Don Alonzo Watson
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2021}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Don Alonzo Watson
| image = Don Alonzo Watson (1807–1892).png
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1807|06|15}}
| birth_place = Palmer, Massachusetts
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1892|01|01|1807|06|15}}
| death_place = Rochester, New York
| burial_place =
| other_names =
| spouse = {{Marriage|Caroline M. Manning|1855}}
| children =
| occupation = Businessman
| awards =
| education =
| party =
| signature = Signature of Don Alonzo Watson (1807–1892).png
}}
Don Alonzo Watson (June 15, 1807 – January 1, 1892) was a Rochester, New York businessman and philanthropist who, with Hiram Sibley helped found Western Union.
Biography
Don Alonzo Watson was born in Palmer, Massachusetts on June 15, 1807.{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/americassuccessf02hallrich/page/837/mode/1up |title=America's Successful Men of Affairs: An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography |volume=II |editor-first=Henry |editor-last=Hall |publisher=The New York Tribune Company |page=837 |year=1896 |access-date=2021-12-08 |via=Internet Archive}}
He was educated at public schools, and trained as a machinist in Boston. In 1832,he moved to Honeoye Falls, New York, where he met Hiram Sibley. They were partners in a profitable machinery business for eight years.
He married Caroline M. Manning in 1855, and they had three children.
In 1856, he was a major investor in Sibley's new Western Union company.
Watson purchased a building for Rochester Homeopathic Hospital which became Genesee Hospital in Rochester.[http://www.viahealth.org/body_rochester.cfm?id=521 The History of the Genesee Hospital] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070206031845/http://www.viahealth.org/body_rochester.cfm?id=521 |date=February 6, 2007 }}, Via Health Watson also endowed a professorship to the University of Rochester in acknowledgment of the college's achievements in political science and history.[http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=1267 Political Scientist Appointed to Watson Professorship], University of Rochester Press Releases
He died at his home in Rochester on January 1, 1892, and was buried near Sibley in Mount Hope Cemetery.{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/90276325/don-alonzo-watson/ |title=Don Alonzo Watson |newspaper=Democrat and Chronicle |page=10 |date=1892-01-02 |access-date=2021-12-08 |via=Newspapers.com}}
References
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External links
{{Portal|Biography}}
- {{Find a Grave|2822}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Watson, Don Alonzo}}
Category:Burials at Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester)
Category:19th-century American businesspeople
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