World Events

Philip McKinney

Nellie Bly

Army vs Navy 1890

• A half-gallon of milk cost 13¢ and a newspaper cost 1¢.
• Benjamin Harrison was President of the United States and Phillip McKinney was Governor of Virginia.
• The population of the United States was just over 65.5 million people.
• Nellie Bly completed her around the world trip in a shorter time span than Jules Verne’s fictional 80 days.
• The Daughters of the American Revolution were formed.
• The first Army-Navy game took place at West Point with Navy winning 24 to 0.
• The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred.
• The US Census Bureau announced that the West had been settled and the Frontier was closed.

Life Details

• After serving at Ivy Creek UMC, Watts became pastor of Mount Moriah in Whitehall 1893-1895.  Combining information from various census records, a Watts Family web site, and the register of former cadets of Virginia Military Institute, we know that:
• Morton Sims Watts was born in December 1845.
• He served in Nelson’s Battery, C.S.A as a private during the Civil War and later attended Virginia Military Institute where he enrolled in 1866.  He attended for 2 years but did not graduate.
• He married Susan Ann Garnett on October 21, 1867 and the couple had 9 children (6 daughters and 3 sons).
• In 1920, he was living in Orange County in the home of his daughter & son-in-law, Robert & Bessie Ellis.
• He died on July 21, 1924.