Henry Watterson

Born in Washington, D.C., on February 16, 1840, to the former Tilithacumi (Talitha) Black of Spring Hill, Tennessee and her husband, Harvey Magee Watterson, a Shelbyville, Tennessee lawyer and U.S. Congressman. His father was close to President Andrew Jackson, also from Tennessee, and in 1843 would become the publisher of the Washington Union, the main newspaper of the Democratic party of that era. His uncle in Ohio would also become a newspaper editor, lawyer, Union soldier during the Civil War and ultimately Republican U.S. Supreme Court justice Stanley Matthews.

Henry was an only child. He was sickly, with very poor eyesight and that only in one eye, so that his mother home-schooled him in Washington, D.C., and their home in Nashville, Tennessee[3] until he was twelve years old. She then sent him to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he received his only formal education, at an academy run by an Episcopal priest, and he also ran the school paper, the New Era, on a press his father donated.[1]

After the American Civil War as discussed below, in September 1865, Watterson returned to Nashville to marry Rebecca Ewing (1842-1929), with whom he would have six sons and two daughters. They were able to hire live-in Irish servants, and by 1880 his parents also lived with them.[4] Their sons were Ewing (1868- ),[5] Henry Jr. (1877-) and Harvey W. Watterson (1879–1908) and their daughters were Lady (1871-) and Ethel Watterson Gilmour (1880–1907; who died in childbirth).[6]

Watterson became a newspaper reporter early in his life.[7] In 1856 he moved to New York to work on various publication, and in 1858 he moved to Washington to work on other publications.[2]

When his father returned to Tennessee in 1861 after the outbreak of the American Civil War, Henry Watterson did too. He volunteered for the Confederate States Army, and was attached at various times to the staffs of Generals Joseph E. Johnston, Leonidas Polk and Nathan B. Forrest. His main contribution to the Confederate war effort, however, was editorial, with the Chattanooga Rebel and the Nashville Banner. After the Confederacy lost, Watterson edited the Cincinnati Evening Post for six months.[2] By September 1865 Watterson returned to Nashville, married, become editor and part owner of the Nashville Banner, where he began his “New Departure” campaign urging national reconciliation.

Watterson ultimately settled down in Louisville, Kentucky, having met Walter Newman Haldeman during the war, and began editing the Louisville Journal. That paper merged with the Louisville Courier in 1868, forming the Courier-Journal. This paper soon gained national attention for its excellent reporting. Watterson was a leader of the Liberal Republican movement in 1872. By 1876 he was a Democrat; his proposal for hundreds of thousands of Democrats to march on Washington to force the election of Tilden angered President Ulysses S. Grant, who noted that nobody threatened Grant. Watterson was elected to fill the rest of Edward Y. Parsons' term in the U.S. House when Parsons died in office.

Watterson was called "the last of the great personal journalists", writing colorful and controversial editorials on many topics under the pen name "Marse Henry". Hundreds of American papers republished them; they were an early exemplar of the syndicated column which played a significant role creating public support for U.S. intervention in the First World War. Watterson won the Pulitzer Prize in 1918 for two editorials supporting U.S. entry into World War I ("Vae Victis!" and "War Has Its Compensations"), and he remained the paper's editor until 1919, retiring after conflicts with Robert Worth Bingham, who purchased the paper in 1918.

During his tenure as editor, Watterson was a Democratic representative in Congress from 1876 to 1877. He was also a five-time delegate to the National Democratic Convention, where, in 1892, Watterson received a smattering of votes for the vice presidential nomination. He became widely known as a lecturer and orator. His publications include History of the Spanish–American War (1899) and The Compromises of Life (1902).

Watterson died in Jacksonville, Duval County, Florida in 1921, survived for several years by his widow as well as many grandchildren. He was interred in Louisville's Cave Hill Cemetery.[6] The portion of I-264 from the junction with US 31W to its northeastern terminus at I-71 is known as the Watterson Expressway.

A Jefferson County Public School in eastern Louisville is named Watterson Elementary School.

The World War II Liberty Ship SS Henry Watterson was named in his honor.

"Things have come to a hell of a pass, when a man can't whip his own jackass." (i.e. Democratic Party)[8]

"We are a great imperial Republic, destined to exercise a controlling influence upon the actions of mankind and to affect the future of the world as the world was never affected, even by the Roman Empire."[9][10]

• Encyclopedia of Kentucky. New York, New York: Somerset Publishers. 1987. pp. 189–192. ISBN 0-403-09981-1.
• Margolies, Daniel S. (2006). Henry Watterson And the New South: The Politics of Empire, Free Trade, And Globalization. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 9780813124179.

• History of Louisville, Kentucky
• List of people from the Louisville metropolitan area

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henry Watterson.

• Biography for US Congress
• Works by Henry Watterson at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Henry Watterson at Internet Archive
• McAfee, John J. (1886). Kentucky politicians : sketches of representative Corncrackers and other miscellany. Louisville, Kentucky: Press of the Courier-Journal job printing company. pp. 164–167. Retrieved 2009-05-04.
• Marse Henry: An Autobiography. Volume I. New York: George H. Doran Company, c1919.
• Marse Henry: An Autobiography. Volume II. New York: George H. Doran Company, c1919.
• Guide to the Henry Watterson World War I editorials, 1915-1921 housed at the University of Kentucky Libraries Special Collections Research Center