Thomas Augustus Watson

Born in Salem, Mass., on January 18, 1854, the son of Thomas R. and Mary (Phipps) Watson.  After completing his early education in the public schools of Salem, he went to work, in 1872, in the electrical shop of Charles Williams, Jr., at 109 Court Street, Boston.  A number of inventors had their models made at William’s shop, and in 1874 Watson became acquainted with Alexander Graham Bell, with whom he worked closely thereafter during the period of the invention and early commercial establishment of the telephone.  When Bell went to Europe in 1877, Watson became the research and technical head of the Bell Telephone Co.

In the spring of 1881, enriched by the rise in bell stock, he resigned his position, and after a year of travel in Europe, married, on September 5, 1882, Elizabeth Seaver Kimball  of Cohasset, Mass.  Shortly afterwards he settled in East Braintree, Mass., and in partnership with Frank O. Wellington entered the shipbuilding business from which he retired in 1904 with a large fortune.

 His intellectual accomplishments were many.  At the age of 40 he and his wife, although then the parents of four children, entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  In geology he awakened the respect of professional scientists, and in literature he was widely known as an interpreter of poetry and drama.  He was president of the Boston browning Society and became ultimately a proficient student of music and painting.  In 1926 he published his autobiography.  He was a fellow of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the recipient of three honorary degrees.

He died at his winter home in Passagrille Key, Fla., near St. Petersburg on December 13, 1934.  Mrs. Watson survived her husband by more than 13 years and died at the age of 90 years in a hospital at St. Petersburg, Florida, on April 23, 1948.

Reprinted from Connecticut Pioneers in Telephony 1950