THE WATTERS FAMILY
David Watters (Waters?) emigrated from Ireland to the United States in the late nineteenth century. The first census we found the Watters family on was 1905. David is listed as the following: head of house hold, farmer, husband and 58 years of age. His wife Helen also appears and has no listed occupation(quite common for women of the era), her age given is 55. Rebbeca their daughter was 21 years old. William, Jessie, and Lorrna Watters also appeared on the census, but it appears they live on a different parcel of land. At this point we are seeking William's relationship to David Watters. We have found that David Watters first leased land in New Ireland from Patrick Keough. The lease agreement stated that he would donate part of the oil found on the property to Keough. Watters then leased more land from James Rochford on October 7, 1896. Later Rochford leased still more land to Watters for the purpose of mining all gases found in that particular area. In November of 1896 Patrick Rowan also agreed to lease land to Watters for the purpose of oil production. Again in November of 1896 we found that another New Ireland resident; Bridget Spellacy, signed an oil lease with Watters. It seems apparent that David Watters was becoming firmly entrenched in the lucrative oil industry. After obtaining all this land, we also discovered that in the same month and year (11/1896) David discharged the lease between himself and Patrick Keough. Our assumption is that it proved to be a non profitable venture. On December 26th of 1903 Watters began to sell his land. David Watters almost 60 years old at this point sold some of the land for one dollar and Indian rent(?) to William Watters, possibly confirming their father / son relationship. David Watters then buys another parcel of land for $550 from James D. Coulton. Watters next purchase was 218 acres from Frederick P. Schoonmaker for a mere 1 dollar. It turned out that this land would later be lumbered out by Watters. In 1911, David Watters buys over 400 acres from Martin Wagner (see Map of 1897)for $3250, again for the purpose of lumbering.
David Watters was a true "renaissance man" of his time. He was known to be a lumberer, farmer, oil driller, and miner. His life becomes another Horatio Alger story as he worked his way up from a landless immigrant to that of a rich father. His story would support the widespread idea that America was truly a "land of opportunity". Watters probably passed away around 1920 but not without leaving his wife all of his assets.
There is much more to tell of this story so the site will continue to change during the course of the school year. Anyone having information or data that could help tell the story please e-mail me at:
[email protected]or[email protected]We would especially like to find letters, diaries or journals that would serve as primary sources for the era being researched.See page wattersfamily2.html for further information.