My father, W. E. Watson, came west for his health at the age of nineteen. Friends in Wisconsin had recommended Silver City and had given him letters to Mr. Pat Rose and Mrs. Lettie B. Morrill. Among the first people he met was Mr. A. J. Spaulding, and for several years they were closely associated. They made Claremont, near the later town of Mogollon, their headquarters for many prospecting expeditions. This was during the days of Indian raids but they never encountered an unfriendly Indian. Once when Mr. Spaulding had gone into Silver City for supplies and was expected back that evening, Dad hiked over the mountains to Whitewater and caught a mess of trout. He had returned to the cabin when a rider came up calling out that the Indians were on the warpath and were in the mountains and that all the people were to go to Meaders on the Frisco River for safety’s sake. Dad said he was expecting Spaulding so would not leave. He took his binoculars and scanned the hillsides. A movement far up on the canyon wall caught his eye. He watched the brush intently and presently made out the figure of a man, the queerest he had ever seen, more startling than an Indian even. Surmounting the pack on the man’s back was a large rectangular contrivance, attached to his belt were many packets, in one hand he carried a gun and in the other a butterfly net. Dad went to meet him. This was the beginning of an interesting friendship with H. H. Rusby, a botanist who was looking for medicinal herbs for Parke Davis Co. of Detroit and also collecting specimens of flora and fauna. Mr. Rusby had seen no Indian sign, nor had Mr. Spaulding, who returned later that evening. They were not molested but the next day they learned that Capt. Cooley had been killed not many miles from their cabin. My father’s parents were English. His father was born at Littleport, Cambridgeshire. He worked with his father, who was a bridge builder, from age 14 until he came to America in 1848. He lived in Chicago for one year, then joined in the Gold Rush the following year and traveled overland to California and tried his luck at Placerville. After two years of varying success he returned to New York and crossed the ocean to his old home. In 1853 he was married to Miss Sarah Wilson of Spaulding, in the Ely Cathedral. They came to Chicago, later moving to Janesville, Wisconsin, where as contractor and builder, especially of bridges for the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, he was quite prominent.