Jonathan Watson and Elizabeth Love

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Husband Jonathan Watson ¹

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           Born: 16 Nov 1819 - Derby, Orleans Co, VT 1
     Christened: 
           Died: 16 Jun 1894 - Clifton Springs, Ontario Co, NY 2
         Buried: 

       Marriage: 1862 2

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   Other Spouse: Joanna L. Chase (      -1858) 3 - Dec 1848 2

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Wife Elizabeth Love ²

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           Born: 
     Christened: 
           Died: Aft 1899
         Buried: 

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Children

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General Notes: Husband - Jonathan Watson

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At the age of twelve he went to live with an uncle at Haverhill, New Hampshire, and six years later to Hartford, Connecticut, and entered into the employ of a man named Warren as clerk in a lumber yard there. After the death of Mr. Warren, which occurred a few years later, Mr. Watson pur­chased an interest in the business and continued in it until 1845, when he sold out. With between five and six thousand dollars, which he had accumulated, he started west, came to Titusville, PA, and bought an interest in the lumber firm of Brewer, Allen & Company. The company, as first constituted, was or­ganized in 1840. The site for the first mill had been selected in 1839 by D. D. Allen and Rexford Pierce. A mill lower down on Oil Creek was built in 1842-43. The two mills had each two vertical saws, and together they cut four thousand feet of pine lumber a day. Several thousand acres of pine timber land on Pine and Caldwell creeks had been purchased in 1840 by Ebenezer Brewer, and his partners, who had been engaged in the manufacture of lumber at McIndoes Falls, Vermont. After Mr. Watson entered the firm, he had charge of the sale of the lumber at Pittsburgh. The company next established a yard in Allegheny City. By seasoning their lumber they were able to command a much better price for it. The lumber was rafted in high water down the creek and into the Allegheny river, and thence to Pittsburg. While at Pittsburg Mr. Watson had an attack of smallpox and was for a long time very sick, barely escaping death.
Petroleum, “Seneca oil,” showed itself at the upper mill. At first it was collected and used for lubricating the machinery at the mills. Finally a con­tract was made between Brewer, Watson & Company and J. D. Angier for increasing the production of the oil spring at the upper mill. Angier dug trenches and a pump worked by machinery at the mill pumped the oil and water into vats, convenient for dip­ping the oil after it had been collected upon the surface of the water. Further operations for collecting the oil by dipping were carried on, until Drake drilled vertically into the rock, striking a vein of oil on the 27th of August, 1859. This was late on Saturday afternoon. On Monday a temporary ap­paratus for pumping was constructed and the oil and water pumped into a temporary tank. On Tuesday, August 30, Mr. Watson rode on horseback to the Hamilton McClintock farm, containing three hundred and fifty acres, below Rouseville, and leased this land for oil purposes. Following this, Brewer, Watson & Company leased the J. W. McClintock farm, on which Petroleum Center was afterward built. At about 1860 they sold their lumber business to Nelson Kingsland and gave their attention to oil production, and they were highly successful. Mr. Watson in 1864 sold his entire oil interests to eastern capitalists, and retired upon a fortune of about three million dollars. He moved to Rochester, New York. But life there became dull to him. Like many others, who, having acquired fortunes from the oil business, have moved away to enjoy their wealth in easy retirement, become sick of quiet monotony, and long for a return to a life of venture, Mr. Watson, after two years' residence in Rochester, came back to what had been the most interesting period of his career. He erected a palatial residence on East Main street, on what was the old James Parker farm, and again began to drill for oil. He not only sunk deep wells, but also sunk large sums of money in the experiments.
Jonathan Watson was upright in purpose. Sincere himself in what he professed, he was slow to suspect others of hypocrisy. He had a great heart, and his aim throughout life was to do good, and he spent not a little of his fortune in generous donations. To the Chicago sufferers in 1871 he gave a thousand dollars, and he lived to see Chicago forget his generosity. Among his other gifts was a cabinet of geological specimens to the Titusville high school. Another gift was one thousand dollars to the widow of a former part­ner in business. When misfortune overtook him his spirit did not grow sour. He was magnanimous, and an optimist to the last. He died at Clifton Springs, New York, where he had gone for medical treatment. [HCC 1899, 733]

He had four children with his second wife, three were deceased before 1899.

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General Notes: Wife - Elizabeth Love

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She was residing in California in 1899.

1 Samuel P. Bates, LL.D., Our County and Its People, A Historical and Memorial Record of Crawford County, Pennsylvania (W. A. Fergusson & Co., 1899), Pg 733.

2 Samuel P. Bates, LL.D., Our County and Its People, A Historical and Memorial Record of Crawford County, Pennsylvania (W. A. Fergusson & Co., 1899), Pg 735.

3 Samuel P. Bates, LL.D., Our County and Its People, A Historical and Memorial Record of Crawford County, Pennsylvania (W. A. Fergusson & Co., 1899), Pg 735, 741.