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"Spokane and The Spokane Country - Pictorial and Biographical - Deluxe Supplement." Vol. II. The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1912. (No author listed.) pgs. 57-60.
On the list of Spokane's physicians there probably appears the name of
no other who has been so long an active representative of the medical
profession in this state as Dr. Leonard P. Waterhouse, a pioneer of 1877. He
was born in Syracuse, New York, in 1832, and after passing his first decade in
that city accompanied his parents to Indiana, where he remained for more than
a third of a century or until 1876. He supplemented his public school
education by study in the La Grange Collegiate Institute, from which he was
graduated when seventeen years of age. Subsequently he studied medicine for
two years and then pursued a course in the University of Michigan. After
teaching school for a time with a view to securing money with which to
complete his medical education, he went to Cincinnati and there won his
professional degree in 1855. He located for practice in Indiana, where he
remained for a number of years, and then crossed the plains to the northwest
with Oregon as his destination. For nearly three years he engaged in practice
in that state and in 1877 arrived in Spokane, then a small village containing
less than two hundred inhabitants. He subsequently took up land on Deep creek
near the falls and in 1884 removed to Deep Creek Falls, where he only engaged
actively in practice but also conducted a drug store. About 1906 he became a
resident of Reardan but after a brief period established his home in Spokane,
where he has since been located. He is one of the earliest of the pioneer
physicians in his county and one of its best known and most highly esteemed
citizens. Throughout all the years he has kept in close touch with the
scientific truths which medical research and investigation are bringing to
light and he aided in organizing the first medical society in the county.
In Michigan in 1855 Dr. Waterhouse was united in marriage to Miss
Margaret John and unto them were born a daughter and two sons: Amarilla, who
was for three terms teacher of Spokane's first school and is now the wife of
L.K. Boissonnault, customs collector at Everett, Washington; Frank Leslie,
deceased; and Charles Leonard.
In his fraternal relations Dr. Waterhouse is connected with both the
Masons and the Odd Fellows. His political allegiance has always been given to
the democratic party and he was the first coroner ever elected in the county,
his faithful service being indicated by the fact that he was reelected for a
second term. He belongs to that class of representative men who brought to
the west the learning and culture of the older east and intelligently met the
conditions that were here found, utilizing them to the best advantage not only
in the attainment of individual success but also in the upbuilding of the
great western empire, which within the space of a few years was placed upon a
par with the east.
Submitted by: Nancy Pratt Melton
* * * * Notice: These biographies were transcribed for the Washington Biographies Project. Unless otherwise stated, no further information is available on the individuals featured in the biographies.