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DILLARD WATTS, M.D.
VOL. 5, p. 1897

One of the hardest working physicians in Oklahoma is Dr. Dillard
Watts of Laverne. It is said that Doctor Watts has a practice
extending over three counties and is almost constantly at work
answering the calls of his large patronage.

He represents one of the old families of Kansas, and much of his
early experience was connected with farming and other lines of
business until he could realize his ambitions by entering the medical
profession. He was born on a farm in Johnson County, Kansas, March
15, 1869, a son of Josiah and Sarah (MANN) Watts. Josiah Watts was a
notable figure in western life in the early days. He was born in 1820
in St. Charles County, Missouri, and was directly related to the
family of Daniel BOONE, the Boones having been among the pioneers in
St. Charles County. Josiah Watts was also of French stock, his great-
grandfather having been an officer in the Revolutionary army under
General LAFAYETTE, with whom he emigrated [sic] to America. Josiah
Watts showed his stock by a life of much excitement and adventure in
the West. In 1849 he participated in the rush to the West during the
gold excitement and spent four years on the Pacific Coast as a
prospector and miner. He went out by ox team overland and returned by
the Isthmus of Panama. After his return to Missouri he became
associated in mercantile business with James BRIDGER, the famous
trapper and Indian fighter, and for a number of years was located at
the eastern terminus of the Santa Fe Trail, at what is now Kansas
City. He then homesteaded land in Johnson County, Kansas, prior to
the Civil war, and the title to that land still remains in the Watts
family. He was one of the prominent men of Johnson County, where he
died April 30, 1896. In 1858 Josiah Watts married Miss Sarah MANN,
who was born March 20, 1838, a daughter of Samuel Mann, a native of
Missouri, and she now lives at Stilwater, Kansas. There are seven
children, five sons and two daughters, namely: Banaugh, now a
physician at Okemah, Oklahoma; Samuel, deceased; Mary, who died in
infancy; Ada, widow of Jerry R. HARBESON of Sapulpa, Oklahoma; Robert
B., a physician at Wellington, Missouri; Leo, a farmer in Beaver
County, Oklahoma.

Dr. Dillard Watts, the youngest of the family, grew up on a farm in
Johnson County, gained a public school education, and worked on the
farm with his father until he was twenty-one. For the following four
years he was in the drug business at Napoleon, Missouri, and after
earning and accumulating the necessary means he entered in 1898 the
Kansas City Medical College, where he spent two years. He also
practiced under a preceptor for two years, and thus by continued hard
work and paying his own way finally graduated from medical college
with the degree M.D. in the class of 1908. Seeking a permanent
location Doctor Watts came to Oklahoma, and practiced at the old Town
of Speermore, where he built up much of the practice which he still
retains. Speermore was his home until 1914, in which year he moved to
Laverne to be near the railroad, and now has his office and residence
in that growing little city.

Doctor Watts is a Scottish Rite Mason, belonging to the bodies of
that order at Guthrie. In 1896 he married Miss Jessie HAWKINS, who
was born in Bates County, Missouri, in 1872, and who died January 20,
1899, at Kansas City Missouri. To their marriage were born two
children: Zoe, wife of Philip DOHERTY, a lumberman at Laverne; and
Beulah, who is an elocutionist. On March 29, 1915, Doctor Watts
married Emma GARRITY, who was born in Riley County, Kansas.

Transcribed by Sherry Van Scoy Hall, July 19, 1999.

SOURCE: Thoburn, Joseph B., A Standard History of Oklahoma, An
Authentic Narrative of its Development, 5 v. (Chicago, New York: The
American Historical Society, 1916).