Watt Family Origins | Page last modified: |
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(Expect it to look similar to the "Roberts Ancestors" - click Marion above.)
The Watt family arrival in Argentina and their history as told by their great-grandchildren, Jimmy Watt and Michael Mohr-Bell. Their accounts are slightly different.
From Jimmy Watt’s email (in Spanish) of 2 April, 2000, grandson of Al & Hattie Watt,
[comments by Peter Benitz in italics]:
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From Michael Mohr-Bell's email of 25 January, 2017, grandson of Al & Hattie Watt,
[comments by Peter Benitz in italics]:
“...regards the estancias in Monte Maiz (La Leña and La Maya [in the SE corner of Córdoba province, next to John E. Benitz at “Los Algarrobos]). The Watt brothers, John Alexander (Al’s father) & James, arrived in Argentina from New Zealand in 1865 and soon after joined forces with Lt James Stuart Trotter who had purchased Monte de la Leña in 1864. In 1870 J.A. Watt marries May Stuart McGregor in Scotland and they come out to live in a new house, built on land probably leased from Trotter, which they named La Maya. Not sure of the Watt movements after this, but apparently there is some map of 1876 which shows the La Maya house as abandoned. A lot of this info I got from my historian friend Juan Delius in Germany [La Maya was bought, and is still owned, by the Nottebohm family, of which Juan Delius is a member].
From Monte Maiz the Watts most likely moved to Estancia Tres Lagunas in Las Rosas, as I understand their first 3 children were born there (1872, 1874 and 1875). I have yet to find out whether the Watts actually owned or managed Tres Lagunas (Delius once told me he thought maybe Trotter had bought the estancia from F.C.C.A. railway, and John Watt managed it).
[During a visit to the TL in the 1960s Frank Watt pointed to the rooms adjoining the admin. office and told me his father had been born in one of them. If so, then the Watt family were not living in the main house which implies they did not own the estancia. Furthermore, per a sketched map drawn in 1874 or 1875 (for William Benitz when he purchased “La California”), Munroe owned the two leagues which include the TL.]
© Peter Benitz (Benitz Family)