![]() He appealed to Georgians as a defender of the old way of life when he was first elected to the state legislature, representing McDuffie County, in 1882. During an era in which northern influences for capitalism over agrarianism were challenging regional traditions, Watson emerged as a voice for the agrarian tradition. Early in his legal career Watson had been influenced by many of the leaders of the Confederacy, including his boyhood heroes Robert Toombs and Alexander Stephens. Rise to ProminenceĪlthough Watson quickly became one of the foremost trial lawyers in Georgia, he was drawn to local politics. The following year he married Georgia Durham, and they had three children, John Durham, Agnes, and Louise. In 1877 he settled into a law practice in Thomson. Young Watson began reading law while teaching school in Screven County and passed the Georgia bar in 1875. The Watsons lost the family plantation in 1873 in the midst of the general economic collapse of the Reconstruction South. In 1872 he entered Mercer University, but family finances allowed him to stay for only two years. Watson’s primary education consisted of course work at a small school in Thomson. He grew up on his grandfather’s plantation, near the town of Thomson. He was the second of seven children of Ann Eliza Maddox and John Smith Watson, both descendants of Quakers. Family and Educationīorn on September 5, 1856, on a plantation in Columbia County (the area today is part of McDuffie County), Edward Thomas Watson (later Thomas Edward Watson) understood the culture of the antebellum South. ![]() Courtesy of Watson-Brown Foundation, Inc.
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