Update on Possible Parents for Sophia Watt: Now We Know

Way back in 2014, I wrote this post speculating that Sophia Watt's parents might have been William Watt and Jane Bond, whose first husband was John Powis.  My guess was based upon knowing Sophia's birth date and place from the obituary written by her son David Oliphant Jr. and published in The Christian Banner, Volume 11, No. 4, April 1857.   I could only find one birth record for a child named Sophia Watt in London in late March of 1782.   However, finding a record for a Sophia did not prove definitively that this was our Sophia.  

 However, another researcher has recently and very generously sent me an 18-page history of the Oliphant family written by Edith Kilgour, who was a great granddaughter of David Oliphant and Sophia Watt.   Edith tells us that she had access to many old family letters and other documents when writing her family history, so she was relying on more than oral history to create it.  And it is truly a goldmine of information!  I'm so excited and happy to have seen it.

First of all, Edith tells us of a rumour that Sophia was "closely related to James Watt the inventor of the Steam Engine", who was born on January 19, 1736, in Greenock, to another James Watt (shipwright and merchant) and his wife Agnes Muirhead.  James Watt Senior's father was Thomas Watt, mathematics teacher.  At the moment I can't find any relationship between these people and Sophia, and Edith doesn't know what it was precisely.

She does, however, know the names of Sophia's parents and her paternal grandparents.  Hooray!  Now we can go back two generations, which is very good news.

"The first Watt of whom we have record is William Watt of St. Andrews and his wife Agnes Wallace. They had a son William born 17th August, 1759.  The latter married in London "Jean" Bond, an English woman, and they had a son James born on March 26, 1786 and registered in St. Andrews, and a daughter Sophia born March 26, 1783 in London. After the birth of Sophia they evidently returned to St. Andrews to live."  

It's kind of strange that both children were born on the same date, three years apart.

Edith also confirms something that I'd already discovered in the records, that Jane Bond's marriage to William Watt was a second marriage for her.  Her first husband was named John Powis.  

Edith has a lot to say about Sophia's other relatives.  On her mother's side, "not much is known except that her [Sophia's] great grandfather was one Percival Bond and that she had two aunts, Frances and Phyllis, the latter of whom, unmarried, left her a legacy...Sophia Watt had an aunt Isabella (Taddie) who died in 1841 and left her a legacy.  She also had legacies from two other aunts, Anne Turner and Phyllis Bond.  She had at least two uncles, one of whom was  Thomas Watt who was wealthy and travelled to the West Indies.  There he married the daughter of the Governor of Guadeloupe, and afterwards returned to Edinburgh where they lived "in style" in Claremont Crescent...This Thomas Watt had several children.  A daughter, Isabella, married a Mr. Anderson of Jamaica, W.I.  The son, Edward, lived in Trinidad.  Another son, William, also lived in Trinidad and a son, Henry, went as A.D.C. to the Governor of Domenica.  His father [Sophia's Uncle Thomas] wrote to Sophia Watt that this son had been given a handsome establishment and later accepted a judgeship."

And finally, Edith provides us with a Watt-Bond family tree:

There's even more here, mostly about Sophia and David Oliphant's life, but this is enough information to get started with.  First of all, one of the reasons I was so happy to learn that Sophia was indeed the daughter of William Watt is that I have a biography of a William Watt of St. Andrews. This turns out to be a biography of Sophia's grandfather, William Watt Senior.  It was published in 1839, well after his death, in "The Gardener's Magazine, and Register of Rural and Domestic Improvement".

The archives of St. Andrews University were able to give me some supplementary information.  From the book "Biographical Register of the University of St. Andrews 1747-1897" by Robert Smart:

"Watt, William.  Cook and gardener to St. Mary's College 1757-1786 (retired).
 Previously gardener to the Earl of Buchan.

Watt, William.  Cook and gardener to St. Mary's College 1786-22.4.1800 (died aged 83). 
Also worked as a surveyor. 
Born c. 1717 son to William Watt, cook and gardener to St. Mary's College. 

Watt, William.  Cook and gardener to St. Mary's College.  
Son of William Watt, cook and gardener to St. Mary's College."

I think the author incorrectly attributed the death date of the elder William Watt to his son.  It is probably the elder William Watt who died in 1800, age 83 (although to add to the confusion, his biographer in the "Gardener's Journal" has him dying in 1798).  

The librarian at the archives pulled out several relevant entries from the Minutes of St. Mary's College. According to these records, the first William Watt began work at the College on November 24, 1757.  On 16 June 1786, the minutes mention a gratuity awarded to "William Watt Younger" for "extraordinary work" in the gardens, and says that Watt Sr. was retiring due to "age and infirmity".  On 22 July 1800, the minutes report:

"The meeting considering that the offices of Cook and Gardener to the College had become vacant by the death of the late Mr. Watt Senior on the day of _____ last, agreed to nominate Mr. Watt Junior to officiate as a cook for the next session of College."  


On April 3 1801, there is an entry that records the full appointment of William Watt Junior.

By the way, in case it's not clear, St. Mary's College is part of St. Andrew's University in the town of St. Andrews.  


This information is both very helpful and a tiny bit confusing.  It makes it seem as if there are three William Watts, but I think there are only two.  Sophia's father, William Watt, was born in 1759.  He would have been 27 years old in 1786, when the first William Watt retired and the second took his place, which makes sense, especially since it seems as though he was already gardening there in some capacity anyway.  The part about him also working as a surveyor is unexpected.  I think it was the elder William Watt, Sophia's grandfather, who was born circa 1717.  This would make him 22 when entering the Earl of Buchan's service, and 34 when his first child was born.

I don't have a marriage record for William Watt Sr. and Agnes Wallace, but I do have birth records for seven of their children, three more than Edith's family tree contains.  William and Agnes had:

• Henry, born May 6, 1751, in the parish of Liberton (parish record says the family lives in "Goodtrees").  In the family history Edith refers to this child as Henry David. Apparently Liberton is a parish in the county of Edinburgh, 2 miles outside the city of Edinburgh.   Fun fact:  "Liberton" derives from "Leper's Town", due to a leper hospital the area once containted.  
• Cardross (male) born September 29, 1754, also at Liberton.  Cardross is a name associated with the Earl of Buchan's family.  
• Isabelle (on the birth record) or Isabella (on the family tree).  Born December 6, 1757, in the parish of St. Andrew's.  This makes sense, as William Watt the elder began working at St. Andrew's University that year.  From here on in, all the birth records refer to William as being a "Gardener at New College".  According to the St. Mary's College Minutes, St. Mary's College was sometimes referred to as New College at this time.  
• William, born August 17, 1759, St. Andrews.  This is Sophia Watt's father.  
• James, born February 28, 1761, St. Andrews.
• Jean, born January 7, 1763, St. Andrews. 
• Thomas, born January 31, 1765, St. Andrews.  

It is possible that not all these children survived.

There are two different death records in the St. Andrew's parish records in the name of William Watt.  It makes sense to me that the first William to die would have been Sophia's grandfather, who would indeed have been 83 years old if he was born in 1717 and died in 1800.  His son, Sophia's father, who died in 1803, would have been a relatively young 44 years. 

"William Watt Gardner to St. Mary's College St. Andrews died 27th of April 1800".  

"William Watt Gardner to the New College died here 6 of May 1803". 

Additionally, the book "Monumental Inscriptions pre-1855 in East Fife" by John Fowler Mitchell and Sheila Mitchell records this gravestone inscription in the churchyard of St. Andrew's Cathedral:

"Wm Watt gardner and surveyor here 27.4.18(0)(0 or 6) (83)".   

There are still clues to the Watt and Bond families to explore, and next I am going to look into the family of Sophia's globe-trotting uncle Thomas Watt. 



  

Possible Parents for Sophia Watt

Sophia Watt's recently discovered obituary does not name her parents but does provide her date and place of birth;   March 26, 1782, in London, England.   Using this information I have uncovered a possible baptismal record for her.   There was a Sophia Watt baptized on March 31, 1782, at St. Leonard's Church, in Heston, Middlesex, which is part of London.  Her parents were William and Jane Watt.

I've also found a marriage record for a William Watt of Heston, Middlesex, bachelor, and a Jane Powis, widow, who married in St. Martin, Dorking, on June 19, 1780.

Powis could either be Jane's birth name or the name from her first marriage.  There is a marriage record for a Jane Bond marrying a John Powis at St. Marylebone on September 10, 1778.  There is also a record of a William Watt, Gardener, and his wife Jean Bond having a son named James on March 26, 1786, in St. Andrews.  A William Watt Sr. was one of the witnesses.  Could this William Watt and Jean Bond be the William Watt and Jane Powis who are Sophia's parents? 

Here is a death record for a William Watt, from St. Andrews and St. Leonards parish.

William Watt Gardner to St Mary's College St. Andrews died 27th of April 1800.

And here's another one, from the same parish, three years later:

William Watt, Gardner to the New College died here 6th of May 1803. 

Here is an obituary for a William Watt, gardener of St. Andrews, who died a few years before either one of these.  It is written almost 40 years later;  possibly the death date is mistaken?  It seems a stretch that there were three William Watts who gardened for St. Andrews University at the same time.   This is taken from The Gardener's Magazine and Registry of Rural and Domestic Improvement, Vol. 15, 1839.  If this is Sophia Watt's line of descent, I'm guessing it would be her grandfather, not her father.

Unsubstantiated Gossip

Every family historian secretly wants it--that tie to a famous person, preferably royalty, but anyone high-profile will do in a pinch.  There is a certain glamour in being able to claim that you are descended from Charlemagne or Michaelangelo (by the way, there are many serious genealogists who believe that almost everyone of European origin alive today is a descendant of Charlemagne).  And on a more practical note, it's much easier to research prominent people than it is to find out about, say, a farmer in Poland three hundred years ago.

So you can imagine how chuffed I was when I read this letter on my recent trip to the local archives.  It was written by Edith Kilgour Bain to Mary E. Oliphant (these ladies were cousins, both grandchildren of David Oliphant Sr. and Sophia Watt).  Edith seems to know a little about her grandparents' (particularly Sophia's) early life in Scotland.

"His wife, Sophia Watt, was born in 1783 in London, but both were brought up in St. Andrews, Scotland.  She was of better family than the Oliphants and incurred the great displeasure of her family, first by joining the Haldane movement and then by marrying David Oliphant, whom she met at the chapel.  There is a persistent tradition in the family that she was a near relative of James Watt, of steam engine fame, but just what I don't know.  But the family seems to have been very well-to-do and well connected in St. Andrews".  

Edith also goes on to mention that she thought the Watt family had a possible connection with the West Indies, and that one of Sophia Watt's other relatives was a Librarian of St. Andrew's University.  (Rueben Butchart fonds, Victoria College Archives, University of Toronto, F52, Box 4, File 1.)

Could the Rutherfords have a connection to James Watt through the Oliphant/Watt line?  Well, if we do, it's not a direct connection--James Watt's children are documented and Sophia isn't one of them.

Sophia Watt, Undated, Wellington County Museums and Archives

Could Sophia be a niece or cousin of the famous inventor?  It may be possible, but annoyingly, I don't know the names of her parents.  Her marriage record just shows her own name (now if she'd been married in Poland, the record would have her name, her parents names and probably her grandparent's names as well!).  It's not really much help.

 (12th of August 1809 were contracted David Oliphant, shoemaker, and Sophia Watt, b. mem. this parish--proclaimed and married 20th [August].)

The other gossipy bits of this letter are equally interesting, I think (and somewhat easier to believe).  Sophia and David must have been deeply in love for her to marry him despite her family's "great displeasure", and I'll bet there's a dramatic story around her becoming a Baptist in spite of family protest.  To go from a daughter of a well-to-do family in a University town in Scotland to basically becoming a pioneer wife in rural Ontario sounds very Susannah Moodie-ish.  This little snippet just makes me want to know more about her!

What the Disciples Can Tell Us About the Oliphants

It's been a good few generations since the name Oliphant has appeared on the Rutherford family tree. This is how the descent goes:  David Oliphant Sr. and his wife Sophia Watt were the first generation to travel to Canada.  They had a daughter,  Mary Oliphant, who married William Elliot (of Dundas and later Toronto),  and in turn their daughter, Mary (Minnie) Elliot, married John Galloway Scott (see previous post).  This makes David Sr. my husband's great-great-great-great grandfather.  The Oliphants seems to have slipped out of family memory (various other names, such as Rutherford, Scott, Elliot, Bulmer and Norton have served as middle names for various Fyfes I've known or heard about, but there aren't any modern-day Fyfes or Rutherfords with the middle name Oliphant still kicking around).  However,  the Oliphant family was quite an interesting one.

I'm getting a lot of my information from the book How the Disciples Came Together in Early Ontario by Edwin Broadus (Gospel Herald Foundation, Beamsville Ontario, 2009).  He writes a whole chapter on David Oliphant Senior, whom he calls "among the most influential of the Baptists of Scottish background in the development of the Disciples in Ontario" (28).  The Oliphant family was from St. Andrews, Scotland, and they came to Canada for the sake of David Sr.'s health (he had asthma).  According to Reuben Butchart (The Disciples of Christ in Canada since 1830, 1949, p. 58-59) in Scotland David Sr. was a "pastor at a Baptist church in St. Andrews", although in Canada he appears to have taken up shoemaking to support himself.  George Barclay, a contemporary of Oliphant's, is quoted by a Disciple periodical as saying "I was once a member of a  Baptist church in Largo, Scotland, with D. Oliphant's [i.e. David Oliphant Jr's.] father and mother, before they were married."  (The Christian Banner, June 1885, 167).   (According to Broadus, Largo is very close to St. Andrews, and "a Scotch Baptist church was formed in Lower Largo on the Firth of Forth in 1790" (29)).   

Broadus tells us that David traveled to Canada in 1821 with his oldest son Alexander (11 years old) while his wife Sophia Watt stayed in Scotland with their four younger children.  David Sr. and Alexander moved first to Esquesing Township, northwest of York, where they joined a small congregation of Disciples in the Norval church.  Shortly afterwards the father and son moved to Dundas, Ontario, where David began preaching regularly.  In 1823 David's wife Sophia and the rest of their children finally joined them.  At this point some of the Lesslie family were also living and worshipping in Dundas, as was William Elliot.  William Lyon MacKenzie was also living in Dundas during this time and I am certain the Oliphants knew him, as in 1837  David and Sophia (now living in Eramosa township) hid MacKenzie's co-conspirators Samuel Lount and Edward Kennedy overnight as they were running away after the battle of Montgomery's Tavern. (The Lesslie family was also very intimate with William Lyon MacKenzie, who had traveled to Canada with 18-year-old John Lesslie.  MacKenzie and Lesslie were in partnership together briefly in York and in Dundas in the "Lesslie and Sons" stores that John Lesslie founded in these places.)  It was towards the end of the Oliphant's stay in Dundas that Mary Oliphant and William Elliot were married.

In 1826 David Sr. and Edward Lesslie, Sr. were both on a committee to build a meeting hall for all the local Christian denominations in Dundas.  The Chapel, which they called the Free Church, was completed in 1830 and David Sr. preached the first sermon (Broadus, 31).  In 1829, David Sr. and some fellow Christians of varied background formed a group to create a combined Sunday School, which they called the Dundas Union Sabbath School.  David Sr. was the Vice President of the school committee, and his son Alexander was the school librarian.  I find it interesting that David Sr. was involved in these co-operative ventures with other local Christian congregations.  He seems to have been community-minded and not just narrowly interested in the welfare of his own denomination.   His son David Jr. recalled many years later that "his father was very liberal, compared to other  Baptists from Scotland."  (Broadus, 32).  It was sometime during his stay in Dundas that David Sr. began seriously reading the work of Alexander Campbell of the Stone-Campbell movement in the United States, particularly Campbell's two journals, the Christian Baptist and the Millenial Harbinger.

In 1832 David and Sophia and their family moved to Eramosa township on land that "included the future site of the village of Everton." but from what I can gather was pretty much wilderness at that time.  A Disciple family headed by James and Lois Black lived a mile and a half from the Oliphants and had built a log meeting-house on their property, where the Oliphants went to worship.  David Oliphant Sr. had a profound influence on James Black's religious views, introducing him to Campbell's writings over a period of some time, and the two of them became the Everton church's intellectual leaders. David Oliphant Jr. describes their relationship and Black's initial reaction to Oliphant's religious ideas in somewhat flowery prose:

"These two students of the sacred scripture became sufficiently acquainted to co-work in the government of Our Lord;  and although very different men, they were in certain respects the complement of each other.  Elder Black, his firmly compacted body and full brain, with comparative youth on his side [Oliphant was twenty years older than Black], was an unremitting and effective laborer. Father Oliphant, with his ripe experience and love of reformation, although far from robust, possessing strength to labor in public very limitedly, was a degree or two in advance of his contemporaries in distinguishing where the line ran between the city of Jerusalem and the city of Babylon.  A reformatory publication [the Millennial Harbinger] highly prized by Father Oliphant, having been placed in the hands of Elder Black for perusal, escaped very narrowly a martyr's fate, for at that date the zealous elder was so earnestly attached to certain portions of the Geneva theology that he not only disrelished, but strongly opposed, what did not fit with the teachings he had received by tradition from the theological fathers.  Nobly, though not speedily, he allowed his mind and heart to acknowledge reformatory truth, and took the lead in more than a few movements in the direction of reformation."  

Lucien Moote, who grew up in the Disciple faith, recalls that "Personally I can remember all the preachers except:  Sheppard:  Oliphant:  Black:  Anderson:  Benedict:  these being among the very earliest:  I heard my parents talk about them so much it seems as though I saw them." (unpublished letter from Lucien Moote to Reuben Butchart, April 4, 1933, Reuben Butchart fonds, Victoria College Archives, University of Toronto, F52, Box 2, File 1).

In a 1937 piece entitled "Article Upon the Subject of the Disciples for an Inquirer", Reuben Butchart speaks of the importance of rural churches in the early years of the Disciples of Christ history, and in the scope of evangelistic activity within the church.

"The Disciples of Christ in Ontario began as a rural religious people (sic) and for many years their principle strength was in the country...The churches named--Eramosa, Norval, and Lobo tp--became great centres of church life in this province.  It was from its doors that certain evangelists were sent, such as James Black, Alex. Anderson, James Kilgour, David Oliphant, and others in the early days who did great things in the way of evangelism and organizing churches of Christ...their preaching and influence was felt greatly in their surrounding territory--Erin tp for example--but extending as far as the Georgian Bay region, the Niagara Peninsula, and to Eastern Ontario, and particularly in Prince Edward County...".

Butchart also describes what it was like to be an itinerant evangelist at this time:

"...every year the Everton church sent forth two of the men named [i.e. Black, Anderson, Kilgour, Oliphant, and "others"] who made trips on horseback over the difficult roads of the province, with their baggage sling [sic] across their horses' back and finding a welcome in the homes of the brethren wherever they were sent.  They stayed perhaps for weeks in a new community, found converts and started a church;  afterwards it was their duty to visit it and endeavor to keep it within the truth and strengthen the brethren, all of this being but a scriptural form of evangelism...all these men are held in sainted memory by many, actually they have held the loving thoughts of thousands of Disciples...since their work has become known as the foundation stones of our cause in Ontario."   

Disciple churches in Selkirk and Winger are among those who remember Oliphant and his fellows "planting" them.  An incident recalled by J.W. Bradt of Selkirk illustrates how the founding evangelists might be called upon to keep the church "within the truth", making at times some unpopular decisions:

"Brother J.J. Warner was a match maker and elder of the church, and one of the chief speakers.  He was a good speaker, but held some Advent opinions which he put forward.  This caused a good deal of feeling, and Brother Oliphant was called to adjust the differences.  After considerable trouble and heart burnings, Brother Oliphant settled the matter by withdrawing followship [sic] to Brother Warner.  This action was characterized by some as popery and split the church, causing a division from which it never entirely recovered.  Brother Warner preached when invited, but never came back as a member."  ("Church History:  Church of Christ Selkirk, Aylmer, Sweets Corners, Windmill Point, Winger" by J.W. Bradt, Selkirk, Ontario, 1930, self-published booklet in Reuben Butchart archival material).

Of course David Oliphant Sr.'s influence on the Disciple movement in Ontario has to include the dedication which he must have fanned in the heart of his sons, particularly David Jr., who went on to become a prolific writer and editor for the movement, in many ways its local spokesperson and one of the connecting strands between Disciples in Canada and America.  David Sr.'s other sons were also demonstrably dedicated to their faith.  Again, I am frustrated by the silence of historic materials on women in the movement.  I wonder how Mary Oliphant, with such an upbringing and with a brother as active as David, can have left the Disciples after her marriage.  Or did she remain while her husband left?  It's difficult to find out.

David Oliphant Jr. 

Unfortunately, the whole Oliphant family appears to have been rather sickly, and many of them, with the exception of Mary (Oliphant) Elliot, died young.  David Sr. died in 1855 at age 63.  In an unpublished letter written by Edith Kilgour Bain to Mary E. Oliphant, both grandchildren of David Sr., she tells us that "Of the four children of David and Sophia Oliphant, Alexander, the oldest and a very brilliant young man, died in Everton in 1834 at the age of 24,  Mary married William Elliot at the age of 20 and died in 1890, age 78,  William (my grandfather) was born in 1814 and died in 1856, cutting short a very promising life;  David, your father, was the youngest...".  David Jr. died at age sixty-three near London, Ontario, and was buried in the Mount Pleasant Cemetery in London.  His daughter Mary E. Oliphant wrote to Reuben Butchart on Sept. 2, 1943, that "As my father died at the age of 63 it can hardly be said that his activities were curtailed because of age but rather because of impaired health."  Both letters can be found at the Reuben Butchart archives at Victoria College, University of Toronto (fonds 52, box 4, file 1).