MAJOR EDWARD WATTS -- This gentleman after gradually wearing away, died at the old Antietam House in Hagerstown, attended by his daughter, who was soon after joined by his son - his only children - about 1 o'clock, Sunday, Feb. 21st, 1886.
The funeral was late in the afternoon of the following day - the twenty-second - and was from St. John's Protestant Episcopal Church, the Rev. Henry Edwards and the Rev. Walter A. Mitchel, rector, officiating. The pall-bearers were Messrs J. Newcomer, Judge A.K. Syester, George W. Harris, Dr. William Ragan, Edwin Ball and A.B,. Almony. The interment took place at the old Episcopal burying ground, Mulberry Street, by the side of he wife in the lot of his father-in-law, the late Col. Hollingsworth.
Maj. Watts was born in Carlisle, Pa., Aug. 6, 1807. He was the youngest son of a large family which surviving are his brothers, Judge Frederick Watts, formerly of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and U.S. Commissioner of Agriculture, and Mr. Henry Watts of Philadelphia, lately U.S. Minister to Austria. His sister, the wife of Gen. Biddle, Treasurer of the Cumberland Valley Railroad is still living.
Maj. Watts commenced life as a Cadet at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, and was at that institution with Jefferson Davis and Gen. Robert E. Lee, between whom and him a life-long and affectionate intimacy subsisted, as is manifest in the subjoined letter from the first, which his children have kindly placed in our hands and by the affectionate and even boyist recognition which passed between him and Gen. Lee, when the latter passed through Hagerstown at the head of the Confederate Army moving upon Gettysburg, notwithstanding the implacable opposition on the part of Maj. Watts to the Southern cause.
After leaving the Military Academy Maj. Watts became a civil engineer to which pursuit his subsequent life was devoted, and at various periods of which, we can speak from hearsay and recollection without accurate data, he was engaged as an engineer under his former fellow cadet, Jefferson Davis who had become Secretary of the Treasury, between whom and him a warm personal friendship existed, upon the dam across the Ohio River at Louisville, Ky., and the canal and around it. This later employment was just after his marriage in 1856. At different times he was engaged as engineer upon the building of light houses at New York and Charleston, the U.S. Hospital at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, and public works at New Orleans, and was chief engineer in the building of several Railroads among which were the Charleston and Augusta, the Franklin, and the Martinsburg & Potomac Railroads, the last of which was his last work. He was also engaged upon the construction of the James River and Kanawa Canal, and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and we see it stated that he was the inventor of the original locks used upon this later work.
When the Mexican war broke out he volunteered and raised a company, and on his arrival in Mexico was stricken down with yellow fever and returned to New Orleans, where his recovery took place with serious impairment of his eyesight. The following is a quaint old handbill which was found among his effects:
-------
Volunteers for Mexico -- The President of the United States has decided to accept the services of a Company of Volunteer Infantry, some time since organized in Carlisle, under the command of the undersigned, to serve during the War with Mexico, unless sooner discharged. The members of said Company, and other patriotic citizens who are anxious to participate with the Volunteers and Regular Army, will enroll their names with me, and be prepared for muster at Carlisle, by an officer of the Army to the designated for that purpose.
In addition to the regular pay, each Volunteer who serves during the War is entitled by an act of Congress, to a bounty of 160 acres of Land, or a commutation in money of $100. Provision and quarters will be immediately furnished upon application to:
EDWARD WATTS, Captain
Carlisle, July 21, 1847
Printed at the Cheap Job Office of the "Herald", Carlisle, Pa.
-----
Maj. Watts was married in Hagerstown to Sally A. Hollingsworth, daughter of Col. Jacob Hollingsworth, and he leaves a daughter, Miss Nancy H. Watts, and a son, Mr. Edward C. Watts, of the Auditor's Department Shenandoah Valley Railroad, Roanoke, where they propose to made their home.
By their permission we append the following:
-----
Letter from Jefferson Davis, Beauvoir, Miss, 4th of July 1883.
My Dear Friend - It was with great pleasure I received your kind letter of the 18th ulto. Memory brings to me many happy associations as I read your welcome letter, and long I dwell on the signature of a beloved class-mate, now one of the few on earth. Crafts J. Wright lives in Chicago. I saw him a year ago, quite an invalid. Thom. F. Drayton resides in Charlotte, NC. L.J. Austin has a retreat in New Port, RI, and more fortunate than the others has wealth to support it. Robt. E. Cleary is on the retired list of the Army, and free to go, like the wind, where he listeth. These and you and I are, so far as I know, alone left. Our paths in life have been far apart, but you have ever been near to my heart, and it gave me sincere gratification to receive your expressions of solicitude for the restoration of my health. The attack was severe and of complicated type, but there remains no more than the consequent debility. I am living on the Gulf coast, quite near to the Rail Road which connects New Orleans and Mobile, and about midway between those cities. It would give me great pleasure to receive you in this quiet home; where, though the war ruined me financially, I could give you shelter with a heart's whole welcome. Crafts Wright came to see me two winters ago, and he is the only one of our class I have seen for many years. It is sweet to renew the memories of school-boy days, and though the body has grown old the heart may still preserve the freshness of the happy days when all was colored by hope, and like butterflies, we looked for flowers without the knowledge of thorns.
I am glad to learn that you are yet able to continue your professional labors, and trust the day is far distant when you shall be put on the list of the exempts. Postponing the many things I would like to commune with you about, until we meet, or until with more strength I may write to you again, and wishing my dear Ned all the good things and all the happiness possible in this life, I am as ever, affectionately yours,
JEFFERSON DAVIS
-----
Source: Mail (Hagerstown, MD)
Friday, February 26, 1886
***************************
The funeral was late in the afternoon of the following day - the twenty-second - and was from St. John's Protestant Episcopal Church, the Rev. Henry Edwards and the Rev. Walter A. Mitchel, rector, officiating. The pall-bearers were Messrs J. Newcomer, Judge A.K. Syester, George W. Harris, Dr. William Ragan, Edwin Ball and A.B,. Almony. The interment took place at the old Episcopal burying ground, Mulberry Street, by the side of he wife in the lot of his father-in-law, the late Col. Hollingsworth.
Maj. Watts was born in Carlisle, Pa., Aug. 6, 1807. He was the youngest son of a large family which surviving are his brothers, Judge Frederick Watts, formerly of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and U.S. Commissioner of Agriculture, and Mr. Henry Watts of Philadelphia, lately U.S. Minister to Austria. His sister, the wife of Gen. Biddle, Treasurer of the Cumberland Valley Railroad is still living.
Maj. Watts commenced life as a Cadet at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, and was at that institution with Jefferson Davis and Gen. Robert E. Lee, between whom and him a life-long and affectionate intimacy subsisted, as is manifest in the subjoined letter from the first, which his children have kindly placed in our hands and by the affectionate and even boyist recognition which passed between him and Gen. Lee, when the latter passed through Hagerstown at the head of the Confederate Army moving upon Gettysburg, notwithstanding the implacable opposition on the part of Maj. Watts to the Southern cause.
After leaving the Military Academy Maj. Watts became a civil engineer to which pursuit his subsequent life was devoted, and at various periods of which, we can speak from hearsay and recollection without accurate data, he was engaged as an engineer under his former fellow cadet, Jefferson Davis who had become Secretary of the Treasury, between whom and him a warm personal friendship existed, upon the dam across the Ohio River at Louisville, Ky., and the canal and around it. This later employment was just after his marriage in 1856. At different times he was engaged as engineer upon the building of light houses at New York and Charleston, the U.S. Hospital at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, and public works at New Orleans, and was chief engineer in the building of several Railroads among which were the Charleston and Augusta, the Franklin, and the Martinsburg & Potomac Railroads, the last of which was his last work. He was also engaged upon the construction of the James River and Kanawa Canal, and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and we see it stated that he was the inventor of the original locks used upon this later work.
When the Mexican war broke out he volunteered and raised a company, and on his arrival in Mexico was stricken down with yellow fever and returned to New Orleans, where his recovery took place with serious impairment of his eyesight. The following is a quaint old handbill which was found among his effects:
-------
Volunteers for Mexico -- The President of the United States has decided to accept the services of a Company of Volunteer Infantry, some time since organized in Carlisle, under the command of the undersigned, to serve during the War with Mexico, unless sooner discharged. The members of said Company, and other patriotic citizens who are anxious to participate with the Volunteers and Regular Army, will enroll their names with me, and be prepared for muster at Carlisle, by an officer of the Army to the designated for that purpose.
In addition to the regular pay, each Volunteer who serves during the War is entitled by an act of Congress, to a bounty of 160 acres of Land, or a commutation in money of $100. Provision and quarters will be immediately furnished upon application to:
EDWARD WATTS, Captain
Carlisle, July 21, 1847
Printed at the Cheap Job Office of the "Herald", Carlisle, Pa.
-----
Maj. Watts was married in Hagerstown to Sally A. Hollingsworth, daughter of Col. Jacob Hollingsworth, and he leaves a daughter, Miss Nancy H. Watts, and a son, Mr. Edward C. Watts, of the Auditor's Department Shenandoah Valley Railroad, Roanoke, where they propose to made their home.
By their permission we append the following:
-----
Letter from Jefferson Davis, Beauvoir, Miss, 4th of July 1883.
My Dear Friend - It was with great pleasure I received your kind letter of the 18th ulto. Memory brings to me many happy associations as I read your welcome letter, and long I dwell on the signature of a beloved class-mate, now one of the few on earth. Crafts J. Wright lives in Chicago. I saw him a year ago, quite an invalid. Thom. F. Drayton resides in Charlotte, NC. L.J. Austin has a retreat in New Port, RI, and more fortunate than the others has wealth to support it. Robt. E. Cleary is on the retired list of the Army, and free to go, like the wind, where he listeth. These and you and I are, so far as I know, alone left. Our paths in life have been far apart, but you have ever been near to my heart, and it gave me sincere gratification to receive your expressions of solicitude for the restoration of my health. The attack was severe and of complicated type, but there remains no more than the consequent debility. I am living on the Gulf coast, quite near to the Rail Road which connects New Orleans and Mobile, and about midway between those cities. It would give me great pleasure to receive you in this quiet home; where, though the war ruined me financially, I could give you shelter with a heart's whole welcome. Crafts Wright came to see me two winters ago, and he is the only one of our class I have seen for many years. It is sweet to renew the memories of school-boy days, and though the body has grown old the heart may still preserve the freshness of the happy days when all was colored by hope, and like butterflies, we looked for flowers without the knowledge of thorns.
I am glad to learn that you are yet able to continue your professional labors, and trust the day is far distant when you shall be put on the list of the exempts. Postponing the many things I would like to commune with you about, until we meet, or until with more strength I may write to you again, and wishing my dear Ned all the good things and all the happiness possible in this life, I am as ever, affectionately yours,
JEFFERSON DAVIS
-----
Source: Mail (Hagerstown, MD)
Friday, February 26, 1886
***************************
MAJOR EDWARD WATTS -- This gentleman after gradually wearing away, died at the old Antietam House in Hagerstown, attended by his daughter, who was soon after joined by his son - his only children - about 1 o'clock, Sunday, Feb. 21st, 1886.
The funeral was late in the afternoon of the following day - the twenty-second - and was from St. John's Protestant Episcopal Church, the Rev. Henry Edwards and the Rev. Walter A. Mitchel, rector, officiating. The pall-bearers were Messrs J. Newcomer, Judge A.K. Syester, George W. Harris, Dr. William Ragan, Edwin Ball and A.B,. Almony. The interment took place at the old Episcopal burying ground, Mulberry Street, by the side of he wife in the lot of his father-in-law, the late Col. Hollingsworth.
Maj. Watts was born in Carlisle, Pa., Aug. 6, 1807. He was the youngest son of a large family which surviving are his brothers, Judge Frederick Watts, formerly of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and U.S. Commissioner of Agriculture, and Mr. Henry Watts of Philadelphia, lately U.S. Minister to Austria. His sister, the wife of Gen. Biddle, Treasurer of the Cumberland Valley Railroad is still living.
Maj. Watts commenced life as a Cadet at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, and was at that institution with Jefferson Davis and Gen. Robert E. Lee, between whom and him a life-long and affectionate intimacy subsisted, as is manifest in the subjoined letter from the first, which his children have kindly placed in our hands and by the affectionate and even boyist recognition which passed between him and Gen. Lee, when the latter passed through Hagerstown at the head of the Confederate Army moving upon Gettysburg, notwithstanding the implacable opposition on the part of Maj. Watts to the Southern cause.
After leaving the Military Academy Maj. Watts became a civil engineer to which pursuit his subsequent life was devoted, and at various periods of which, we can speak from hearsay and recollection without accurate data, he was engaged as an engineer under his former fellow cadet, Jefferson Davis who had become Secretary of the Treasury, between whom and him a warm personal friendship existed, upon the dam across the Ohio River at Louisville, Ky., and the canal and around it. This later employment was just after his marriage in 1856. At different times he was engaged as engineer upon the building of light houses at New York and Charleston, the U.S. Hospital at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, and public works at New Orleans, and was chief engineer in the building of several Railroads among which were the Charleston and Augusta, the Franklin, and the Martinsburg & Potomac Railroads, the last of which was his last work. He was also engaged upon the construction of the James River and Kanawa Canal, and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and we see it stated that he was the inventor of the original locks used upon this later work.
When the Mexican war broke out he volunteered and raised a company, and on his arrival in Mexico was stricken down with yellow fever and returned to New Orleans, where his recovery took place with serious impairment of his eyesight. The following is a quaint old handbill which was found among his effects:
-------
Volunteers for Mexico -- The President of the United States has decided to accept the services of a Company of Volunteer Infantry, some time since organized in Carlisle, under the command of the undersigned, to serve during the War with Mexico, unless sooner discharged. The members of said Company, and other patriotic citizens who are anxious to participate with the Volunteers and Regular Army, will enroll their names with me, and be prepared for muster at Carlisle, by an officer of the Army to the designated for that purpose.
In addition to the regular pay, each Volunteer who serves during the War is entitled by an act of Congress, to a bounty of 160 acres of Land, or a commutation in money of $100. Provision and quarters will be immediately furnished upon application to:
EDWARD WATTS, Captain
Carlisle, July 21, 1847
Printed at the Cheap Job Office of the "Herald", Carlisle, Pa.
-----
Maj. Watts was married in Hagerstown to Sally A. Hollingsworth, daughter of Col. Jacob Hollingsworth, and he leaves a daughter, Miss Nancy H. Watts, and a son, Mr. Edward C. Watts, of the Auditor's Department Shenandoah Valley Railroad, Roanoke, where they propose to made their home.
By their permission we append the following:
-----
Letter from Jefferson Davis, Beauvoir, Miss, 4th of July 1883.
My Dear Friend - It was with great pleasure I received your kind letter of the 18th ulto. Memory brings to me many happy associations as I read your welcome letter, and long I dwell on the signature of a beloved class-mate, now one of the few on earth. Crafts J. Wright lives in Chicago. I saw him a year ago, quite an invalid. Thom. F. Drayton resides in Charlotte, NC. L.J. Austin has a retreat in New Port, RI, and more fortunate than the others has wealth to support it. Robt. E. Cleary is on the retired list of the Army, and free to go, like the wind, where he listeth. These and you and I are, so far as I know, alone left. Our paths in life have been far apart, but you have ever been near to my heart, and it gave me sincere gratification to receive your expressions of solicitude for the restoration of my health. The attack was severe and of complicated type, but there remains no more than the consequent debility. I am living on the Gulf coast, quite near to the Rail Road which connects New Orleans and Mobile, and about midway between those cities. It would give me great pleasure to receive you in this quiet home; where, though the war ruined me financially, I could give you shelter with a heart's whole welcome. Crafts Wright came to see me two winters ago, and he is the only one of our class I have seen for many years. It is sweet to renew the memories of school-boy days, and though the body has grown old the heart may still preserve the freshness of the happy days when all was colored by hope, and like butterflies, we looked for flowers without the knowledge of thorns.
I am glad to learn that you are yet able to continue your professional labors, and trust the day is far distant when you shall be put on the list of the exempts. Postponing the many things I would like to commune with you about, until we meet, or until with more strength I may write to you again, and wishing my dear Ned all the good things and all the happiness possible in this life, I am as ever, affectionately yours,
JEFFERSON DAVIS
-----
Source: Mail (Hagerstown, MD)
Friday, February 26, 1886
***************************
The funeral was late in the afternoon of the following day - the twenty-second - and was from St. John's Protestant Episcopal Church, the Rev. Henry Edwards and the Rev. Walter A. Mitchel, rector, officiating. The pall-bearers were Messrs J. Newcomer, Judge A.K. Syester, George W. Harris, Dr. William Ragan, Edwin Ball and A.B,. Almony. The interment took place at the old Episcopal burying ground, Mulberry Street, by the side of he wife in the lot of his father-in-law, the late Col. Hollingsworth.
Maj. Watts was born in Carlisle, Pa., Aug. 6, 1807. He was the youngest son of a large family which surviving are his brothers, Judge Frederick Watts, formerly of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and U.S. Commissioner of Agriculture, and Mr. Henry Watts of Philadelphia, lately U.S. Minister to Austria. His sister, the wife of Gen. Biddle, Treasurer of the Cumberland Valley Railroad is still living.
Maj. Watts commenced life as a Cadet at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, and was at that institution with Jefferson Davis and Gen. Robert E. Lee, between whom and him a life-long and affectionate intimacy subsisted, as is manifest in the subjoined letter from the first, which his children have kindly placed in our hands and by the affectionate and even boyist recognition which passed between him and Gen. Lee, when the latter passed through Hagerstown at the head of the Confederate Army moving upon Gettysburg, notwithstanding the implacable opposition on the part of Maj. Watts to the Southern cause.
After leaving the Military Academy Maj. Watts became a civil engineer to which pursuit his subsequent life was devoted, and at various periods of which, we can speak from hearsay and recollection without accurate data, he was engaged as an engineer under his former fellow cadet, Jefferson Davis who had become Secretary of the Treasury, between whom and him a warm personal friendship existed, upon the dam across the Ohio River at Louisville, Ky., and the canal and around it. This later employment was just after his marriage in 1856. At different times he was engaged as engineer upon the building of light houses at New York and Charleston, the U.S. Hospital at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, and public works at New Orleans, and was chief engineer in the building of several Railroads among which were the Charleston and Augusta, the Franklin, and the Martinsburg & Potomac Railroads, the last of which was his last work. He was also engaged upon the construction of the James River and Kanawa Canal, and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and we see it stated that he was the inventor of the original locks used upon this later work.
When the Mexican war broke out he volunteered and raised a company, and on his arrival in Mexico was stricken down with yellow fever and returned to New Orleans, where his recovery took place with serious impairment of his eyesight. The following is a quaint old handbill which was found among his effects:
-------
Volunteers for Mexico -- The President of the United States has decided to accept the services of a Company of Volunteer Infantry, some time since organized in Carlisle, under the command of the undersigned, to serve during the War with Mexico, unless sooner discharged. The members of said Company, and other patriotic citizens who are anxious to participate with the Volunteers and Regular Army, will enroll their names with me, and be prepared for muster at Carlisle, by an officer of the Army to the designated for that purpose.
In addition to the regular pay, each Volunteer who serves during the War is entitled by an act of Congress, to a bounty of 160 acres of Land, or a commutation in money of $100. Provision and quarters will be immediately furnished upon application to:
EDWARD WATTS, Captain
Carlisle, July 21, 1847
Printed at the Cheap Job Office of the "Herald", Carlisle, Pa.
-----
Maj. Watts was married in Hagerstown to Sally A. Hollingsworth, daughter of Col. Jacob Hollingsworth, and he leaves a daughter, Miss Nancy H. Watts, and a son, Mr. Edward C. Watts, of the Auditor's Department Shenandoah Valley Railroad, Roanoke, where they propose to made their home.
By their permission we append the following:
-----
Letter from Jefferson Davis, Beauvoir, Miss, 4th of July 1883.
My Dear Friend - It was with great pleasure I received your kind letter of the 18th ulto. Memory brings to me many happy associations as I read your welcome letter, and long I dwell on the signature of a beloved class-mate, now one of the few on earth. Crafts J. Wright lives in Chicago. I saw him a year ago, quite an invalid. Thom. F. Drayton resides in Charlotte, NC. L.J. Austin has a retreat in New Port, RI, and more fortunate than the others has wealth to support it. Robt. E. Cleary is on the retired list of the Army, and free to go, like the wind, where he listeth. These and you and I are, so far as I know, alone left. Our paths in life have been far apart, but you have ever been near to my heart, and it gave me sincere gratification to receive your expressions of solicitude for the restoration of my health. The attack was severe and of complicated type, but there remains no more than the consequent debility. I am living on the Gulf coast, quite near to the Rail Road which connects New Orleans and Mobile, and about midway between those cities. It would give me great pleasure to receive you in this quiet home; where, though the war ruined me financially, I could give you shelter with a heart's whole welcome. Crafts Wright came to see me two winters ago, and he is the only one of our class I have seen for many years. It is sweet to renew the memories of school-boy days, and though the body has grown old the heart may still preserve the freshness of the happy days when all was colored by hope, and like butterflies, we looked for flowers without the knowledge of thorns.
I am glad to learn that you are yet able to continue your professional labors, and trust the day is far distant when you shall be put on the list of the exempts. Postponing the many things I would like to commune with you about, until we meet, or until with more strength I may write to you again, and wishing my dear Ned all the good things and all the happiness possible in this life, I am as ever, affectionately yours,
JEFFERSON DAVIS
-----
Source: Mail (Hagerstown, MD)
Friday, February 26, 1886
***************************
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