“J.T. Watson…was from the ‘valley,’” according to George Atkisson’s 1978 history of Vienna’s Antioch Christian Church, referring to the Shenandoah Valley. John Thomas Watson was born in 1879 to Benjamin and Matilda Watson in Middletown, Virginia, according to birth and marriage records. Middletown is in the Shenandoah Valley near today’s western terminus of I-66 (see Figure 1). J.T. grew up just to the south of Middletown at Walnut Springs, according to Atkisson’s church history.
J.T. attended Milligan College in northeast Tennessee. While there, J.T. married Anna “Annie” Barbara Burner in 1901, according to Tennessee marriage records. J.T. had five years of college and Annie four, according to the 1940 U.S. census.
In 1903, J.T. came to Vienna, Virginia. That year, Vienna-area resident Joel Grayson attended the Shenandoah Valley convention of the Disciples of Christ and let it be known that his congregation needed a pastor for their new church, according to a 2003 history of Antioch Christian Church. J.T., recently graduated from Milligan, responded, and in 1903 he became the first pastor for the Antioch Christian Church. That year, he held the revival for the congregation, according to a 1953 history of the church. As the congregation built the new church, J.T. did much of the hauling of the lumber from the Navy area of the county, which would have been more than 10 miles away. “Brother Watson’s team, one horse balky and the other windbroken, more than once failed to make a hill and had to be backed down and the wagon half unloaded,” according to the 1953 history.
J.T. and his family lived on Grayson’s property on Lawyers Road, according to the 1953 history of Antioch Church. The Capital Area Missionary Society paid J.T. $10 monthly. For the 1904-05 school year, he also taught at the Clarke School, and moved to the C.C. Dyer residence on the west side of Beulah Road, according to the Fairfax Herald and the 1953 history (see Figure 2).
In mid-1905, J.T. took a position as a “Field Agent” at the recently founded Virginia Christian College, later known as Lynchburg College and now University of Lynchburg. The founder was the president of J.T.’s alma mater, and the school was affiliated with the Disciples of Christ. Although J.T.’s tenure as Antioch’s pastor thus ended in 1905, he later “periodically returned as an evangelist,” according to George Atkisson, who specifically calls out the 1930s in his history of Antioch Church.
In 1908, J.T. and his family moved to Lexington, Kentucky, judging from state records. The following year, J.T. and wife Annie lost their 18-month-old son to pneumonia. As of the 1910 census, the couple were renting in Lexington, J.T. was preaching as his occupation, and the couple had three living children, ages 7, 6, and 8 months.
In 1913, the family returned to Lynchburg, where J.T. then began the first of two periods as the pastor for the Euclid Avenue Christian Church, according to the Richmond Times Dispatch. During his years at Euclid, he must have experienced a good deal within the church community (see Figure 3). For instance, on the amusing side: at midnight one December night in 1914, a couple newly arrived in town—newly arrived by a matter of minutes—awakened J.T. at midnight; he married them; and the newlyweds were on their way out of town within an hour, according to the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. On the terrible side: in 1933, J.T. went to the Church for an appointment with a certain Jones, and upon arriving, found a note on the basement steps reading, “Look for me. Jones.” J.T. then found Jones dead, a suicide by gunshot to the head, according to the Danville Bee. Before killing himself, Jones had turned on the gas from two stoves in the basement, but fortunately no explosion resulted.
While in Lynchburg, J.T.’s family continued to grow. In 1916, Annie gave birth to another child, the couple’s fifth.
In early 1917, doctors ordered J.T. to halt his pastoral work for one month, and he traveled to Shenandoah County to rest, according to the Roanoke Times. It was not too long before he was back at work. In July, for instance, he was slated to be one of the principal speakers at an annual religious convention, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
The United States entered World War I in April 1917, and at the end of the year, the National War Work Council for the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) of the United States appointed J.T. as a secretary to serve with the American Expeditionary Force in Great Britain and France, according to documentation for his passport (see Figure 4). For the YMCA engagement, he had received a year’s leave of absence from the Euclid Avenue church, according to the Roanoke Times. In early January 1918, J.T. departed for the war on the S.S. Rochambeau, according to travel records.
The United States entered World War I in April 1917, and at the end of the year, the National War Work Council for the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) of the United States appointed J.T. as a secretary to serve with the American Expeditionary Force in Great Britain and France, according to documentation for his passport (see Figure). For the YMCA engagement, he had received a year’s leave of absence from the Euclid Avenue church, according to the Roanoke Times. In early January 1918, J.T. departed for the war on the S.S. Rochambeau, according to travel records.
By 1919, J.T. was back to providing religious services in the United States. That fall in Lynchburg he gave a welcome address to the annual meeting of an auto mechanics convention, according to the Alexandria Gazette. As of the 1920 census, J.T. and Annie had six living children, the oldest 17 and the youngest 3. In a reflection of the family’s frequent moves associated with J.T.’s pastoral work, these six children were born in four states. (The following year, the couple had their final child). As had been the case at Antioch Christian Church, J.T.’s ministry in Lynchburg was effective at increasing the congregation’s membership, judging from an item in the Roanoke World News in 1921. Membership had doubled, presumably since J.T.’s arrival, leaving the congregation short of space and thus prompting the construction of a Sunday school.
And by 1926, as it had in 1917, J.T.’s hard work had worn him out. In April 1926, he resigned as pastor from the Euclid Avenue Church, to the “great surprise” of the congregation, according to the Richmond Times Dispatch. He explained that he needed a rest and said he would move to Lynchburg’s suburbs. J.T. insisted that he wouldn’t withdraw his resignation, according to the Times Dispatch. But then he apparently did. The Richmond News Leader reported more than a year later, in July 1927, that J.T. was resigning as pastor from the Euclid Avenue Christian Church after 14 years in the position, indicating that he hadn’t done so the year before. The News Leader credited him with quadrupling the church’s membership over that span; the Roanoke Times in contrast cited a tenfold expansion to 750 members. J.T. delivered his farewell sermon at the church in September 1927 and then departed to “begin a campaign of evangelism,” according to the Roanoke Times.
From 1928 to 1930, J.T. was preaching in Campbell County, to Lynchburg’s southeast, judging from local newspaper accounts and the 1930 census. He owned a farm in Campbell County, where the family resided.
In mid-1930, J.T. accepted a recall to the pastorate at Euclid Avenue Christian Church, according to the Danville Bee. He served another six years at Euclid. He resigned in 1936 to minister in Virginia’s mountain country. J.T. told the Roanoke Times that he planned to dedicate his life to the mountain people, with whom he had a great deal of experience from his early days as a clergyman. Between late 1936 and mid-1937, the Roanoke Times gives varying accounts of J.T.’s residence in the mountain country, with references to Highland and Craig counties. The details of the Craig County data lend it greater reliability. According to that information, J.T. bought a farm near New Castle in Craig County, which borders West Virginia and is indeed situated in the mountains. As of the early 1940s, he remained in the New Castle area but ministered at Mizpah Christian Church in Goochland County, according to census and draft records. His hair had grayed, he was working 50 hours weekly, and his farm was valued at $2000.
The Second World War must have caused great anxiety for J.T. and Annie, because a son was a naval officer and a daughter and her family were swept up in the Pacific War (see Figure 5 for an earlier episode of anxiety). In December 1941, J.T.’s daughter, Winifred, an ordained minister, was in the Philippines performing missionary work for the Christian Church with her husband, Reverend Joseph M. Smith, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Roanoke Times. Then Japan invaded the Philippines as part of its opening campaign in WWII. Japanese forces captured Winifred, her husband, and their young son on Christmas Day, 1941, and interned them in a Japanese prison camp. Judging from the Times-Dispatch account, it appears that J.T. and Annie did not know the whereabouts of their daughter or her family–or their fate–until almost two years after their capture. All three of the family survived their three years of being interned, according to Joseph Smith’s obituary.
J.T. continued to serve as a clergyman after WWII. In 1947, he became the Pastor of the Church for the Fort Lewis Christian Church in Salem, Virginia, which is to the immediate west of Roanoke and where J.T. made his residence, according to the Roanoke newspapers. And in 1953, he was slated to return to Vienna for the 50th anniversary of Antioch Christian Church, according to The Standard of Falls Church (see Figure 5).
Annie died in 1959 after a long illness, according to the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. J.T. and Annie had been living in Lynchburg and J.T. was retired, according to her death certificate. In 1960, J.T. married a Lynchburg widow, Ola Mae Austin. In 1964, The Reverend Joseph Thomas Watson died in Lynchburg of heart disease, according to his death certificate.