The Faculty History Project documents faculty members who have been associated with the University of Michigan since 1837. Key in this effort is to celebrate the intellectual life of the University. This Faculty History Website is intended as a component of the effort to document the extraordinary academic achievements of Michigan’s faculty in building and sustaining one of the world’s great universities. It provides access to a comprehensive database of information concerning the thousands of faculty members who have served the University of Michigan.
Find out more.
The Bentley Historical Library serves as the official archives for the University.
Memoir
John Andrews Watling
History of the University of Michigan 253
History of the University of Michigan 253
Resolved, That the President is requested to notify Drs. Watlin and Briggs that their resignations from the Dental Department are desired, and that Dr. Taft be retained in the department, but relieved of the duties of Dean, at a salary of $1,500, the position of Dean to be filled hereafter.
John Andrews Watling was born at Woodstock, Illinois, June 26, 1839, son of William and Jane Thorne (Smith) Watling. His father was born in Norwich, England, and his mother in New York State; through them he traces his descent from Revolutionary ancestry, and thence back to the La Fontaines of Normandy, who accompanied William the Conqueror to England in 1066.
He was educated in the public schools, including the Ypsilanti Union Seminary, and pursued professional studies at the Ohio Dental College, Cincinnati, where he was graduated Doctor of Dental Surgery in 1860. From that date till 1904 he practiced his profession at Ypsilanti.
In 1875 he was appointed a member of the original Faculty of the Dental College of the University of Michigan, with the title of Professor of Clinical and Mechanical Dentistry, which was changed in 1891 to Professor of Operative and Clinical Dentistry.
In 1903 he resigned his professorship, soon after retired from professional work, and removed with his family to Washington, D. C. He has been President, Secretary, and Treasurer of the Michigan State Dental Association, and President of the Washtenaw County Dental Association, which he organized in 1899.
Since going to Washington he has become an honorary member of the District of Columbia Dental Society and of the National Geographic Society.
He was married May 5, 1864, to Eunice Robinson Wright, who is a direct descendant of Deacon Samuel Wright, a pioneer settler of Springfield and Northampton, Massachusetts, and of Samuel Robinson, founder of Bennington, Vermont. They have had three children: Lucile, Winifred (deceased), and John Wright (A.B. 1904).
Burke A. Hinsdale and Isaac Newton Demmon, History of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1906), pp. 253.