Cabell County, West Virginia - Biography: Charles W. WATTS ********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. ********************************************************************** Transcribed by (MRS GINA M REASONER), 1999 WEST VIRGINIA In History, Life, Literature and Industry The Lewis Publishing Company, 1928 - Volume 4, page 62-63 CHARLES W. WATTS, president of the Watts-Ritter Dry Goods Company of Huntington, is a successful business man who started his career with neither capital nor influence, merely with such abilities and talents as he possessed, which of themselves were of no ordinary merit. He has had a career at Huntington for thirty years, and has risen from bookkeeper to president of one of the leading wholesale houses of that city. Mr. Watts was born at Webster, Ohio, in 1867, son of James M. and Nancy (Collis) Watts, his father a native of Virginia and his mother of Maryland. His father spent most of his active life in the iron industry at Jackson, Ohio. He was a Democrat and a member of the Presbyterian Church. Charles W. Watts was the second in a family of three children. His schooling was consigned to the advantages of his home locality, and in 1887 he was keeping books for a firm at Point Pleasant, West Virginia. In 1888 he came to Huntington, and was for two years bookkeeper for the Barlow-Henderson Company was succeeded by Biggs, Watts & Company, and in 1906 it became the Watts-Ritter Company, wholesale dry goods, with Mr. Watts as president. The company has thirty traveling men covering territory in Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky, and does an immense volume of business in dry goods, notions and holiday goods. While this is the business to which Mr. Watts gives most of his time and energies, he has become connected with a number of other important business organizations. He is a director of the First National Bank of Huntington and member of the executive committee; is president of the Blue Jay Manufacturing Company, overall manufacturers, selling their goods all over the United States; is vice president of the Empire Furniture Company and a director of several other companies in Huntington. Mr. Watts married, in 1895, Miss Elizabeth Biggs, who was born in Kentucky and died in 1904. In 1916 he married Ouida Caldwell, daughter of the prominent Huntington banker and capitalist, the late James L. Caldwell. Mrs. Watts finished her education in the Mary Baldwin Seminary at Staunton, Virginia. She is a member of the Episcopal Church, while he is a Presbyterian. Mr. Watts is a member of the Guyandotte Club and Guyan Country Club. **********************************************************************