. The population was 9,710 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Warren County. It is home to the headquarters of the Allegheny National Forest and the Cornplanter State Forest...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
on April 14, 1910 after a short stay at an Erie-area poorhouse. This life imprisonment was for an act of violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
that actually made him a victim. People also say it was to make sure that he never received his squatters' rights
Adverse possession
Adverse possession is a process by which premises can change ownership. It is a common law concept concerning the title to real property . By adverse possession, title to another's real property can be acquired without compensation, by holding the property in a manner that conflicts with the true...
. While he was not considered a proper role model for young people even back in his era, Root's role as entertainer provided a much needed morale boost for children who admired his talents.