Physician
Centurion, 1890–1896
Born 2 July 1858 in New York (Manhattan), New York
Died 10 April 1896 in New York (Manhattan), New York
Buried Green-Wood Cemetery
, Brooklyn, New York
Proposed by Wolcott Gibbs and William H. Draper
Elected 3 May 1890 at age thirty-one
Archivist’s Note: Son of Silas Weir Roosevelt; nephew of Cornelius Van Schaick Roosevelt, James A. Roosevelt, Robert Barnwell Roosevelt, and Theodore Roosevelt; cousin of Alfred Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, and W. Emlen Roosevelt; father of Nicholas Roosevelt
Proposer of:
Century Memorial
Dr. J. West Roosevelt possessed the marked characteristics of his family, which has been so distinguished in the history of this city for many years. He had a restless energy, a versatile and active mind, high ambition and a genial nature, which made him prominent in all his work.
He was as well known in literary, general, scientific and political reform circles as he was in his own profession; for he brought an enthusiastic personality as well as great natural ability into everything he undertook. He was attending physician at Bellevue, Roosevelt and Seton Hospitals, a member of the Academy of Medicine, Medical and Surgical, Practitioners’ and Pathological Societies. He was prominent in the public investigation instituted by the Academy of Medicine into the abuses in connection with the Croton Watershed, the Quarantine System, and in the advocacy of a national control of the Boards for Quarantine Regulations. He contributed many graceful articles to the magazines, and was the author of several books, the last of which, “In Sickness and In Health,” was on the eve of publication when he died. His death at the early age of thirty-eight closed a career that had justified the fondest expectations of his friends, and was brilliant with future promise.
Henry E. Howland
1897 Century Association Yearbook