The Watts On-line
Issue No. 5
November 15, 1996

I had a discussion with Paul the other day and he suggested that when people submit items that they try and include as much information on the source as possible.  If the information is taken from a book, it would be appropriate to include the publisher and any other relevant information.  This way others who might be interested could check into borrowing the publication through a interlibrary loan.  The same goes for information taken from a microfilm.  The microfilm number is important when ordering.  It would also be helpful to mention at which library the microfilm or publication resides.  I think this is a very good suggestion .

Also...We need more contributions.  Please take a few minutes this week and see if there is something you have that might be of interest to others.  Group sheets in outline form are welcome.

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Contents:

1.  Members Lines
2.  Known Military Dead During the War of 1812
3.  Thomas Hill Watts of Alabama
4.  Queries
5.  Watts Homepage - Rich Gombert
6.  California Death Index Help
7.  Watts Marriages in Virginia - Part 4 of 6
8.  Correction in issue #5
9.  Clark County, Kentucky Burial Grounds

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MEMBERS LINES

1. Curt Gaines - rcgtkg@voicenet.com

My interest in the Watts line stems from the following entry from the Boone County Marriage Records, provided to me by the Boone County Ky. lookup volunteer.

Edwin M. Gaines  md Ann Eliza Watts 18 Feb 1845,  md by William T. Winston, bond by Gabriel O. Minor, consent by father A.B. Watts,  Bk B pg 193.

Additionally info: Edwins father was Churchill. Churchills father was Henry From Culpepper Va. Henrys father was William and mother was Isabella Pendleton.  Edwins Children were Charles, Alfred, James.

2. Kelly D Gombert/Picker - kgombert @ hotmail.com

Currently I have been concentrating all of my efforts on my mother's side of  the family with the surname of Bussard.  Consequently, I have not done a great deal of research on my father's line which is Watts.   My father's name is John Phillip Watts born in Akron, OH. in 1939.  His father was also named John Watts and he married Lucie Romenstant around 1938 in Akron,OH.  They were divorced when my father was 5 and that's about all I know. 

3. Linda L. Crawford      lcrawfor@mail.orion.org

I would like to join your newsletter. I'm afraid I don't have much to go on. I am looking for a connection between ARENNA WATTS  and the SOUTHARD family that I am researching. On the 1860 census of Dallas County MO in the MACLIN SOUTHARD family was ARENNA WATTS,female,8 yrsof age born in KY.  Maclin came from McMinn County TN in 1843. I can find no other WATTS connections with this family at all.Maclin was 74 at the time of the census.

Any help appreciated.

4. Ken Watts - KenWats@aol.com

I would very much like to receive your newsletter.  I have been researching many of the Watts in the Southeast, attempting to find the parents of my GG Grandfather, Alexander Watts.  I may have some info that may be helpful.  Most is bits and pieces.

5.  FirehairSS

Hi!  I' Firehair, a professional genealogist of some  25 years--I've been accused of leaving the hospital as a baby saying "remember to find out who your grandparents are!!'  I specialise mainly in native American Genealogy--the kind of Ancestors who got lost, lied about, covered over and denied.  "Indian?  Not us, leave it alone, why do you do this" type.  Will share some of the Watts families I've been tracking for others.

Pegene Watts, b. 1959 in Queens, currently  lives on the Seneca Reservation.  She is the d/o Gerald Cecil Watts b. 26 Jul 1937, GA, d. 1987 Queens.  He was s/o:

Jacob Isaac Cecil Watts, b. Jun 1907 Alabama, who md. Matilda (-----).  He died in 1994 in a nursing home.  He was a musican,  for a few years was with Roy Rogers, (Cactus Cowboys)  a glossy black and white  of them is in my possession.  According to the family, Jake and Roy were related, but how is not known to the current generation. (Dale Evans/Roy rogers kept in touch sporadically over the years)-- He was the s/o:

Gerald Isaac Hollingsworth Watts, b. 1876 AL, md. c 1897 Al. to Columbia F.  Haines  b. 1876 Al, (she d/o John James Haines, Martha Nancy Ponder)  They appear in Cullman Co., AL 1910, #275, children:  Jesse, King, Cecil, Theodore

It appears that Isaac H. is the son of : 
Hollingsworth Watts,  b. 1824, his wife, Martha Ellen Newsome,  who, in Clay county,  GA, 1870,  had children: 
Silas J. age 19, Melvina 18, Martha E., 16, Nancy J., 14,

Mary A. (who md. Paul Marion Swindell 1913 Clay Co.), Julia Elmira, 9, (b. 28 Dec 1860, md. Columbus VanBuren McCain, 4 Jul 1880), Jacob K, age 8, Caroline, 6, and Thomas Newsome, 2.. all born in GA.

Next door, listed as black, is Angel Watts, 27, Matilda, 15, Hester, 13, Andrew, 10, Calvin (?) 7, and Elisabeth, 1.

Believed to be a brother to Hollingsworth is family #204 clay Co. AL, Jacob Watts, b. 1818 GA, L.E., (Luamy Elizabeth Metcalf,2nd wife) 24,  J.W., male, 19, S.J., F., 20, N.L., fem., 11, L.A.  (Louisa Ann)  fem, 6, G. (C or I.??) age 4, (b. 15 Jul 1866, d/o Jacob Hudson Watts"),  N.B,m male, age 2--(Napoleon Bonaparte Watts, b. 10 Jul 1868)

Living there in the house is Jacob Shesa/China--age 17, and Wymen Watts, 18. 
Next house is Gideon Watts, 31, Mary 23, and R.L., 1, and then Thomas Watts, 21, E.F., 25, M.H. (fem) 9 mo.
Family 281 is Anderson Watt, age 7, male, and #284 is Elisabeth Watts, 40, with Nancy P., 16, and William, 11.  Isaac Watts b. 1876, is said to come down from "Black Jake" Watts, his wife, Martha Hollingsworth.

This line is definitely Native, it was  known by the entire family, and  Gerald Watts, b. 1937, was able to obtain  an  A.I.M.  Indian Scholarship for his daughter.

The current female generation carries the  rare form of retinitis pigmentosa which is found only in Indians/Orientals, is passed father to daughter genetically.

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KNOW MILITARY DEAD DURING THE WAR OF 1812

Author:   Ex Lieut. Clarence Stewart Peterson
     Box 342, Baltimore, Maryland, 1955

Page 69

Source: LDS MicroFiche #6051255
Submitted by: Paul Watts Allred  -  pwallred@ucdavis.edu

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THOMAS HILL WATTS OF ALABAMA

From:   dmbeckha@sprynet.com (Dennis M. Beckham)

Here's something I ran across on the Internet while researching some Civil War information:

Thomas Hill Watts
1863-1865

Thomas Hill Watts was born in the Alabama Territory on January 3, 1819, the oldest of twelve children born to John Hughes Watts and Prudence Hill who had moved from Georgia to find the better lands of the frontier. Prepared for college at the Airy Mount Academy in Dallas County, Watts graduated with honors from the University of Virginia in 1840. He passed the bar examination the next year, and began practicing law in Greenville. In 1848  he moved his lucrative law practice to Montgomery. He also became a successful planter, owning 179 slaves in 1860.

Politically, Watts adopted a pro-Union stance during the 1850s, but subsequent developments made the depth of his beliefs questionable, for on the eve of the Civil War he played an important role in the secession of Alabama, and was one of the signers of the secession ordinance. Defeated by John Gill Shorter in an 1861 bid for governor, Watts organized the Seventeenth Alabama Regiment, but resigned later to become attorney general in President Jefferson Davis' cabinet.

In 1863 Watts was elected governor of Alabama. Assuming office on December 1, he began an eighteen-month governorship at a time when impressment, the tax-in-kind, and other severe wartime economic measures had become most odious. Worthless Confederate money, lack of credit possibilities, irregular supplies of goods, impressment efforts that often amounted to pillage and plunder, and harsh (and unevenly applied) taxes-in-kind levied on agriculture convinced many people that they preferred the "Old Union" to the "new despotism." The need to raise troops for the defense of the state became more urgent. Appeals to the male population to form volunteer companies and appeals to the state legislature to reorganize the state's awkward two-class militia were met with unsurmountable resistance. Some critics of Watts thought he should concentrate on forcing deserters back into military service. The legislature's failure to act meant that the state, and the Confederacy, would not have an effective militia in the final critical months of the war. Furthermore, the Confederate Conscription Act of February 17, 1864, inaugurated a policy of conscription that inevitably led to conflict between the state and the Confederacy.

By September 1864 another turbulent issue confronted Governor Watts: the opening negotiations for peace. A faction in the Alabama House of Representatives introduced resolutions in favor of the negotiations.  Governor Watts was also faced with rising desertion rates, states' rights issues including the controversy over the conscription of the cadets at the University of Alabama, the issue of which state civil officials were exempt from conscription, the defense of Mobile, blockade-running, and cotton trading with Europe. During the winter of 1864-65, Governor Watts had to deal with the increasing number of sacrifices demanded of his state, the breakdown of authority, the drain on war power, and an evaporating hope of victory, all of which contributed to the state's war weariness. Governor Watts was well aware of his ineffectiveness and unpopularity by this time and made no effort toward reelection, although he continued to talk optimistically about the military situation. Arrested in Union Springs on May 1, 1865, Governor Watts was released a few weeks later and returned to Montgomery. He died twenty-seven years later on September 16, 1892.

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QUERIES

1.  Question:  Does anybody have the history of Isaac Watts the Hymnest?  Am told I am related and want to explore the possiblity.

Mary Arnold -  arnoldMB@aol.com

2.  I am looking for parents of WESLEY WATTS, born 27 September 1807; died 24 March 1886.  Wesley and his wife Frances HIATT are buried in Shelby County, KY.  They had twelve children: Mary Elizabeth, James Monroe, William Austin, M. Newton, Joseph Benton, Sarah Louisa, Jacob Meredith, Judith Frances,  Enoch W., John Dudley, Nancy Jane, Smith Thomas. Wesley and Frances WATTS and many of their children and grandchildren lived in Shelby Co. KY and are buried in the county.

Judy    BaxLlo@aol.com

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WATTS HOMEPAGE

I created a WATTS homepage a couple of months ago. I used Paul W. Allred;s posting as a base from which I added some of my own research, and research sent to me.

                http://nimitz.mcs.kent.edu/~rgombart/WATTSHP.html

Also, please ask your readers if they have any data online> I will link to any appropriate data that might be at hand (I don't have a lot of space here so I can't put everything here).

Rich Gombert
rgombart@mcs.kent.edu
rgombert@ix.netcom.com
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CALIFORNIA DEATH INDEX

Willing to do look-up as time permits.  If you'd like a copy of an individual page listing a family member, please forward a self stamped  addressed envelope.

I have copies of microfiche pages for 1940 - 1994 for the Surnames of WATT and WATTS.  The period of 1905 - 1940 is available only in book form.  I have some information (not complete) for this period.  The California Death Index is available on microfiche (#C-21213) and maybe available on inter-library loan.

The index typically contains the following information: 
1)       Name of  Individual (first, middle initial, last name); 
2)       2)  Initial of Spouse (not all years);
3)        3)  Mother's Maiden Name (1960 - 1969); 
4)       4) Sex;  5) Social Security Number;
5)        6)  County of Death;
6)        7)  Date of Death;
7)       8)  Death Certificate Registrar Number; and 
8)       9)  Death Certificate State File Number.

Copies of death certificates may be obtained directly ($9.00/copy) from the Office of Vital Records in Sacramento, CA or the county the death occurred in.

Submitted by: Paul Watts Allred, 8660 Nash Way, Sacramento, CA 95828 -
pwallred@ucdavis.edu

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WATTS MARRIAGES IN VIRGINIA - PART 4 OF 6

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CORRECTION

In the last issue of WATTS’ ON-LINE, Edie Suttle was mistakenly listed at the submitter of  the information on William Watts of Madison County, Kentucky.  This information actually was written by Edward Watts.  I apologize for the error and any problems it has caused.
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WATTS GRAVEYARDS IN CLARK CO. KENTUCKY

The following information I gleened from a book in the Salt Lake Library on Graveyards in Clark County, Kentucky.  Unfortunately, I did not write down the name of the book or the author.  I apologize for this lack of information and if anyone recognizes this information please let us all know the needed  data.  Thank you.

Watts Graveyard   (about 15 miles E. of Winchester and 1/2 mile N. of  Interstate 64, near Lulbegrud Creek)