William Watson^[1]

1826 - Yes, date unknown

• Name	William Watson
  Birth	1826	Skelmorlie, Ayrshire
  Gender	Male
  Death	Yes, date unknown
  Person ID	I174853	First tree
  Last Modified	17 Nov 2020

  
  

  Father	Henry Watson   d. Yes, date unknown
  Family ID	F26367	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Helen Milligan   d. Yes, date unknown
  Marriage	11 Apr 1871
  Family ID	F30706	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	24 Jan 2013

  
  

• Notes

  1st Sergeant 3rd Louisiana Infantry, Pelican Rifles http://uk.msnusers.com/Skelmorlie/yourwebpage9.msnw "When Life in the Confederate Army was published in England in 1887, theBoston Sunday Herald proclaimed it "the best story of the Southern sideyet written..." "William Watson was born in 1826 in the Scottish village of Skelmorlie,some twenty-five miles west of Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde. His father,Henry Watson, was an Englishman by birth and a landscape gardener bytrade who came to Skelmorlie in 1820 to lay out the grounds of Ash Craig,the estate of Andrew Donaldson Campbell. William Watson's motherapparently died soon after William's birth, for Henry Watson shortlythereafter married an Ayrshire native and remained at Ash Craig asgardener for forty years, building a cottage named Halketburn where heraised a family of eight. But William, as the parish historian affirmedwith remarkable understatement, became "something of an adventurer."Perhaps through the influence of his father's employer, a former WestIndian sugar planter, William Watson immigrated in about 1845 to theCaribbean Islands, where he was employed as a civil engineer and sometimeship's captain. In about 1850 he moved to Louisiana, and by 1860 was partowner of a "sawmilling and wood factory" and a coal and steamboatbusiness at Baton Rouge." There follows an extensive description of his activities in the US CivilWar. It Ends with "Returning to Scotland after the war, Watson built a house in Glasgow,where on April 11, 1871, he married Helen Milligan, thethirty-two-year-old daughter of a local baker." From http://uk.msnusers.com/Skelmorlie/yourwebpage9.msnw

  
  

• Sources

  [S2822] Hamish Maclaren.