Biography of John E Watson, Greene Co, AR

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Submitted by: Michael Brown
        Date: 5 Sep 1998
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
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Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northeast Arkansas

page 181

John E. Watson, father and stockman of Greene County, Ark., was born in
Lawrence District, S. C., July 25, 1841, and is a son of Tillman and Sarah (Pape)
Watson, who were also born in that State. The father was a Democrat, a farmer, and he
and his wife were members of the Baptist Church. They moved from South Carolina to
Alabama in 1842, remained there until 1869, and the year following the father's
death, which occurred in 1875, the mother came to Greene County, Ark., where she is
still residing. The following are their children: William F., James H., Martha M., J.
E., Sarah J., Elizabeth, Israel, and Louis J., who died when five years of age.
William F. is a farmer of West Tennessee, and he and John E. are the only ones of the
family living at the present time. The latter began an independent career at the age
of twenty years, [p.181] and enlisted in Company D, Twenty-second Alabama (Day's)
Regiment, and Bragg's division, of the Army of the Tennessee, and was in the battles
of Murfreesboro, Chickamanga, Missionary Ridge and Atlanta. He was captured at
Atlanta on the 3d of August, 1864, and was kept in prison at Camp Chase, Ohio, until
the 18th of March, 1865, when he was released on parole, but before the parole term
had expired the war was ended. After his return to Alabama he engaged in farming with
his father, and in August, 1865, was married to Miss Martha P. Greenway, a daughter
of Thomas and Olive Greenway, natives of Georgia, the father a farmer by occupation.
Mr. and Mrs. Watson became the parents of five children: Lugenia (Turner), of Greene
County, Ark.; Laura S. (Tatum), John H., living, and Mary Lee and James F., deceased.
Mr. Watson's second marriage was to a Miss Smith, in July, 1880, and by her he has
one child, Milton. This wife died in November, 1885, and in January, 1886, he married
his third wife, Mrs. Catherine C. (Lenderman) Hyde. To this last union has been born
a son, William Tell. After his first marriage Mr. Watson lived one year in Alabama,
then removing to West Tennessee, where he was engaged in farming until the fall of
1869, since which time he has been a successful tiller of the soil in Greene County,
Ark., his first purchase being 120 acres. Five years later he traded this farm, which
he had improved somewhat, for other land, forty acres of which are in the place he
now owns. His farm consists of 140 acres of very finely improved land, and the most
of this he devotes to cotton, though also giving attention to other crops. He is also
interested in stock breeding. He is an independent Democrat in polities, and he and
wife are members of the Christian Church. His wife became the mother of five children
by her first husband: Christiana E., wife of D. C. Smith, a farmer residing with Mr.
Watson; John Thomas, Edward, Jasper E. and Walter, all living with their mother and
step-father.