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Permanent LinkSenator Harrison Lyman Waterman View All Years
HARRISON LYMAN WATERMAN was born at Corydon, New Hampshire, November 19, 1840, and died at Ottumwa, Iowa, May 21, 1918. When he was six years old his father died and he lived with an uncle at Orange, Vermont, for eight years. At fourteen years of age he returned to New Hampshire, going to Claremont where he worked on a farm three years, attending school in the winters. In 1858 he went to California by way of the Isthmus. He remained there three years, doing farm work and teaching school. He returned east in 1861, traveling on horseback from Sacramento to Omaha and by stagecoach from Omaha to Eddyville, the most western point of railroad then. He then spent about two years in the scientific department of Harvard University, and was graduated with the degree of S. B. He enlisted in September, 1862, in the Forty-seventh Massachusetts infantry and served one year. In 1864 he was commissioned second lieutenant, First New York Volunteer Engineers, and was promoted to first lieutenant. He came to Iowa the fall of 1865 and for four years was a civil engineer with the Burlington railroad. In 1870 he located at Ottumwa. He became vice president and general manager of the Wapello Coal Company and in 1884 was put in charge of the coal interests of the Burlington railroad, and remained such until his death. He was mayor of Ottumwa from 1880 to 1884, and was elected senator from Wapello County in 1893 and served in the Twenty-fifth, Twenty-sixth and Twenty-sixth extra general assemblies. In the Twenty-sixth he was chairman of the Appropriations Committee. On February 13, 1900, Governor Shaw appointed him as a member of the Board of Control, but he declined. He was connected with many large business enterprises in Ottumwa.