Background

George Edwin Waring was born on July 4, 1833 at Pound ridge, N. Y. , the son of George Edwin and Sarah (Burger) Waring and probably a descendant of Jonathan Waring, who came from Tipperary, Ireland, to Huntington, Long Island, in the eighteenth century.

Education

George went to school at College Hill, Poughkeepsie, and subsequently studied agricultural chemistry under James J. Mapes.

Career

The son of a farmer, he first directed his attention to scientific agriculture. In the winter of 1854-55 he gave lectures to farmers in Maine and Vermont, and for the next two years managed Horace Greeley's farm at Chappaqua, N. Y. In 1857 he was appointed drainage engineer of Central Park, New York City, a position he held four years. When the Civil War began, however, he became major of the Garibaldi Guards. He saw service for a short time with the Army of the Potomac and was then sent to St. Louis to recruit troops under Gen. John Charles Frémont. He raised six companies and early in 1862 was made colonel of the 4th Missouri Cavalry, United States Volunteers. He served until 1864, principally in the southwestern part of Missouri. After the war Waring assumed management of the Ogden Farm near Newport, and remained there ten years. He then engaged in the sanitary drainage of houses and towns as a professional expert, attaining considerable success. The deplorably insanitary condition of Memphis, Tenn. , and a series of yellow fever epidemics which culminated in 1878 in a visitation of that disease which cost 5, 150 lives in a population of some 40, 000, provided Waring with an opportunity to exhibit the ingenuity and daring which characterized him. Following the recommendations of a committee of the National Board of Health, of which he was a member, he installed a system of sewers which was unique in several particulars, not the least of which was cheapness. The pipes were much smaller than customary, were for house sewage only, without manholes, well ventilated, and were flushed every twenty-four hours by means of automatic flush tanks. The Memphis sewers were long a subject of controversy among engineers and Waring was compelled by his experience to modify his opinion with regard to some of their features. In 1879 he served as special agent for the Tenth Census, in charge of social statistics of cities. His Report on that subject appeared in 1886. Appointed street-cleaning commissioner of New York City by Mayor William L. Strong, he took office January 15, 1895, and continued therein until January 1, 1898. Waring found the department inefficient, badly equipped, and riddled with politics. His efforts to improve it at first met with public ridicule, but in a short time he raised the organization to a high plane of efficiency and was warmly applauded by the whole city. He introduced the three-part separation of refuse at the household - garbage, ashes, and rubbish - to facilitate final disposition; he bought new carts and horses; and he put the sweepers in white uniforms -"not, " as he said, "to clean dirty streets but to keep clean streets clean"; he insisted on having "a man instead of a voter at the other end of the broom-handle. " In 1898 Waring went to Havana to collect data for a report to the United States government on the measures it was necessary to employ in order to make that city sanitary and free from yellow fever. He contracted yellow fever and died soon after returning to New York City. His report was completed and submitted to President McKinley by his assistant and executor, G. Everett Hill. A memorial service was held in Cooper Union, at which several distinguished persons made addresses.

Achievements

• He was an early American designer and advocate of sewer systems that keep domestic sewage separate from storm runoff. Among his best-known books and pamphlets are The Elements of Agriculture (1854); The Handybook of Husbandry: A Guide for Farmers, Young and Old (1870); Whip and Spur (1875); A Farmer's Vacation (1876); The Sanitary Drainage of Houses and Towns (1876); The Sewerage of Memphis (London, 1881); Report of the Department of Street Cleaning of the City of New York for 1895-'96-'97 (1898); Street Cleaning and the Disposal of a City's Wastes (1897); as well as two delightful volumes entitled The Bride of the Rhine (1878) and Tyrol and the Skirt of the Alps (1880). The sketch entitled "The Garibaldi Guard" in The First Book of the Author's Club: Liber Scriptorum (1893) was written by Waring. An avenue in the North Bronx near Pelham Parkway was named in his honor, Waring Avenue. Memphis has a street named for Waring (Waring Road) running from Walnut Grove Road north to Macon Road at Wells Station Road, going through the Berclair neighborhood.

Works

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  • The Elements of Agriculture: A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools

    (The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, w...)

  • How to Drain a House: Practical Information for Householders

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Street-cleaning, and the Disposal of a City's Wastes: Methods and Results, and the Effect Upon Publi

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • Street-Cleaning

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • Whip And Spur (1875)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • The farmers' and mechanics' manual

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • book

Personality

A permanent memorial to him was created when the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York raised by public subscription $100, 000, the interest on which was to be paid to his widow and daughter during their lifetime. At their death the principal was to be turned over to Columbia University to constitute the Waring Memorial Fund for instruction in municipal affairs.

Connections

He was married three times: first, Feburary 22, 1855, to Euphemia Johnston Blunt; second, December 27, 1865, to Virginia Clark; and third, July 20, 1898, to Mrs. Louise E. Yates, of New Orleans. Waring was a prolific writer.

Father:

George Edwin Warning

Mother:

Sarah (Burger) Waring

Spouse:

Mrs. Louise E. Yates

Spouse:

Virginia Clark

Spouse:

Euphemia Johnston Blunt