My Genealogy Hound

Rev. John M. Watson, a member of the Associated Indian Executive Committee, Orthodox Friends of America, is a native of Jefferson County, Ohio, born December 80, 1829. His father, Matthew Watson, was a native of Durham, England; and the son of a preacher of the Orthodox Quaker faith. He was reared in Ohio, and educated in Columbiana County, Ohio, at the Middleton High-school. He commenced his ministerial work in 1867, having been previously preparing for that work for several years, and was on a missionary tour through the South when he lived at Jackson, Miss., for a year. In 1867 he began his church work at Columbiana County, Ohio, but never received a regular charge until 1879, when he came to the Indian Territory to take the place of a friend who was sick, as superintendent of the Wyandotte Indian Boarding-school. In that manner he was introduced into the Indian work, and he established a school at Blue Jacket, in the Indian Territory, the following year (1881). From there he was stationed among the Modocs in charge of the church there, and in charge of the church work in the Quapaw Agency. Mr. Watson was chosen as the member of the executive committee of the Orthodox Friends of America, in 1884, from the Kansas Conference, which embraces the membership of the church in Missouri, Kansas, California and Indian Territory, having an organized membership of 8,000. He visits the Government and church schools each month. Mr. Watson has resided in Carthage, Mo., since the spring of 1887.