Sylvester Waterhouse was an American educator, publicist, and civic leader.
Background
Sylvester Waterhouse was born in Barrington, N. H. , the ninth and last child of Dolla (Kingman) and Samuel Ham Waterhouse, a carpenter whose family entered the colonies in 1669 through Richard Waterhouse, tanner and occupant of Pierce's Island near Portsmouth, N. H. A distinguished member of the family was Benjamin Waterhouse, Harvard medical professor. When he was nine Waterhouse's right leg was amputated as the result of an accident, and while he was still small another injury cost him his left eye.
Education
The misfortunes decided him on a life of scholarship. Preparing himself at Phillips Exeter Academy, he entered Dartmouth in March 1851 and the following autumn enrolled in Harvard College, where he distinguished himself in Greek composition and graduated in 1853 with honors. He spent the next two years in the Harvard Law School, from which he received the degree of LL. B. in 1857.
Career
He was acting professor of Latin at Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio (1856 - 57), and instructor in Greek (1857 - 64), professor of Greek (1864 - 68), and Collier Professor of Greek (1868 - 1901) in Washington University, St. Louis, Mo. , holding a chair endowed by four of his former students "in grateful recognition" of his "fidelity, learning and ability. " An authority on Greek roots, he held this chair until impaired health forced him to retire in 1901 as professor emeritus. He was United States commissioner to the Paris exposition of 1878, honorary commissioner to the New Orleans world's fair (1884), and Missouri commissioner to the American exposition in London (1887). He was also greatly interested in the proposed Nicaragua canal. He was a member of the Missouri bureau of geology and mines, secretary of the St. Louis board of trade, and secretary of the American Tariff League for Missouri. Upwards of a hundred of his numerous addresses and newspaper articles were published in pamphlets, many in German, French, and Spanish translations. One called The Resources of Missouri (1867) was used widely by the state board of immigration to acquaint prospective residents with Missouri. Other pamphlets discussed iron manufacturing, reforestation, trade with Brazil, city parks, western railroads, removal of the national capital, and a barge system on the inland waterways. Waterhouse also wrote on the early history of St. Louis for J. T. Scharf's History of St. Louis City and County, and contributed to Hyde and Conard's Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis. A third serious injury befell him in 1867 when a fall from a carriage brought on a painful spinal trouble. He died of apoplexy following an operation in a St. Louis hospital in his seventy-second year. His body was cremated and the ashes were laid in Pine Hill Cemetery, Dover, N. H. He lived frugally in meager quarters, but he left an estate of approximately $172, 000, accumulated through sagacious investments. His last weeks he spent among his letters, rereading messages from Emerson, Lowell, Longfellow, Agassiz, Wendell Phillips, and other literary personages who were his friends.
