Here is a transcription I typed of an interesting story about a Dr. John E Watson who is buried in the Mount Pleasant Cemetery near Martin City, Jackson County, MO. If anyone is related (or interested) in this family, please let me know.
From the book, “Vital Historical Records Jackson Co. Missouri, 1826 – 1876”
Published 1934 by the Kansas City Chapter D.A.R., page 435
THE INCIDENT WHICH INSPIRED THE WRITING OF THE SONG
“IN THE BAGGAGE COACH AHEAD”
In the southwest part of the country, near 130th Street, between Holmes Street and Wornall Road, is a burying ground known as Mount Pleasant, or King Cemetery, and here we found the grave of Dr. James E. Watson, whose chance remark, we are told, inspired the writing of the song, “In the Baggage Coach Ahead”
Dr. Watson, for a number of years, was a practicing physician in the southwest Jackson County. He was born in Suzerne County, Pennsylvania, November 26, 1834; married (first) on December 15, 1859, Miss Abigail Benscooter of Pennsylvania and took up his residence in Jackson County, Missouri, soon afterwards. Their little daughter, Nellie, was born in Kansas City May 25, 1867. Mrs. Watson died in 1869 and her husband decided to take her body back to the old home in Pennsylvania for burial, and to leave his little two-year-old girl with the mother’s family. On the trip East, the child, in the new and strange atmosphere of the speeding train, began to miss the comforting hand of her mother, and to cry and fret. Doctor Watson, kind father that he was, tried in every way to quite and comfort the child, but to no avail. After some time, a querulous old woman, irked by the child’s fretting, said, “Why doesn’t that man give the baby to her mother so she will stop her noise?” Dr. Watson, we are told, was a man of much dignity, and in his quite way, said “Madam, I wish I could, but the child’s mother is in the baggage coach ahead.”
One Gussie L. Davis, moved by the incident, composed the well known poem and song, “In the Baggage Coach Ahead.”
For the following data concerning Dr. Watson and his family, we are indebted to the Doctor’s daughter, Mrs. Alma W. Norton, of New Mexico, and to Mrs. William Hickman (Fannie Lipscomb), of Independence, Missouri, a sister of Dr. Watson’s second wife:
Dr. Watson married (second) on November 1, 1871, Miss Lou Lipscomb, who was born in New Santa Fe, Missouri, July 15, 1845, and died November 4, 1928, at Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she was buried in the Fairview Cemetery.
Dr. James Ellis Watson died on October 1, 1881.
Nellie Watson, the little girl spoken of in the song, married James M. Klapmeyer of Jackson County, Missouri. She died May 12, 1926, and was buried in Forest Hill Cemetery, Kansas City, Missouri.
Compiled by Mrs. Max A. Christopher
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For more information regarding this old neglected cemetery, go to
http://home.ix.netcom.com/~dcvolts/This cemetery needs help in cleaning up.
Thanks.