| Notes |
- Source: INHENRY-L@rootsweb.com
Compendium of Biography Of Henry County, Indiana B. F. Bowen 1920
CAPT. JAMES F. WATSON.
This veteran of the Civil war and educator of youth, who laid down his ferrule to take up arms in defense of his country's flag, and is now a resident and retired merchant of Dunreith, Henry county, Indiana, was born near Canonsburg, Washington County, Pennsylvania, November 3, 1833, a son of Thomas and Jane (Hayes) Watson, who were also born in the county mentioned and of Scotch-Irish descent, their immediate ancestors having come to America from the north of Ireland, where they had their nativity.
James F. Watson received an excellent common school education in his boyhood days, which was supplemented by a course in Duff's Commercial College at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
At the age of nineteen he began teaching school, a vocation he followed in all for ten years. When twenty-one years old he left his home, however, and went to Cadiz, Harrison county, Ohio, where he was engaged in teaching when the alarm of war was sounded and, seeing that the rebellion was not to be trifled with, he went to Belmont county and enlisted in August, 1862, in Company B, Ninety-eighth Ohio Volunteer Infantry.
He saw service in the battle of Perryville, in which his regiment lost one hundred and seventy-five men, killed and wounded; it was then sent to Chickamauga, Tennessee, where it fell back, but was reformed and took part in several engagements in Tennessee and Alabama Until the Atlanta campaign was opened in Georgia, the regiment taking part in several severe battles before it was assigned to duty in the siege of that doomed city. It participated in the pursuit of General Hood to Huntsville, Alabama, and then went with General Sherman to the coast.
Mr. Watson was appointed corporal at the organization of the company, in which capacity he served until the winter of 1862, when he was appointed hospital steward and served as such until the summer of 1864, when he was promoted to a second -lieutenancy just at the time when General Sherman set out on his famous march to the sea coast.
On reaching the sea coast Lieutenant Watson was ordered to report at Memphis, Tennessee, having been commissioned as a Captain by the war department. On reaching that city he organized a company of colored troops, which was assigned to the Sixty-ninth Colored Regiment. In command of this company and two others he was stationed at Memphis and later at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and had charge of a gang of freedmen, whom he caused while on guard duty to raise a crop of cotton near the latter place, keeping the company together all summer, the government furnishing the necessary supplies.
The Captain also did court martial service and was finally honorably discharged at Duvall's Bluff in November, 1865, but was not mustered out of the service until December, 1865, when, broken in health and unfit for military duty, he returned to his young wife.
Captain Watson was married at Flushing, Ohio, August 13, 1862, after he had enlisted but before departing for the war, to Miss Margaret C. Winder, an accomplished and patriotic young lady who had an uncle, Lewis Wood, living in Spiceland, Henry county, Indiana, with whom she made her home, her mother having died when young.
On Captain Watson's return from the war he located at Spiceland, where he soon afterwards began merchandising with a small stock of goods, but afterward removed to Lewisville where he did a moderately successful business for five years.
In 1872 he came to Dunreith as agent for the Panhandle railroad and engaged in dealing in grain for fourteen years. He also invested in land two miles from Dunreith and now owns four hundred and fifty acres, divided into three farms, on which he has made many improvements, clearing off the brush, putting up substantial buildings and laying tiling. These farms he rents out, but retains land enough to fatten from thirty to forty steers per year. He also pays much attention to hogs, in which he has great faith as income producers, and keeps up his interest in the products of his farms, which cost him from thirty-five to fifty-five dollars per acre.
To Captain and Mrs. Watson have been born two children, both of whom died in childhood. The parents are member of the United Presbyterian Church, of which the Captain is a trustee, and after the burning of the old edifice in 1880 he liberally aided financially in the erection of the new.
Both the Captain and his wife have been Sunday school teachers for twenty years, but about two years since Mrs. Watson had a fall in which she broke a hip, has used crutches ever since and has been forced to relinquish her work in the good cause. Her work was with the children's class, while the Captain's was with the Bible class, being a reader of the Scriptures and instructing them by explanatory remarks. For a year and a half he taught in the Friends society, but later returned to his old Bible class, above referred to.
In politics Captain Watson is a stanch Republican, and takes an active interest in the success of his party. He is one of the most substantial citizens of Dunreith and one of the most honorable, and he and his wife enjoy the respect of the entire community without exception.
|
1833 - Yes, date unknown