John Watts
John Watts was born March 24, 1820. Little or nothing is actually known of his ancestors, further than that his grandfather (Thomas Watts) was born in England about 1766. Thomas immigrated into this country when but a boy, and found his first employment in a blacksmith shop, where he stayed until 1788, when he married Miss Snyder and settled on a farm of 160 acres in Lancaster County, Penn. John's father was born in 1791. He was a weaver by trade, but finding this not as profitable as he had supposed, he abandoned the loom and commenced farming upon a farm of which he was then the owner. He lived in Lancaster County, Penn., until the year 1835, when he and family moved to Holmes County, Ohio, where he lived until his death in 1867. He was the father of ten children--five boys and five girls, as follows: John, Samuel, Catherine, Sarah, Zimmerman, Thomas, Isaac, Ellen, Mary and Fannie. Ellen and Mary died when young, and were buried in Holland cemetery, Penn. Zimmerman volunteered in the War of 1861, and was an active soldier until the surrender of Vicksburg, where he received mortal wounds. In 1843 John Watts was married to Miss Elizabeth Gardiner, and moved on his father's property, of which he became the possessor, not by inheritance, but by the toil of his own hands.
He is the father of fourteen children--eight girls and six boys--Rachel,born May 25, 1844; Levi, in 1845; George, in 1847; Sarah, in 1848; Barbara, in 1850; Mary, in 1851; John, in 1854; Elizabeth, in 1856; Catherine, in 1857; Joseph, in 1859; Lucy and Laura, 1862; Samuel, in 1864, and Lewis, in 1866. George, Samuel and Elizabeth are deceased. The others are all married and have families, excepting Laura and Lewis, who are yet unmarried.
From Commemorative Biographical Record of the Counties of Wayne and Holmes, Ohio, J. H. Beers & Co., Chicago, 1889