Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/418

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388
WATERTON
WATKINS

years in Cambridge, was ordained in 1839, and was pastor of various churches in Boston. For five years he had charge of a sailors' Sunday-school. He has been engaged in various benevolent, educa- tional, and literary associations. He has published "Thoughts on Moral and Spiritual Culture" (Bos- ton, 1842) ; " Arthur Lee and Tom Palmer " (1845) ; and addresses on Thomas Sherwin and William Cullen Bryant. — His wife, Anna C. Quincy, the daughter of Josiah Quincv, has published " Verses by A. C. Q. W." (Boston. 1863).


WATERTON, Charles, English naturalist, b. at Walton Hall, near Wakefield, Yorkshire. England, 3 June, 1782 ; d. there, 27 May, 1865. He was of an old Roman Catholic family, from Lincolnshire, and through his grandmother was descended from Sir Thomas More. He was educated first at a school at Tudhoe, near Durham, and then at the Jesuit college at Stonyhurst, in Lancashire. In boyhood he displayed greater fondness for open- air observations of natural history than for books. Shortly after attaining his majority he visited Spain, where some of the Waterton family were in business. In 1804 he went to Uemerara to super- intend the estates of an uncle, and travelled through the interior of the country, noting its fauna, flora, and scenery. On the death of his father he gave up the management of these estates and returned to England, but only for a short time; so that, for twenty years from his first going to Demerara in 1804 till 1824, with the exception of a few visits to his ancestral home, he rambled about in South America, having no other object than the pursuit of natural history. Although not distinguished as a scientific man, he is well known as a good and enthusiastic field-naturalist, while his vivid and spirited style of writing has rendered his narratives popular. Waterton was eccentric and abstemious. He was noted as a skilful taxidermist, and his ornitho- logical collection at Walton Hall was almost un- rivalled. During the latter part of his life, settling in his ancestral home, which was on a small island in the midst of fine scenery, he surrounded him- self with the creatures and pets he loved. He for- bade the use of fire-arms on his grounds, so that they became the chosen haunt of many rare and shy birds and animals, and, to discourage poachers, he placed ingenious wooden images of game-birds in his trees. His adventures in South America, often daring, are graphically described in his "Wanderings in South America, the Northwest of the United States, and the Antilles, in 1812, 1816, 1820, and 1824; with Original Instructions for the Preservation of Birds, etc., for Cabinets of Natural History" (London, 1825). The frequent journeys that he afterward made to Belgium and Italy, with his home-life at Walton Hall, are described in the autobiography prefixed to his " Essays on Natural History, chiefly Ornithology" (3 vols., 1838-'44; new ed., with a continuation of the life, by Norman Moore, based entirely upon autobiographical notes, 1871). See also a life of him entitled " Charles Waterton, his Home, Habits, and Handiwork," by Richard Hobson, M. D. (1866).


WATIE, Stand, soldier, b. in Cherokee, Ga. (the site of the present city of Rome), in 1815 ; d. in August, 1877. He was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian, was educated at the mission schools in the Indian country, served as a member of the Chero- kee legislative council, and was speaker of the lower house from 1862 till 1865. He became colonel of the 1st Cherokee Confederate infantry regiment in October, 1861, and was promoted briga- dier-general in the Confederate army on 10 May, 1864. His brigade was composed of the 1st and 2d Cherokee regiments of infantry, a Cherokee bat- talion of infantry, and a battalion each of Seminole and Osage Indians. He was a younger brother of Elias Boudinot and nephew of Maj. Ridge, who were assassinated in the Cherokee nation in 1839. WATKINS, Louis Douglas, soldier, b. in Flori- da about 1835 ; d. in Baton Rouge, La., 29 March, 1868. He joined the U. S. army as 1st lieutenant, 14th infantry. 14 May, 1861, was transferred to the 5th cavalry, 22 June, 1861, and became captain, 17 July, 1862, and colonel of the 20th infantry, 28 July, 1866. He received the brevets of major, 8 Jan., 1863, for gallant service in the expedition to east Tennessee under Gen. Samuel P. Carter, lieu- tenant-colonel, 24 June, 1864. for service at La- fayette, and that of brigadier-general, 13 March, 1865. He was mustered out on 1 Sept., 1866.


WATKINS, Samuel, donor, b. in Campbell county, Va., in 1794; d. in Nashville, Tenn., 16 Oct., 1880. His parents died in his infancy, and he was bound to a Scotch family, whose cruelty to him attracted attention, and, owing to this, the county court placed him with the family of James Robertson, upon whose plantation he labored for several years. He then joined the U. S. army, served in the war against the Creek nation under Gen. Andrew Jackson, and was also at the battle of New Orleans. When peace was declared he re- turned to Nashville and became a brick-mason, pursuing this craft until 1827, when he began to erect houses and churches, among which were the 1st Baptist church and the 2d Presbyterian church in Nashville. During the civil war his farm of 600 acres was the battle-field of Nashville, his city buildings were destroyed, and his mansion was sacked and robbed, his loss amounting to $300,000. After the civil war he engaged in banking, manu- facturing, and building, and dealt in real estate, was president of the Nashville gas-light company, and acquired a fortune. He bequeathed $130,000 for the establishment of a polytechnic institution in Nashville, which was erected there in 1882. Mr. Watkins made liberal provision for courses of free public lectures, and also classes in mathematics for those who could not attend colleges and schools.


WATKINS, Tobias, physician, b. in Maryland in 1780; d. in Washington, D. G, 14 Nov., 1855. He was graduated at St. John's college, Annapolis, in 1798, and at the Philadelphia medical college in 1802, and began practice in Havre de Grace, Md. Afterward he removed to Baltimore, where he edited the "Medical and Physical Recorder" in 1809. He was surgeon in the army during the war of 1812— '15, and was assistant surgeon-general of the United States in 1818-'21, and fourth auditor of the U. S. treasury in 1824-'9. With his brother- in-law, Stephen Simpson, Dr. Watkins edited in Philadelphia the " Portico " (4 vols., 1816-'20). He contributed to periodicals, and translated from the French Xavier Bichat's " Physiological Researches upon Life and Death " (Philadelphia, 1809), and Louis de Onis's "Memoir upon the Negotiations between Spain and the United States which led to the Treaty of 1819 " (Baltimore, 1822).


WATKINS, William Brown, philologist, b. in Bridgeport, Belmont co., Ohio, 2 May, 1834. At an early age he removed to Wheeling, Va., where he received a public-school education and began the study of law, but abandoned it to enter the Pittsburg conference of the Methodist Episcopal church. From 1868 till 1872 he was presiding elder at Steubenville, Ohio, after which he was stationed in Pittsburg for nine years. He was a delegate to the general conference of the Methodist Episcopal church in 1888, and has delivered many