University of Michigan - Michiganensian Yearbook (Ann Arbor, MI)

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beaten by a man that could not write. Since then he had no political aspira- tions. His son graduated at this comniencementfl Another of his class- mates writes: f'Waterman was dearly loved by every member of his class, and justly so, as he was the soul of honor and generosity. Our meeting next June will be a sad one for me, as Josh and I at our meeting in '84 were the first in the room and we had great fun in scoring the fellows as they came in. Mr. Waterman was always interested in athletics, and while in college and for years after graduation he was an enthusiastic heavy athlete himself. While a young man in Detroit he organized a gymnasium with some of his friends, and he and his brother were the strongest men of that circle. After graduation Mr. Waterman studied law and in the course of a few years settled in Detroit. He did not practice his profession very long but drifted into lending money on mortgages. This necessitated his traveling all over Michigan by buggy the first few years. Afterwards his business was done in his office. Mr. Waterman married, in 1846, Miss Eliza Davenport, of Bath, New York, whom he had known and had been attached to from-his boyhood. Two sons and a daughter were born from this marriage. Mrs. Waterman died in 1864, and five years later Mr. Waterman married the sister of his former wife, Miss Fanny Davenport. In 1881 Mr. Waterman was left a second time a widower and remained so for the remainder of his life. He continued his interest in athletics, being a member of the Detroit Ath- letic Club, and the founder of the Peninsular Cricket Club in the year 1858, which was disbanded only a year or two ago, and merged into the Detroit Athletic Club. Mr. Waterman was always a friend to young men and many have been helped by him at opportune times. His love of healthful exercise and of manly sports of all kinds accounts for his gift to the University for the purpose of building a gymnasium, though the fact that his family have been graduates of Yale for several generations, makes us, the alumni of the Uni- versity, specially grateful that he was so patriotic as to think in this connec- tion of the noble head of the educational system of his adopted state. This act, too, illustrates tl1e kindliness of his disposition, for he appreciated that the University was in much more need of the money than Yale. In this con- nection I might say that the Detroit alumni have been very much pleased to- understand that the increase of the University's income will allow her to finish this handsome memorial. Mr. Waterman was a philosopher and impressed his intimate friends with his mental and moral strength. None of his actions were for effect, but sprang from conviction or from kindly and generous feeling. He was a close , -12-

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Joshua Whitney Waterman. + OSHUA WHITNEY WATERMAN was born at Binghamton, New York, December 31, 1824. His father was a lawyer of that place and a man well-known and of influence in the state. During the early years of the son's life, when traveling was done mostly by stage-coach and private carriage, the Waterman home was frequently the abiding place for many dis- tinguished meng for tavcrns were poor and scarce and it was customary to entertain one's friends who were traveling, more than is now the case. Joshua was not only brought up in the company of enlightened and refined parents, but was thus more or less familiar with the prominent public characters from his early boyhood. At the age of fourteen years he was sent away from home to a private school, where he was prepared for college. He entered Yale College in 1840, graduating in 1844. That he was a favorite while in college is apparent from the following, which I quote from a. letter I received a short time since from his class secretary. In college his classmates were drawn to him by his manly frankness, his kindly good nature, his intelligence, strong common sense and irrepressible good humor. He was the humorist of the class. He was honored by the college at our commence- ment exercises and spoke onthe topic 'American System of Female Educa- tionlf' Then again from the report of his class reunion of 1874: Waterman was here---the inevitable, the irrepressible Josh-'grey about the head, but green about the heart,' carrying with him the hearty, jovial, good fellowship of olden time. He was on the rampage, when here, for a game of football on the green, and ordered the secretary to provide a ball for the occasion. But when Josh looked out upon the green and saw it thickly studded with maples and elms of thirty years' growth, and considered how poor a chance he would have to make a high strike of the ball among the limbs, he shed a tear, sat down on the state-house steps, smoked a cigar and was comforted. Waterman, when here, was on his way to Europe with his family, expecting to make a tour of some fourteen months. We learn that he is a man of wealth, but of no political ambition. He writes that he has no honorary de- grees, not even a D. D. He did once run for a school committee and was -11..

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student of nature and he had a large fund of choice and interesting informa- tion which he had acquired by observation in the fields and woods and streams. I have not said anything of another phase of his character, namely, his love for books. llc was not only a lover of books but an assiduous and ap- preciative render of hooks, and during his life he collected a library of about ten thousand volumes, which was distinguished by its high literary excellence. He was one of the influential members of a select literary coterie in his early years in Derroil. many of whose members preceded him to that 'undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler retnrnsf After an illness of several months' duration Mr. Waterman himself passed away June 24, 1502. E. T. T., 'T3. HURON RIVER. -13-