Samuel C. Watson

Samuel C. Watson (c. 1832 – March 13, 1892) was a druggist, medical doctor, and civic leader in Detroit, Michigan, and Chatham, Ontario. In the late 1850s and early 1860s, Watson was a part of the Detroit–Chatham Underground Railroad and closely connected with William Whipper and George DeBaptiste. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), Watson settled in Detroit, where he would eventually become a city councilman. He was politically independent, and found himself on opposite sides of debates with DeBaptiste and other Michigan blacks, and he switched from the Republican to the Democratic party in the mid-1880s.

Early life Samuel C. Watson was born a slave in about 1832 in St. James Parish, South Carolina. When he was nine years old, his master died and he was sent with two brothers and two sisters to Washington, D.C., under the guardianship of Rev. William McLane, a Presbyterian preacher. He had already begun some education, and in Washington, he attended a school led by the wife of abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor Leonard Grimes. He then attended Union Seminary led by John F. Cook. At the age of sixteen, he enrolled at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he studied for three years, one year in the classical department, before dropping out. The next spring, he joined the crew of the survey schooner at Brooklyn Navy Yard where he took part in surveys between Delaware Bay and Portland, Maine. The ship returned to New York, and Watson was discharged. He then followed his brothers and moved to Ohio and enrolled at Oberlin College. He again did not finish his studies, opting instead in 1853, to transfer to the Medical Department at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He left that school in 1856, moving to Cleveland, Ohio, to finish his studies at the Western Homeopathic College where he graduated in the winter of 1856, and was granted an M. D. in 1857. He then moved to Chatham, Ontario, where he practiced medicine until the fall of 1858.

Canada In the fall of 1858, he moved to British Columbia, following a gold rush there. Unsuccessful, he returned to Chatham the next fall. In 1859, he joined the steamboat the T. Whitney co-owned by abolitionists William Whipper and George DeBaptiste and run by DeBaptiste which shipped lumber and escaped slaves between Sandusky, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and Amherstburg, Ontario. In the winter of 1861, he married Sarah L. Cassey, the only daughter of Joseph and Ann Cassey in Salem, Massachusetts, and the couple settled in Toronto, where Watson was licensed to practice medicine. That year, Watson was nominated to the state legislature, but lost in the election. In 1875, he was nominated to the Board of Estimates, but again lost due to a ballot irregularity involving a misspelling of Watson's name His democratic opponent, M. J. Mills, refused the nomination and the alderman voted Watson to the seat. In 1876, he was again nominated to the state legislature and again lost. In 1883, he was nominated to the city council and was elected to the three-year term. Watson along with Obadiah C. Wood feuded with Albert W. Hill, and when Watson term in the city council ended, he was not put up for a second term. When Watson's term in the city council ended, he requested and was promised a seat in the assessor's office, but in the end, was not appointed. and in 1888, Watson wrote an article published in the Detroit Free Press in support of independent politics and questioning the Republican Party's support for civil rights. He formed the Independent Colored Democratic Club and was a member of the Jacksonians club. In 1892, he supported Grover Cleveland in the presidential election. In 1891, he was appointed to the Jury Commission by Michigan Governor Edwin B. Winans. His funeral was held at his home on 559 Jefferson Avenue and he was buried at Elmwood Cemetery.