Thomas A. Watson

Thomas A. Watson

Thomas Augustus Watson (January 18, 1854 – December 13, 1934) was an assistant to Alexander Graham Bell, notably in the invention of the telephone in 1876. He is best known because his name was one of the first words spoken over the telephone. "Mr. Watson - Come here - I want to see you." were the first words Bell said using the new invention, according to Bell's laboratory notebook.^[1] There is some dispute about the actual words used, as Thomas Watson, in his own voice, remembered it as "Mr. Watson - Come here - I want you," in a film made for Bell Labs in 1931 which is referenced below in "The Engines of our Ingenuity."

Biography

Born in Salem, Massachusetts, United States Watson was a bookkeeper and a carpenter before he found a job more to his liking in the Charles Williams machine shop in Boston. He was then hired by Alexander Graham Bell, who was then a professor at Boston University.

Watson resigned from the Bell Telephone Company in 1881 at the age of 27. Using money from his royalties from his participation in the invention of the telephone, Watson first tried his hand at farming and then set up his own machine shop. In 1883 Watson founded the Fore River Ship and Engine Building Company. He soon began taking bids for building naval destroyers and by 1901 the Fore River Ship and Engine Company was one of the largest shipyards in America. It would later become one of the major shipyards during World War II, after being purchased by Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

On January 25, 1915, Watson was at 333 Grant Avenue in San Francisco to receive the first transcontinental telephone call, placed by Bell from the Telephone Building at 15 Dey Street in New York City. President Woodrow Wilson and the mayors of both cities were also involved in the call.^[2]

Thomas Watson was married to Elizabeth Watson. After he died in 1934, she continued to live in Pass-a-Grille (see below) during World War II and died in a local hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida in 1949.

Watson wrote an autobiography, Exploring Life: The Autobiography of Thomas A. Watson (New York: Appleton, 1926).

Late in his life, at the age of 77, upon being impressed with a meeting with Indian spiritual leader Meher Baba in England, Watson was instrumental in helping to arrange for Meher Baba to come to the United States for his first visit there in 1931.^[3] Upon meeting Baba, Watson is reported to have said, "In my seventy-eight years of life, today is the first time I have experienced what divine love is. I have come to realize this with just a touch from Meher Baba."^[4] Later, though, Watson became disenchanted with Baba.^[5]

Watson died at his winter home in Pass-A-Grille, Florida, and is buried in the North Weymouth Cemetery, Weymouth, Massachusetts. His grave overlooks the Fore River Shipyard.

Footnotes

References

• University of House: The Engines of Our Ingenuity (radio program) No. 1177: "Thomas Watson". by John H. Lienhard
• PBS.org Watson biography
• UH.com Watson biography

External links

• Works by Thomas A. Watson at Project Gutenberg
• Short biography of Thomas Watson
• Associated Press obituary (December 15, 1934): "T. A. Watson Dead; Made First Phone"