The Watson Family

John Watson was an Irish Catholic immigrant born between 1780 and 1790. He wed Mary Ann Davis, an Episcopalian born in 1795, the daughter of a well-known civil engineer, John Davis from Pennsylvania, who later moved to Hagerstown, Maryland. They had one son, John D. Watson, whose birth year is yet unknown. Their oldest daughter was born in 1820.

In 1829 Watson bought a one-half acre lot in Lisbon, Maryland and in 1830 was listed in the census for District 6 of Anne Arundel County as between 40-50 years old, along with a women between 30-40 years old (presumably his wife Mary Ann), and 3 girls – 1 of whom were under 5 and two that were between 5 and 10 years old. There was another woman listed between 20 and 30 as well as 1 male and 2 female slaves.

In 1834, just a month before his death, he purchased 60 acres of land on the west end of Lisbon. The land would become an issue of contention after his death as his family entered into Chancery court to resolve the distribution of the sale proceeds.

Watson Remembered

After Watson’s death, B&O’s Superintendent of Construction, Caspar Wever, noted that Watson had “been long and advantageously known in this community as the superintendent of the repairs upon the ‘Frederick and Boonsboro’ turnpike”. He continued:

“It is due to the memory of Mr. Watson for me to state, that a more faithful and competent agent could not have been selected. After an intimate intercourse with him as a manager of Public works for more than seventeen years [note: since 1817], I am able to say that, during all that period he conducted himself in the most exemplary manner, both as a gentleman and public officer. His industry, energy and unremitting attention to the duties confided to him were rarely equaled and could not be surpassed. His veracity and integrity were as unimpeachable as his fidelity was unquestionable. He was generous almost to a fault, and as brave as he was generous. The loss of such a man under any circumstances is a public calamity…”

Judge Kilgour’s Statement

Judge Kilgour, who passed the death sentence on Owen Murphy in February 1835, characterized Watson, and his assistant Mercer (also murdered), as follows:

“And who were the deceased? Like yourselves, they had sought here an asylum from the persecution, the oppression, and miseries of their native land. They stood towards you in double relation of countrymen by birth and adoption; they were esteemed and useful members of the society in which they lived; they were always the first to welcome and extend the hand of fellowship to emigrants from the land of their birth; and where they deserved it, they loved and cherished them.”

“They found here, what you might have had under our free Institutions, a happy home they made, what you might have been, useful citizens. The religion that they possessed and practiced, was a religion of peace, of good will to men”.

The National Road

The Frederick and Boonsboro’ Turnpike, mentioned by Caspar Wever as one of the projects of Watson, was part of the National Road. In about 1816, John Davis began the work on laying out the Cumberland Turnpike along with John Ellicott and William Jessop, right about the same time that Watson began his public service. Davis, Watson’s future father-in-law, continued as general manager of the Cumberland Turnpike Road Company until 1839 when he resigned. It is plausible that this was the connection in which Watson met his future wife, Mary Ann.

Laurel Mills

According to the 1894 Laurel City Directory, Nicholas Snowden leased his grist mill in 1824 to a Mr. Johnson. While no other record was found to verify this date, in 1830 a Mr. William Johnson was living in a house associated with the mill land leased to him. What is significant is that Johnson was the person that converted part of the grist mill for spinning cotton yarns and eventually becoming a cotton factory. In fact, John Watson partnered with Johnson in March of 1830 to secure an 8-year lease from Snowden for the cotton factory, grist mill, and sawmill.

Within the next 4 years, Snowden, Johnson and Watson had died and by 1840 the property was managed by Horace Capron, former manager of Savage Cotton Factory, who had married the daughter of Nicholas Snowden. Watson was involved with some significant ventures in our area and was familiar with the Savage and Laurel area for which he would soon become a section manager for the B&O railroad supervising the cuts in the area near Whiskey Bottom Road and just south of Laurel.

Mary Ann Watson and Family

Her husband died intestate, and she petitioned the Orphan’s Court a few weeks after his death to appoint William J. Ross as the administer of his estate. Mary Ann and her children moved to Hagerstown where her father, John Davis, and he second wife were living. In Mary Jane’s household were three young daughters and two free Black girls between 10 and 35 years old. By 1850, her daughters Mary Jane (27), Elizabeth (24), Martha (21), and Fanny (16) were living with her along with her father who was now about 80 years of age.

Their daughter Harriet died in 1839 and their only son, John D. died in 1842. Martha, who married Richard Drane, died in 1856, 4 years after her mother, Mary Ann, passed away. Fanny wed Edward Cheney (1832-1884) who lived just outside of Hagerstown and in the 1900 census, sisters Mary Jane (1820-1901) and Fanny (1834-1905) were in the same household with Fanny’s adult son and daughter.

The murder of John Watson and William Mercer happened in our own backyards, along Route 1 somewhere between Gorman and Whiskey Bottom Roads. Perhaps the riots and attribution to whiskey in some of the reports of the murder resulted in the name of one of our roads. But the building of the Washington Road of B&O railroad came at a human cost for both the workers and the supervisors. The new Washington Branch of the B&O opened in August of 1835 connecting Washington DC to Baltimore. The Savage Railroad connected to the branch by October of the same year and operated into the 1840s.