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Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott
for the US Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/
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Formatted by U.S. Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott
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SOURCE: History of Lapeer County, Michigan
        with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches
        of Some of its Prominent Men and Pioneers
        H.R. Page & Co., Chicago, 1884

    [82]

         JOHN J. WATKINS was born in New York City in 1822, where, after
     receiving his education, he taught school from the age of fourteen
     till twenty-two years of age, when in 1844 he came to Michigan.  After
     stopping a short time in Oakland County and a year and a half in
     Macomb County, he came to what is now the village of Hadley, Lapeer
     County, and established a store - the first in the place - and an
     ashery and pearling works.  He remained there about five years, when
     he sold out and bought a farm in the township of Elba, which he still
     owns.  After living on the farm five years he removed to Lapeer City
     and engaged in keeping books for the HARTS.  In 1854 he commenced
     business again for himself, doing a general mercantile and lumber
     trade, which he continued another five years, when he went to the
     township of Elba and built a grist and saw-mill, and purchased a tract
     of land, the greater part of which he still owns.  He carried on a
     business there up to 1868, when he retired.  He was married in 1848 to
     Miss ANNA E. SCOTT, of New York City, and has seven children, three
     sons and four daughters.  Two of the sons are living in Dakota, and
     the other on the farm mentioned in Hadley.  Mr. WATKINS was one of the
     first organizers of the Republican party in Lapeer County, and about
     the year 1855 helped to start the first Republican paper.

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