History of Michigan, / by Charles Moore. [Vol. 3]

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HISTORY OF MICHIGAN

by his fellow-citizens. He married Sophia D. Latson, who was born on
an adjoining farm, the daughter of a pioneer who came to Michigan
from the state of New York. Mrs. McColl passed away in I900.
Jay Robert McColl was born on his father's farm in the vicinity
of Delhi, Washtenaw county, Michigan, March 24, I867. He first
attended the district schools and subsequently the Ann Arbor high school,
following which he took up the study of mechanical engineering at the
Michigan Agricultural College, where he was graduated with his degree
in I890. He next took special post-graduate work in engineering at his
alma mater, as well as at Cornell University. The year he graduated from
the Michigan Agricultural College, he declined an appointment to the
United States Geological Survey to accept an adjunct professorship of
mechanical engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, a position which he held for ten years and resigned to accept the position of
associate professor of thermodynamics, at Purdue University, Indiana,
which he continued to hold for one year. In I903 he became associate
professor of steam engineering, in charge of the department of steam engineering at the same university, continuing as such until I905. In the
latter year he was appointed mechanical engineer for the American
Blower Company of Detroit, the biggest manufacturers in that line in
the country, which position he resigned in I9IO, to become a member of
the engineering firm of Ammerman, McColl & Anderson. In the summer
of I911 Mr. McColl became a member of the faculty of the University
of Detroit, and at this time he is dean of engineering of that institution.
He is president of the Michigan Agricultural College Alumni Association,
to which he was elected in I913, and is a member of the American Society
of Mechanical Engineers, and in December, I913, read a paper before
that society (the first on the subject) on the "Test of Vacuum Cleaners," at the meeting held in New York City.
At St. Johns, Michigan, January 3, I900, Mr. McColl was married to
Miss Belle G. Baldwin, who was born at St. Johns, Michigan, a daughter
of Albert J. Baldwin, a descendant of one of our old American families
that lived in Old Hadley, Massachusetts, over a hundred years before the
Revolution. Mr. and Mrs. McColl have one daughter.
JOHN WATSON. The city of Grand Rapids cherishes and honors as
its oldest pioneer citizen the venerable John Watson, whose home has
been there since I837, and who from boyhood to old age has witnessed
practically every phase of development, and all the remarkable transformations which the years have brought about. It is no empty distinction to have lived in one locality upwards of eighty years, and that honor
is increased when those years have been filled with useful labors, with
kindly service as a neighbor and fellow citizen, and with substantial
accumulation and accomplishments.
John Watson was born in Hartford, Connecticut, September 17,
I826, and at this writing is in his eighty-eighth year. His father was
Isaac Watson, who was the pioneer harness maker of Grand Rapids,
and one of its first settlers. He was born in Hartford, a son of John
Watson, who was a contractor and builder and probably spent his entire
life in Connecticut. John Watson had two daughters and seven sons,
but Isaac was the only one of the nine to reach manhood. As a boy he
served an apprenticeship in the saddle and harness making trade, and
late in I826, after the birth of his son John, he moved west to Erie, in
the extreme northwestern corner of Pennsylvania, and a short time later
crossed the line into the Western Reserve of Ohio, becoming one of the
early settlers in Hudson in Summit county. There he acquired a large
tract of land in Hudson, including the present site of the Union station.