My Genealogy Hound

JOHN A. WATERHOUSE, M.D., a successful physician not now in active practice and one of the progressive, enterprising citizens of Fredonia, was born at Pittsfield, Warren county, Pennsylvania, August 28, 1854, and is a son of Russell and Laura (Ford) Waterhouse. Russell Waterhouse comes of English-Quaker stock and is a cousin of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the hero of Lake Erie. He is a native of New York, which he left in 1839 to become one of the pioneer lumbermen of Warren county, Pa., where he was continuously and successfully engaged in business until 1888, when he removed to Fredonia. He married Laura Ford, who is a native of Pennsylvania, and their three sons are physicians. Their children are: Dr. H. M., of Dunkirk; Drs. Thomas W. and John A., of Fredonia; and Maud, wife of Rush Abbott, a prominent and leading lawyer or Tiffin, Ohio.

John A. Waterhouse received his education principally at the Fredonia Normal school and from 1870 to 1874 was engaged in teaching in the public schools of New York and Pennsylvania. In 1874 he went to Portage, Wisconsin, where he commenced the study of medicine with his uncle, Dr. Marvin Waterhouse. After completing the required course of reading he entered the Eclectic Medical Institute, of Cincinnati, Ohio, from which he was graduated in 1879. Immediately after graduation he established himself at Bay City, Michigan, where he conducted a good practice until 1884, when he removed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, as a wider field for the practice of his profession, but at the close of one year on account of ill health, left a finely established practice to come to Fredonia. He soon grew into a good practice but on account of ill health he was compelled to retire from the active pursuit of his chosen profession. While at Bay City he founded the American Hospital Company whose object was to provide houses and proper care for the lumber workers in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota and did one hundred thousand dollars worth of business in 1882. Dr. Waterhouse is a republican in politics.

On June 4, 1879, he married, in Detroit, Michigan, Rose Kimball, daughter of Edward Kimball, of Puritan stock and a native of Fredonia. Their union has been blessed with three children: John, Edward and Rose.

For the last four years Dr. Waterhouse has been engaged in the oil business in Pennsylvania where he now owns eight thousand acres of oil land which is nearly all developed and which yields an annual income of about forty thousand dollars. The magnitude of the important business in which he is a successful operator is scarcely realized by the public, although many millions of capital are invested in the development of these oil fields whose wells produce yearly hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil. Two years ago Dr. Waterhouse erected his present neat, tasteful and convenient residence, on Central avenue, where he and Mrs. Waterhouse are always happy to welcome their many friends.