Esling, Catherine Harbison, who first wrote and published poems under her maiden name (Waterman), was born in Philadelphia April 12, 1812. In 1840 she married Captain George J. Esling, of the Merchant Marine, and resided from that date till the death of her husband, in 1844, at Rio de Janeiro, after which she returned to Philadelphia. In 1850 her poems were collected and published under the title The Broken Bracelet and Other Poems. She was a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, where she died in 1897.