Don Alonzo Watson (1807-1892):
Lifelong friend and partner of Hiram Sibley, he was born in Palmer, Mass., trained as a machinist, and moved to western New York around 1832. On Sibley’s election as Monroe County Sheriff, Watson moved to Rochester, where he engaged in banking. At age 48, he married 29 year old Caroline Manning Watson. While they honeymooned in Europe, Hiram Sibley was buying up telegraph lines and railroad companies. When they returned Sibley convinced Watson to invest in Western Union, which, with his own shrewd investments was to make him at his death the wealthiest man in Rochester. Unlike Sibley, he had a retiring disposition, and never held public office or other positions of trust. With his wife, Caroline Manning Watson, he supported local organizations, including the Rochester City Hospital, the Rochester Female Charitable Society, the Industrial School of Rochester and the Rochester Orphan Asylum.
Image scanned from Landmarks of Monroe County, New York : containing ... followed by brief historical sketches of the towns of the county with biography and family history / [chapters] by William F. Peck [et al.], Boston : Boston History Co., 1895., opposite p. 176