Thomas Watson 1841-1909

WATSON

Posted By: Blake Watson (email)
Date: 12/29/2017 at 13:55:14

Thomas Watson
by Blake Watson

Thomas Watson was born in Scotland in 1841. He came to the United States as a child in 1852 and married Nancy Wildman in Salem, Ohio, in 1867. They had three children in Ohio (John, Will, and Jenny) and a fourth in Missouri (Grace) before moving to Monroe County Iowa in 1874 or 1875. Tom was a coal miner. In 1876 the family moved to the now defunct town of Cleveland in Lucas County. Tom began working for the Whitebreast Coal Company in October 1876, the same month the Company first shipped coal. Tom was the coal weighmaster. In December 1885 Tom was attacked by two assailants while walking on a road to his home. He survived. In early 1886 he retired and moved his family to Johnson County Kansas, where he became a farmer. He received a gold watch with the inscription, "Thomas Watson from his Whitebreast friends, October 1876-March 1886." Another son, Thomas Jr., was born in 1894 when Nancy was 47. Thomas Watson Sr. died in 1909 in Kansas.