Margaret Anderson Watts

Margaret Anderson Watts (; September 3, 1832 – April 30, 1905) was an American social reformer in the temperance movement, writer, and clubwoman. She was a deep thinker on the most advanced social and religious topics of her day, and occasionally published her views on woman in her political and civil relations. She was the first Kentucky woman who wrote and advocated the equal rights of woman before the law, and who argued for the higher education of woman. She served as president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) of Kentucky, and as the National WCTU's Superintendent of police matrons.

Early life and education Margaret Mills Anderson was born in a country place near Danville, Kentucky, September 3, 1832. She was the daughter and sixth child of Hon. Simeon H. Anderson, a lawyer and orator, who died while he was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. Her brother, William Clayton Anderson, also served as a U.S. Representative from Kentucky. Albert G. Talbott was her uncle. On the maternal side, she is a granddaughter of Judge William Owsley, who was the fourteenth Governor of Kentucky. William was a first cousin to U.S. Representative Bryan Owsley. Her ancestors went back to the Rev. John Owsley (1635–1687), who in 1660 was made rector of the Established Church in Glouston, England, in which place he served sixty years. His son, Thomas Owsley, came to the Colony of Virginia, in America, in 1694, and settled in Fairfax County, Virginia. From his line came Amelia G. Owsley, the mother of Mrs. Watts. Both the Owsleys and Andersons were talented, educated people.

In the autumn of 1875 she, in connection with other women of the Woman's Christian Association of Louisville, established a Home for Friendless Women. She was the first secretary of the board of managers and its president for eight years. The work was begun with a few thousand dollars and was sustained and carried on by gratuitous contributions from the people of the city. Hundreds of women slept beneath its roof after its doors were opened. A new and spacious building was erected in the early 1890s. An elected officer of the John Marshall Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, she served as its historian in 1902.

Personal life Watts made her home in Louisville.

She married Robert Augustine Watts (1823–1896) in 1851. Three children grew to maturity. The oldest daughter, Julia, was the wife of Commander William W. Mead, of the United States Navy; the second daughter was the wife of a Florida orange-grower; and the son, Robert, was a successful engineer. In her later years, she studied metaphysics and scientific subjects, and she was a member of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College of Boston, Massachusetts. was inserted in The Christian Science Journal, 1889.

Margaret Anderson Watts died April 30, 1905, at the home of her daughter, Julia Mead, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Burial was at Bellevue Cemetery, Danville, Kentucky.