San Diego County Biographies
 
DR. Walter B. WOODWARD

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

 
Dr. W. B. Woodward. Among the men of San Diego who stand high in their 
profession we find the name of Dr. Walter B. Woodward, who is a native of 
Cleveland, Ohio, and dates his birth March 5, 1846. His father, Henry Thomas 
Woodward, of Dunbarrow House, Kells, County of Meath, Ireland, was a landholder 
there, and in 1836 came to America, landing in New York. he was of English 
descent. His grandfather was an officer in Cromwell's army in Ireland, and the 
English Government granted him land for his service as a soldier, and he made a 
settlement there. The Doctor's mother was his father's first cousin, Miss Hessy 
Woodward. They were married in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1836, and they had five 
children. When he was two months old his parents removed to Beloit, Wisconsin, 
and resided there until 1864, when they returned to Ireland. The Doctor was 
there and at the Illinois College, at Jacksonville, for ten years. 
 
The great civil war burst upon the country and he entered in Company C, One 
Hundred and Forty-fifth Illinois Volunteers and remained in the service until 
the close. The Doctor was only sixteen years of age when he enlisted, and when 
mustered out of the service he followed his relatives to Ireland, and there 
entered the medical school of Trinity College, Dublin, and afterward graduated 
at the King and Queen's College of Physicians, Ireland.
 
In 1872 he was married to Miss Charlotte Roper, daughter of Charles Roper, of 
Fairfield House, County of Dublin, and they came directly to America and settled 
in Peoria, Illinois. A short time after this he went to Philadelphia and 
attended the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery, and after graduating 
practiced his profession at his home in Peoria for ten years. In May 1888, he 
removed to San Diego, bought property and built a very attractive house, where 
he and his family now reside. The Doctor is a man of modest and retiring habits, 
is a member of the Masonic order, and he and his wife are members of St. Paul's 
Episcopal Church.
 
An Illustrated History of Southern California: Embracing the Counties of San 
Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower 
California, from the Earliest Period of Occupancy to the Present Time.... - 
Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890. pp 226