John Fanning Watson (1779–1860)
In 1818 Watson wrote Bushrod Washington regarding a proposal to colonize freed slaves in Haiti (Hispaniola).
John Fanning Watson was born on 13 June 1779 in Batsto, Washington Township, New Jersey. He was a clerk in the War Department before working as a mercantile agent, bookseller, publisher, bank cashier, and railroad official. He is best known as an antiquarian and historian, with his Annals of Philadelphia (1830) serving as an important chronicle of that city. Watson married Phebe Barron Crowell (1790–1858) in 1812. He died at his home in Germantown on 23 December 1860, survived by three daughters and two sons.
"John Fanning Watson." Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/BT2310001094/UHIC?u=viva_uva&sid=bookmark-UHIC&xid=db7f056b. Accessed 6 July 2023.
"John F. Watson to Thomas Jefferson, 3 May 1814," Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-07-02-0252. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 7, 28 November 1813 to 30 September 1814, ed. J. Jefferson Looney. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010, p. 344.]
Roberts Vaux, Joshua Francis Fisher, and Deborah Dependahl Waters, "Philadelphia's Boswell: John Fanning Watson," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Volume 98, Number 1 (January 1974), 3–52.
Claiborne T. Smith Jr., "Watson, John Fanning," in William S. Powell, ed., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979–1996) (NCpedia).
John Fanning Watson Collection on the Cultural, Social, and Economic Development of Pennsylvania, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Philadelphia Inquirer, 25 December 1860, page 1, column 2 (Newspapers.com).
John Fanning Watson at Find a Grave.
John Fanning Watson at FamilySearch.